In My Blood It Runs is a film about Dujuan, a ten-year-old Arrernte/Garrwa child healer whose family advocates for him to have a culturally sustaining education that affirms his Arrernte identity, while he also navigates western schooling in Australia. Central to this film are the themes of cultural and linguistic revitalization, Aboriginal peoples sovereignty, Land relations, and settler colonialism and schooling.

In this lesson, educators, youth, and community members will be guided through practices of critically engaging with western schooling, settler colonialism, school curriculum and the overt and concealed prejudices towards Aboriginal and Indigenous peoples. This may involve engaging in the process of unlearning and relearning to think critically about the history of settler colonialism and learning from Aboriginal and Indigenous peoples while also centering their stories. Each lesson section is an opportunity for learners to engage in (re)storying conversations about traditional and ancestral homelands. Through creative and open-ended activities, learners are guided to learn about the Indigenous territory they are currently living on and the responsibilities they have as guests. The lesson can be modified to meet the needs of learners and linked to units of study related to history, geography, literature, environmental science, art, culture, language, and creative writing.

A Note from Curriculum Creators, Pablo Montes & Judith Landeros

We felt called to create this particular lesson plan because of our deep commitment to teach and engage in respectful and ethical ways when learning from and with Indigenous peoples, their knowledges and cosmologies, and Land relations. Our intention is to center the stories of Indigenous and Aboriginal peoples that too often are erased from the whitestream schooling system or when included, distorted and told from the perspective of the settlers. Therefore, much of what emerges from the lesson is guided by the learner, and varies by position, context, and place. We hope that Indigenous and Aborigional youth in Turtle Island can connect with Dujuan’s story and that it affirms their identity, culture, and ways of knowing and doing. This lesson can also serve as an initial introduction for non-Indigenous youth and educators to begin to think critically about the territory they currently live on and how they can be respectful guests by acknowledging the Indigenous peoples who are from those Lands. We purposefully did not use words such as “objectives”, “Standards”, and “expected outcomes” because these words are rooted in Western ways of thinking. In other words, we did not want this to become a lesson where teachers and students learn about Indigenous people but we want this lesson to guide you all in learning with and from Indigenous people to disrupt Western schooling. We invite teachers to also think about how Indigenous knowledges and ways of being can be forms of curricular resurgence, meaning that there are multiple ways to think about learning, knowledge, and education that encompasses the way Indigenous people have always viewed the world and continue to pass on their teachings. Therefore, this is not a lesson plan but a living curriculum that must be attended to constantly. Like the river suggests, there are different paths one can take, that learning is fluid, knowledge is shaped and co-created with other forces, and that there is no such thing as an “objective truth” but many truths that can co-exist.

Grade Levels: 9-12th

Materials:

• Film clips
• Collage making materials (i.e. old magazines)
• Glue
• Construction Paper
• Scissors
• Writing and drawing utensils
• Chart paper
• Computer/Internet access
• Post-its

Time Needed:

Five 60-minute class periods to watch the film and complete the activities.

Learning landscapes are broad areas of learning that are interconnected. Much like how Land may be different from Australia to Brazil, the Land and Waters are still intimately connected through memories and stories. Therefore we should not think about learning as separate objectives, but landscapes of learning that call us to recognize that actions have impacts, whether consciously or not.

• Language Revitilization
• Settler Colonialism and Schooling
• Elder Knowledges/Community Knowledges
• Systems of Discipline and Punishment
• Land and Country Sovereignty
• Aboriginal Activism and Rights
• Embodied ways of knowing and being
• Aborigional and Indigenous Educational Resurgence

• Epistemology: refers to ways of knowing, the nature of knowledge and truth and inquires about the sources of knowledge. A theory of knowledge that can be contextualized, geopolitical, embodied, an act of resistance and disobedience, and influenced by power.

• Pedagogy: refers to the practices and methods used for teaching and learning within school systems and community and family learning spaces.

• Racialization: Multiple ongoing processes of racial formations linked to macro political, sociological, and economic contexts that are then attributed to groups of people. These racial formations are socially constructed.

• Reciprocity: refers to the ways people care for one another, care for the environment, show gratitude without an endpoint in mind. It is dependent on establishing relationships that are respectful not just with humans, but also with more-than-human kin (i.e. Land, water, cosmos, ancestors).

• Relationality: refers to relationships with people, relations with the environment/Land, relations with the cosmos, and relations with ideas. Indigenous peoples identity is grounded in their relationship with the land and their ancestors.

• Settler Colonialism: The invasion of a territory that is already occupied and an act that uses violence, institutions, and force to justify that occupation. Therefore, it is a structure that involves the practice of taking Indigenous lands, denying Indigenous rights to those lands, and forming government and communities on those lands.

• Colonialism: A system of control by a country over an area or people outside its borders; the establishment, exploitation, acquisition, and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. This includes the exploitation of resources and enslavement of people.

• Aboriginal & Indigenous: Both are collective terms used to describe the original peoples of the land and their descendants. All Indigenous Nations have words in their own language that they use to define themselves, therefore use the term that Indigenous people chose to use themselves.

• Western/Colonial schooling and knowledge: Schooling and knowledge that comes from the Eurowestern tradition and was forced onto Indigenous nations during colonialism. Usually Eurowestern schooling focuses on objective truths and “official” knowledge which does not allow for other ways of thinking and learning.

