Art influences society by changing opinions, instilling values, and translating experiences across space and time. Art in this sense is communication; it allows people from different cultures and different times to communicate with each other via images, sounds, and stories. Art is often a vehicle for social change. It stimulates society by translating experiences through space and time. Native Americans regard art as an element of life, not as a separate aesthetic ideal. In indigenous societies, the arts are aspects of public life that brings together dancing, poetry, plastic, and graphic arts into a single function: ritual as the all-embracing expression. Art is indispensable to ritual, and ritual is the Native American concept of the whole life process. Native people see painting as indistinct from dancing, dancing as indistinct from worship, and worship as indistinct from living.  Art can be this bridge between worlds, between cultures, this visual language that transcends other languages allowing for communication between all types of people. It is a space that allows me to communicate my experiences through something other than words to someone who may not understand or have those same experiences. And it allows students that same space to communicate their feelings and ideas.

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Western imagery is often used to create and influence ideas on who and what a Native or Indigenous American is before ever interacting with them, or even researching differences in tribes. As a young native woman, some of my first interactions with these stereotypes of natives took place at high school football games. What was perpetuated was a deep-rooted form of racism, words like “Another Trail of Tears, or “Scalp Them” were messages displayed on banners and signs in the crowd, along with chants and skits that portrayed me and my relatives as “savages'', or “dirty Indians'', bands mocked sacred drums. Students wore feathers, face paint, and wielded fake Tomahawks, disrespecting culture, symbols, and ceremonies. Mascots are a form of visual communication, and so therefore it has a direct correlation and history to art, many issues have this direct connection to art. And so learning and discussing these issues and Art together just makes sense, as visual communication and developing these skills and understandings can go hand-in-hand. Native mascots exist in every level of sports, from high school basketball courts to billion-dollar football stadiums, furthermore, Native American ethnicity is the only one that is widely used as a mascot across the country this is because the native identity is celebrated for both its untamed savage nature and when it is subjugated into Western conformity. The effects of these stereotypes are real, native mascots act to dehumanize Indigenous individuals by employing damaging stereotypes of violence and aggression that create and perpetuate harm and racialized inequalities. And there have been studies that show how these mascots harm native people, specifically damaging how they view themselves, and from personal experience, it has affected how I see myself. While this is my personal experience, and I know this is not how many stereotypes play out for people of other backgrounds, I am sure that there will be moments that people are exposed to stereotypes of many different cultures, people, and ethnicities. Things that are simply not true, and as someone within that “other” someone who has these stereotypes put upon them in our society I know how it feels to have this be an assumption, how it feels for these harmful and hurtful football games and mascots to be potentially the only exposure to Native American culture that someone will have or experience. During this period of my life, I figured that it was better to just ignore it, to not say anything. I assumed they did not know better and yes it hurt my feelings but maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal. I was always told and taught that if you don’t have anything nice to say do not say anything at all, so that’s what I did. I ignored it and hoped that if I ignored it then the issue would go away. But that’s not what happened, it doesn’t work like that all that did was make me notice it more. This is why looking at social justice issues is important to me, because ignoring them doesn’t do anything and now I know to use my voice, to say something even if I don’t know if anyone is listening. Because some children out there might notice this issue, and instead of being told to ignore it, they could add their voice to talk about the issue.This can not only expose students to issues and allow them to learn, develop, and deepen their understanding or knowledge of many different topics and issues they may not be very familiar with or even aware of. It shifts the lens and changes the story so that someone knows more about a people, a culture, and issue than a single experience drenched in stereotypes and misinterpretations of a culture, and it can allow them to come to the table, the discussion, and the broader issue as a whole with an opinion based on their discovered knowledge. I know, and many indigenous people know that mascots are harmful, but those outside of this issue, who have not been exposed to why this is an issue, assume that being a mascot is something that “honors” us. Social justice issues, exposure, and discussions of these are crucial to learning in my opinion, especially when it comes to discussing that issue through Art, to accomplish this however I think that social issues or issue-based teaching need to have quite a bit of choice based learning involved, students could either pick an issue and make art off of that, or when provided an issue students can develop some sort of choice based piece off of that issue. As I said, this is a form of visual communication, in my case if we were to talk about the native mascot issue in class, we could first discuss the history of mascots and do some sort of interpretative questioning, about what they communicate and represent. This is discussing visual modes of communication as we have read about, then we could talk about what happens when we apply those characteristics to a person. From there we could design alternative imagery, either a mascot or some sort of imagery that allows students to show natives differently and more positively. There are many ways to think about how to integrate issues and Art into a lesson, but it is something that is crucial for students to be able to share their voices in, they need to be able to not only learn but talk about why they chose the issue or made the art that they did because issues like these affect everyone, and everyone has an experience or a voice to share their knowledge, story, or how it affects or relates to their meaning and life. It can allow students to connect deeper and then have a broader understanding of these issues. 

 

This week I added Native American female figures, I added three of them, the middle one metaphorically cannot see. This is how I used to view issue-based teaching, I ignored it. The other two figures are looking symbolic of how I am now, it is better to talk about something, to educate, and to learn from each other. Everyone has a story and everyone has a voice and this is something that issue-based education is perfect to discuss. I kept the figures simple, representations of me and also a reference to my personal experience as a native, how those mascots made me feel like this symbol, a one-dimensional representation of all natives. And they are looking to the left to represent me looking towards the future, to a different perspective and a grown-up me who is going to continue to educate people and be educated. 

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Something this made me very clear on is there is still so much I don’t know, it would be ridiculous to be expected to know and understand everything about every issue out there, but it highlighted why this is so important, students have their own issues, issues change and evolve with time and popular culture. They come up and present themselves, and everyone has opinions, but most importantly everyone can share and learn from each other. There is still so much that I need to learn about cultures and people and I look forward to learning more about many types of issues from my students and sharing my own issues because the importance of issue-based learning is something I do understand.