Embodying Knowledge and Pedagogy Through an Indigenous Oral System

Abstract

Centering and embodying an oral knowledge system to guide learning and assessment challenges educational institution's cognitive imperialism. Through experiences as an educator, the author has witnessed the rush to amalgamate Indigenous content into classrooms without an awareness or knowing that Indigenous knowledge has its own systematic processes of ascertaining and validating knowing. Acknowledging that Indigenous knowledges have systems, just like that of written knowledge, is imperative if institutions are serious about honouring Indigenous knowing, being, and doing. This chapter will provide teachings, as learned from Elder Crowshoe, of an Indigenous oral knowledge system—theory, ontology, and axiology—that guide sharing and acquisition of knowledge. Thereafter, the concepts of truthing, circumambulation, and the third perspective will be detailed with hope to inform educators and students on how knowledge is conceptualized in an oral system and how educators and students alike might share, cultivate, and assess learning and knowledge acquisition.