Walking the Strings: Wampum, Land, and the Balance of Knowing

The first piece, Restoring Balance in Indigenous Education, laid out the foundation of this framework, a way to bring curriculum into our ways of knowing rather than fitting our knowledge into the curriculum. This next piece grounds that philosophy where all learning begins: the land.

Decolonization theory has been discussed in many forms, but the land as an underlying factor has never truly been taken into account. Our ancestors knew that “time on the land allows generations to connect and form bonds, but it also depicts the land as a source of joy and happiness” (Wildcat et al., 2014, p. 8). To decolonize education, we must begin our thinking on the land. From there, we can connect curriculum points in a natural way, through relationships, language, and resurgence.

Tuck and Yang remind us that “the metaphorization of decolonization makes possible a set of evasions” that protect settler guilt and futurity. Decolonization cannot be a metaphor. It must live in the soil, in the classrooms built on that soil, and in the laws and languages of the people who belong to it.

When we centre land, resurgence, and governance together, we return agency to the people most connected to place. Curriculum becomes contextual, not abstract; learning becomes relational, not extracted. This is where the wampum teaching enters — as both metaphor and methodology for balance.

The Five Strings: A Living Framework

I have strung five wampum strings as a physical representation of my teaching philosophy because it gives a visual and cultural example of commitment. The wampum string is not symbolic but a living governance document. It represents the responsibilities that exist between teacher, learner, and community.

The centre string represents self ; the point of balance, where the two sides converge. It is where I stay grounded in my name, Sha’tekayèn:ton, and where students see themselves within the learning journey. Each bead represents a student, past, present, and future, reminding us that education is an unbroken continuum of spirit and responsibility. When the string hangs in the classroom, it marks a safe space to ask questions, make mistakes, and grow.

Methodology: The Purple Path

The solid purple wampum tells of the path to the middle, the darkness we walk through as we learn. This darkness is not evil; it is the unknown. It reminds us that discovery and discomfort are part of becoming. My methodology shifts the teacher from host to facilitator, walking alongside students rather than standing above them.

In this way, the darkness of the purple reinforces Kanyen’keha:ka understandings of balance, that knowledge must be used with Sken:nen, Kasha’stenhsera, and Ka’nikonhrí:yo (peace, strength, and good mind). We cannot hoard information; we must use it responsibly and respectfully. Land-based education makes this possible. Students learn through experience, through the relationship between land, language, and responsibility. This is how we decolonize curriculum: not by adding content, but by changing the foundation on which learning stands.

Assessment and Teaching: The Twin Strings

The two innermost strings each carry fifteen white and fifteen purple beads, reversed in pattern. They signify balance and the process of critical thought, the movement from unawareness to awareness.

These strings mirror the challenge of walking in two worlds: Indigenous and colonial. Assessment within this model honors that duality. Rubrics and expectations from the provincial curriculum are still met, but they are translated into Indigenous modes of learning. Observation, reflection, and relational accountability replace standardized grading. The work is still rigorous, but it measures growth, contribution, and responsibility rather than compliance.

The twin strings embody Etuaptmumk (Two-Eyed Seeing) seeing from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous knowledge and from the other with the strengths of Western knowledge, using both together for the benefit of all. When woven into this wampum model, Etuaptmumk is no longer a concept but a lived classroom practice.

Professional Growth: The White String

The final solid white string represents what we have always known. The ancestral knowledge that guides and steadies us. It speaks with the voices of Elders, clan mothers, children, and knowledge keepers who remind us to continue growing for the next seven generations.

This string is my reminder to keep looking to wampum, story, and ceremony for guidance. It embodies professional development through ancestral accountability: the responsibility to never stop learning, to mentor others, and to uphold our languages and teachings as living law.

In this model, the white string is the teacher’s string. A declaration of commitment to the people, not the institution.

Restoring Balance

When these five strings are read together, they form a living philosophy of Indigenous education that integrates the curriculum into Indigenous knowledge rather than forcing Indigenous knowledge into the curriculum. It is a system of governance, law, and learning that restores balance between worlds.

This framework supports Indigenous knowledge equally and invites all learners into relationship with it. It does not separate academic learning from spirit, land, or responsibility. Instead, it reminds us that balance is not sameness, it is coexistence rooted in respect.

We are not building a new system; we are remembering how to walk the old path again, together, bead by bead.