After more than a decade spent as a university student, WahĂ©hshon Shiann Whitebean is getting a taste for what it’s like to be the one at the front of the classroom, after accepting a position as a course lecturer at 51łÔąĎÍř this semester.
“It’s definitely a different learning experience,” Whitebean said. “It’s a new opportunity for me to be on the other side of things as a prof, and to learn from my students.”
Whitebean’s course, which is being taught as part of McGill’s Indigenous Studies program, is titled “Knowledges, Methods, and Practices of Indigenous Oral History and Storytelling.” The goal of the 200-level class is to introduce students to the founding principles behind Indigenous storytelling and oral practices.
Topics like trickster stories, humour and laughter in storytelling, stories of wampum belts, and the role of settler scholars in Indigenous oral history will be touched on in the course, and students will also have the chance to learn from guest lecturers, including Roxann Whitebean, Wahéhshon’s sister.
“The way I’m approaching the course is just getting my students comfortable with reflecting on the material, but also making sure they’re self-situating, and thinking about their positionality on Turtle Island and in the university,” WahĂ©hshon said.Ěý
The course works towards a mock project assignment, where students will propose their own oral history research project and describe how they would embark on that research, outlining their motivations and personal relation to their project idea. They will also explain what research methods they would use and why, and any other ethical considerations they might have based on the group or community they would be working with.
Wahéhshon said that by having the students practice these skills in a mock format, they will be better equipped for research projects and other work with Indigenous communities in future.
“I want them to be prepared, because I had some experiences when I was in undergrad where I didn’t feel prepared, both ethically and in terms of my experience to go out and interview people, and that’s problematic,” she said. “They’re thinking it through from start to finish, they know all the steps in the process to consider, and they have strong examples of the dos and the don’ts.”
In particular, Wahéhshon hopes students will leave with a renewed understanding of the role of oral history in academia, which is often overlooked as being less-than in comparison to written documents. Students will put that lesson into practice and will even be permitted to submit monthly learning reflection assignments in oral form instead of written.
“We’re not prescribing entirely to all of the conventional forms of academia. We’re keeping it open, we’re thinking about doing things in a different way,” she said. “It challenges them to see what it takes from the perspective of Indigenous people who practice this.”
She said that it’s particularly meaningful that students will be learning about oral history from an Onkwehón:we professor.
“I bring a two-fold experience to the classroom, one is my lived experience from being in a community, where I grew up in a muti-generational family, I spent a lot of time with elders, I attended Longhouse and I heard a lot of our stories, it was all oral culture,” she said.Ěý
“And then there’s my experience as a researcher, as someone who had to go and learn to walk in the academic world. I go and do oral history and storytelling, and I navigate that from a research perspective.”
It was a full house for the first sessions of Whitebean’s course this week, with all 25 spots filled and a waitlist in place for students eager to nab a seat in her lecture room.Ěý
“I just feel really encouraged,” she said. “It just felt natural.”
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