Indigenous Pedagogies: A Case Study of a Ute Mountain Ute School

Project Lead:

Erika Alvero Koski, UNM Department of Anthropology, Graduate Student

Affiliations:

Catherine Rhodes - Assistant professor in the UNM Department of Anthropology, advisor and committee chair; Dan Porter - Principal at the Kwiyagat Community Academy

Project Description:

The Kwiyagat Community Academy is the first public charter school on tribal lands in Colorado. As a Colorado State charter school, it must meet standards set by the Colorado Charter School Institute in addition to completing annual state-mandated assessments. Yet, as a community academy, it draws from Ute Mountain Ute cultural knowledge and traditions. Thus, the school is an active attempt to weave together diverse knowledges within its pedagogical structure. While mainstream governmental schools have traditionally emphasized "core" subjects such as math, Language Arts, and science over all else, the Kwiyagat Community Academy (or KCA) aims to ground students in the culture of the Ute Mountain Ute people, rooting its teachings in a belief that schools should serve students holistically. This school seeks to integrate Ute culture and language into the classroom, connecting students to the knowledge of Ute elders alongside other curricula. KCA has been adding a grade per year since its founding in 2020, and currently serves students from kindergarten through fourth grade. KCA offers a unique setting to collaboratively explore the value of Indigenous  pedagogies, both in its physical location on the Ute Mountain Ute reservation in Southwest Colorado and in its concerted emphasis on holistically incorporating Ute culture into every part of school. The school was developed partly in response to Ute students’ poor public school experiences in the neighboring border town of Cortez, and the history of racism and discrimination both locally and within the larger settler-colonial state presents a significant backdrop to the school’s creation. While KCA aims to differentiate itself from Cortez schools, it nevertheless is beholden to many of the same systemic regulations that guide traditional U.S. public schools, however, many of which clash with the cultural focus of KCA. The project seeks to explore how or whether KCA is able to navigate these conflicting goals and what effects a school that is grounded in Ute culture has for students. Ultimately, this project seeks to understand how the school’s connection to Ute culture and place-based learning impacts students’ sense of self and models of personhood, and how that intersects with learning outcomes. “Learning outcomes” here will not be measured using test scores, but instead will seek to qualitatively encapsulate students’ progress holistically, observed by myself and staff members at KCA. This project has been developed in close collaboration with the KCA school board, staff, and Ute Mountain Ute community members. I initially approached the KCA school board about my prospective project in fall 2023, offering to volunteer at the school in order to familiarize myself with the school structure and meet students and staff