Teaching Art through Engaging Anti-racist Viewpoints: Privileging an Indigenous Lens

Abstract

Art teacher educators have obligations to prepare preservice art teachers and researchers to be culturally competent, to understand how to respectfully and knowledgeably include silenced voices into the classroom. Through this paper, we share a collaborative project we engaged with two arts-based researcher student groups toward approaching art learning from an anti-racist perspective using the lens of an Indigenous Pedagogy We demonstrate an Anti-Racist teaching cycle we applied that begins with cultural competency and leads to cultural relevancy. The project culminated with the development of anti-racist lesson plans toward a museum exhibition that utilized recommendations shared by four contemporary Native American Artists. Our purpose was to explore a method for changing the narrative by inserting multiple Indigenous artists’ voices into the classroom conversation.