Indigenously Different: A switch to Traditional Teaching

During COVID families had to choose between strictly online learning platforms or homeschooling. Prior to the pandemic only around 3% of people chose to homeschool. From 2020-2021 homeschooling increased to 63%! As the pandemic subsided more people decided to continue homeschooling with a fall of only 17% from 2021-2022.

Where did this leave native people?

Indigenous peoples all over the world have been told they are not capable of teaching and educating their children. This ideology has under minded the ability to transfer indigenous knowledge.

Native people have been forced to endure the removal of our children and an reeducating from a European worldview. These historical traumas created a barrier in our confidence to pass on knowledge. 

It is no secret that we have a higher rate of suicide, domestic violence, as well as missing and murdered people. Our lack of community resources has compounded and interfered with the rebuilding of our nations. 

We know that in order to restore our communities we need to embrace and  support our indigenous worldviews.

How can we do this when we do not feel confident to teach it? 

Indigenously Different: A switch to Traditional Teaching, is a newly created mobile app that supports native teaching by allowing the organization of learning experiences from an indigenous perspective. The app allows users to capture their learning experiences in photos, and categorize them in their own shared folders. Indigenously Different then tracks hours and gives an update on progress. This allows users the ability to validate their shared knowledge and help them be accountable for the outcomes. It will support multiple children and even the guardian as having their own columns and tables. The app will allow the user to set goals and adjust as necessary. An important feature is the visual breakdown of where hours are being spent. Each state has its own requirements and links to find those by state will be a resource, this ensures that users acknowledge and maintain their required records. 

Attended Tribal Council meeting with the kids? Great that counts as Social Studies! Take a photo, write a quick blurb about content and send it off with a tap to be recorded in your app. Took a tour of the local museum? Take a photo record time and place, (would like to incorporate Google Maps for location) and log those hours! Spending an hour learning your language? great that counts too! Its time to validate and embrace the non-traditional learners. Indigenously Different provides confidence and support to regain cultural knowledge. Certifications and workshops can be logged for the learners to create a quick look at qualifications. Students will be encouraged to learn and will feel confident in their traditional knowledge. 

The app also incorporates links for resource sharing, there will be content for scholarships, native news, harm reduction efforts, advocacy initiatives and peer to peer networking. 

The app will support indigenous people in the United States that want to homeschool, unschool or decolonize the learning environment. We would like to make the app adaptable to other countries and nationalities but that will be a future stage once we have stability.

For this challenge we are focusing on the needs of Indigenous communities particularly (although there will be a non-indigenous platform as well.) Indigenously Different will offer an organizing system to support guardians in the tracking and accountability of homeschooling. It will be coupled with resources relevant for native people. It will have an ever evolving and dynamic collection of scholarships, harm reduction resources, and learning opportunities.

We want it to support not only the children but have a learning track for the guardian as well. Because in homeschooling a lot of the learning is done together. Since historically native teachings encompassed an active engaging style we want to encourage and support exactly that. This will benefit the community as a whole by bringing the confidence back to indigenous knowledge.

There has been an ongoing effort to revitalize language and traditional knowledge. We know that the education system was used a tool to interrupt the indigenous pathway of learning. Many of the ways we want to bring back require an immersion in language and culture. We need to support this in a way that helps communities have confidence while having accountability. States are different in their requirements and this app will provide an easy to use, visual storyboard of what is learned and categorize it accordingly.

By allowing our families the ability to educate their youth they allow them to be close to family. Learning from and helping elders is expected, the integration of all ages benefits the community. We will bring confident, informed, learners to the next stage. This indigenous worldview will then be a benefit in all areas that these participants decide to go. We want to support a both a linear and non-linear educational path.

The app is still in the concept phase but could be ready to test within 6 months. The app will be able to service anyone who downloads it, which can mean not only thousands in the US but would be adapted to serve in other countries.  While the main focus of this project will be for Indigenous people the app will have a non-indigenous platform as well, The Unschoolers Hours Organizer. Users will pay for either a monthly or yearly subscription. The creation of the non-indigenous app will help to support the Indigenous version. We understand that the needs are cross cultural and want to support everyone in their homeschool, unschool or decolonizing journey.  

Megan Gourd has a level 3 cert in UX as well as training in Revit, AutoCad and basic coding. She has been trained in Project Management and has a Bachelor in Social Entrepreneurship. She currently serves as the Vice Chair for her tribe and has made learning (specifically from an indigenous worldview) her long term goal. She knows first hand the discrepancies native people are faced with when trying to break away from European learning models. 

Indigenously Different will give confidence and support to indigenous communities. 

SOLVE is a supporter of Indigenous innovation and we need people who believe in creation. We need people who are willing to help us think through what we have missed, step us into the network of likeminded innovators and allow us to partner with resources we ourselves cannot tap into.

We know that mentorship and incubators change business outcomes. While most businesses have a one in five chance of success it is proven the those that go through an incubator program have a three in five chance. We PLAN to succeed. This is the more then an idea, this is our generations learning in our hands. We plan to build a platform of success. 

Megan Gourd has been an active member of the homeschool community for over 18 years. She was a member of homeschool co-op for over 7 years and served on its board for 2 years. In that time, she observed the many ways that homeschoolers track and record their hours and has spoken with hundreds of people at every level of the homeschooling journey. She found a consistent need for recording hours and organizing subjects. She found it frustrating that there was no app or program that would allow her to easily track her unschooling method. Indigenously Different came out of those needs. She has been an active member of indigenous organizations and currently serves as the Vice Chair for her tribe the Fort Bidwell Indian Community. She is currently working with Tribal Resource Center as a tribal liaison to bring resources to tribes regarding broadband and internet initiatives. She is a member of the Gidutikad Band of Northern Paiute as well as a Blackfeet descendant. She has served on non-profit boards,and has a degree in Social Entrepreneurship

Learners have been stuck in the same methods for the past hundred years. We know that indigenous people learned by doing, our languages are verb based. We create, and we need to be supported in that worldview. Research has proven that most children learn best by doing and watching, Indigenously Different will reframe what we think education needs to be and empower a new way learning. 

We are here to reclaim our knowledge, to teach the youth, and restore our lost connections.  Indigenously Different is the catalyst for that change.

The goal is to get this app out and operating within the next 6-8 months. Wireframing and development is already happening. The goal is to have Indigenously Different and The Unschoolers Hours Organizer operating in tandum. 

We are committed to inclusivity. WE understand that all perspectives are valid and need to be heard in order for a business to be successful.  It is not enough to bring people in we encourage them be authentically themselves, only then will you see the benefits. A strong company supports diversity. 

The app will be an ongoing subscription. There are two separate platforms one for indigenous people and one for regular homschoolers. The Unschoolers hours Organizer will help to fund the Indigenously Different app. We plan to partner with organizations that see the value in what we provide and will utilize grant funding whenever possible. 

We plan to roll out the Indigenously Different and Unschoolers Hours organizer simultaneously, this will help us generate revenue immediately.