Indigenising Pedagogy & Curriculum at our Democratic School

Because Democratic education is purposed to support authentic self and learning rather than to perpetuate the political and economic status quo, there are many connections to be made with indigenous educational paradigms. Making these connections enables learning communities to enrich their own localised curricula and learning context. This focus also gives us the opportunity to intentionally decolonise our pedagogy. We tend to assume that this is not a necessary consideration for democratic educators by virtue of our pedagogy, but I have found that it is! In this talk, I share how I undertook this process with my democratic school in Aotearoa New Zealand, and what I learned, including how I came to realise that the school needed to make pedagogical and practical changes in order to be inclusive of our indigenous students and their families and more holistically enriching for everyone.