This week in EDL 829, our conversation deepened around the themes of connection and community. We had the privilege of hearing from Risa Naytowhow, whose reflections on her experiences as an Indigenous student in urban education resonated deeply with the themes explored in our readings from Chapter 8 & 9 of Teaching Each Other: Nehinuw Concepts & Indigenous Pedagogy by Goulet and Goulet (2014).
Risa’s reflections on being an Indigenous student in urban education, navigating disconnection and searching for belonging powerfully contrasted with the deep relational learning emphasized in this week’s readings. Her words called me to think about my own classroom communities in the Balfour Arts Collective (BAC), and within our Indigenous Student Circle where connection isn’t something we strive for it’s how learning happens.
Connection and Ethical Space
Goulet and Goulet remind us that learning is always situated within relationships with people, with place, with culture. A child who is disconnected from these relations will struggle to see themselves as capable of learning.
Risa’s reflections echoed this, revealing how the absence of community makes learning feel hollow. Her story brought to mind Willie Ermine’s (2007) notion of ethical spaces- a theoretical space between two worlds… where the uniqueness and diversity of each lens/point of vies is respected and the strengths of each are elevated.
The ethical space of engagement proposes a framework as a way of examining the diversity
and positioning of Indigenous peoples and Western society… Ermine, 193
In arts-based and urban classrooms, this “ethical space” is not theoretical; it’s lived. Every rehearsal, every discussion, every creative risk becomes an act of respect between worldviews. In BAC, we create this space when we slow down, listen, and make room for multiple truths to exist in the same room. Goulet and Goulet emphasize a similar belief in their claims that learning is inherently relational.
Creating such ethical spaces in classrooms and other educational settings allows for the respectful engagement of diverse worldviews, fostering a learning environment where all students can thrive.
Arts Education as Relational Practice
Risa’s work with the Peyapot Arts Showcase exemplifies how arts education can serve as a bridge between individuals and communities, facilitating connection and healing and creating those ethical spaces. The arts provide a medium through which students can express their identities, explore their connection to culture, share their stories, and engage with others in meaningful ways.
This approach resonates with Goulet and Goulet’s assertion that pedagogy should be cyclical and iterative, allowing space for trial, error, and communal reflection (p. 158). The arts naturally embody this process, offering students opportunities to experiment, make mistakes, and grow within a supportive community. A creative classroom space depends on an iterative approach to lesson planning as the teacher needs to continually adjust learning goals and strategies to meet the needs of the particular students within their classroom at that particular place and time. Learning and teaching does not happen within a vacuum.
Creating Ethical Spaces for Learning and Belonging
Risa’s emphasis on the importance of teaching Indigenous success and brilliance, alongside the narratives of pain and trauma, calls for a balanced and holistic approach to education. This perspective aligns with Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings’ (1995) concept of “culturally relevant pedagogy,” which advocates for teaching that empowers students to maintain cultural integrity while succeeding academically.
This can be accomplished through concepts of building intentional communities of learning and lesson planning. The notoion of Intentional learning communities is at the heart of relational pedagogy. Kathleen Gallagher describes this kind of classroom as “a collective making of meaning as an ethical act,” one that transforms classrooms into “spaces of inquiry, empathy, and shared responsibility” (Gallagher, 2007).
Gloria Ladson-Billings’ (1995) concept of “culturally relevant pedagogy”, mirrors this concept of ethical space as it seeks to produce students who can achieve academically, demonstrate cultural competence, and develop a critical consciousness through which they challenge the status quo. Both Gallagher and Ladson-Billings remind us that authentic community in education does not happen by accident, it is crafted. It requires listening, vulnerability, and shared purpose. In BAC, this work happens almost daily: students collaborate, devise, and reflect together, building the kind of trust that makes deep learning possible.
Balancing Brilliance and Pain
Risa reminded us this week that: “We need to teach Indigenous success and brilliance as much as we teach Indigenous pain and trauma.” This balance, between brilliance and pain, resilience and realism is central to culturally relevant and relational pedagogy. As Ladson-Billings (1995) notes, culturally relevant teaching must provide a way for students to maintain their cultural integrity while succeeding academically.
Risa’s message echoed this perfectly. Teaching toward joy and brilliance does not ignore the realities of trauma, it resists allowing those realities to define identity or limit imagination. It’s a pedagogy of wholeness.
Like Risa’s work with the Peyapot Arts Showcase, the arts classroom becomes a living example of ethical and culturally relevant pedagogy. Each time BAC students enter the studio, the auditorium or the dance room they build a space for experimentation, mistakes, and collective growth. It is a community in process.
Arts Classrooms as Ethical Spaces of Growth
As Ermine (2007) describes, ethical space is formed through dialogue and mutual recognition. In a classroom this can look like creating space for other ways of knowing. Gallagher (2007) proposes that theatre classrooms can model the public work of democracy, where we learn to listen, to speak, and to imagine the world other than how it is or how it has been. Likewise, Ladson-Billings (1995) emphasizes that culturally relevant pedagogy should “problematize teaching, and encourage teachers to ask about the nature of student-teacher relationship, the curriculum, schooling and society” (p.483).
In arts education, these ideas manifest in every devised scene, every risk, every shared silence becomes an act of connection, a way of imagining a new community into being.
“We need to teach Indigenous success and brilliance as much as we teach Indigenous pain and trauma.”
— Risa Naytowhow
Key Takeaways
- Relational Learning: Connection to people, place, and story fosters belonging and resilience.
- Ethical Space:classrooms can become sites of respectful engagement between worldviews.
- Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: teaching must empower students to succeed academically and sustain cultural integrity.
- Arts as Pedagogy: Learning happens through co-creation, reflection, and risk.
- Intentional Community: community must be built intentionally through empathy, dialogue, and shared meaning-making.
References
Ermine, W. (2007). The ethical space of engagement. Indigenous Law Journal, 6(1), 193–203.
Gallagher, K. (2007). Why Theatre Matters: Urban Youth Engagement and The Pedagogy of the Real. University of Toronto Press
Goulet, L., & Goulet, K. (2014). Teaching each other: Nehinuw concepts and Indigenous pedagogy. UBC Press.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 465–491.
Will Whitten 
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