• Country, Land, territory: refers to a living entity with a consciousness. For First Nations communities their connection to the Country forms the essence of their identity, ways of knowing and being, culture, and spirituality.

• Education (system): refers to the ways the Australian education system, the colonial education system, or mainstream education fails Indigenous children. This system teaches a settler/colonizer history and reinforces a settler/colonizer language.

• Medicine and healing: refers to the sacred traditional health practices, approaches, knowledge, gifts, and beliefs of Indigenous peoples. The ways that they integrate their Indigenous knowledge of traditional healing for the wellness and healing of their community and more-than-human kin. This can be inclusive of ceremony, plant medicine, prayer, stories, songs, music, being in relation, physical/hand techniques, etc.

• Arrernte: Aboriginal people who live on Arrernte lands or whose ancestors are original to Arrernte lands (territory in Australia) and who through self-determination continue to revitalize their languages and cultural practices.

• Historical memory: it refers to narratives and histories that are shared through familial memory, spiritual memory, embodied memory, dreams, stories, etc.

• Ancestral homelands: refers to the Lands that Indigenous peoples ancestors are original to. As descendants, Indigenous peoples continue to honor and be in relation with their ancestral homelands which include their relations with animals, plants, waters, skies, and each other.

• Sovereignty: refers to a nation’s right to self-govern and establish their own laws and citizenship. Sovereign nations practice their cultural traditions, ways of knowing and being, and determine their own future.

• Storytelling and stories: refers to an oral tradition that has been used to pass knowledge from generation to generation. This knowledge, theories and ways of knowing and being are essential for Indigenous people to teach and learn about their relationships, cultural ways, sacred stories, history, values, spirituality and more.

• Settler and/or colonizer: refers to those who want the land, come to stay, and permanently occupy and assert unlawful ownership over Indigenous Sovereign Lands.

• Indigenous resurgence: An intellectual and cultural movement that shifts from settler colonial narratives and reframes and redirects towards Indigenous traditional cultural practices. It refers to Indigenous methods of political resurgence grounded in Indigenous thinking, theorizing, and Indigenous intelligence.

Indigenous epistemologies and pedagogies view learning as a process situated in community and in relation to our environment which includes Land, waters, the sky, plants, etc. Making connections means that we take into account our landscapes of learning to take the time to listen, observe, pay attention, reflect, and use our voice.

In these lessons learning communities will engage in:

• Reciprocity, Relationality, Responsibility, and Respect
• How to center and learn with Aboriginal Knowledges and Indigenous Education
• Thinking critically about how schools from western society are a part of settler colonialism, and how to un-learn certain assumptions of what is a “good” and “bad” student.
• (Re)Storying conversations about traditional and ancestral homelands, unearthing stories about whose Lands they are on now as guests, and the responsibility one has to the Land in which we are guests on.

Clip 1: Western Education as Settler Colonialism (6:23 - 10:53, length: 4:30 mins)

Clip Description: The clip begins at 6:23 with Nana Carol and Dujuan in their home. The clip ends at 10:53 with Dujuan out with the Land, looking outwards.

Clip Summary: We are introduced to Dujuan’s healing powers and his Aborigional epistemologies of what it means to be a healer, what his purpose is within the community, and how he uses his gift. Nana Carol talks about how they would like to go back to their Sandy Bore ancestral homelands. However, she wants them to be “educated” in Alice Springs, which to her, means for her grandchildren and family to know the (education) system when they grow up.

We then get a glimpse of what traditional schools in Australia look like, what they teach, and the relationship between Aboriginal students and the school system. In this scene, we are introduced to “The Australia” book, which the teacher categorizes as“non-fiction” or factual information about the history of Australia. The book depicts the colonizers from England and their settlement on Aboriginal territory. Dujuan explicitly states that the education he gets at home, in their language, is about Aborigines whereas the schooling he gets in the classroom is for white people with a clip showing the way that Australia used education to continue settler colonial occupation. Dujuan reminds us and talks about how the colonizers are on stolen land.

Clip 2: Resurgence of Aboriginal Education Systems (15:53 - 24:43, length: 8:50 mins)

Clip Description: The clip begins at 15:53 with Dujuan entering school and in the classroom. The clip ends at 8:50 mins where we see Dujuan in the classroom wanting to leave Alice Springs.

Clip Summary: Schools, and in this case the teacher in the clip, include different stories from different cultures. However, in this instance the teacher in many ways seems to not truly validate these stories, even though a student mentions that these stories are real. We then see Dujuan in a vehicle once he receives back his grades where most of the feedback on his report states that he has “Very Limited Achievement” on almost all subject areas. After reviewing the teacher's feedback, he asks himself “Is there something wrong with me”. We can then start to speculate and see the impact this has on Dujuan and the lasting psychological impacts of western education.

Additionally, the clip demonstrates the common Juvenile “programs” in Australia, where the news that they are watching on TV discuss how youth as young as 10 years old are sent to juvenile centers that punish “troubled children” instead of providing resources for them.

Lastly, we see the teacher at the end of this scene put Dujuan in the time out corner while trying to control Dujuan’s body. This points to the way that schools are often involved in mechanisms and protocols that try to discipline the student’s body. Dujuan also mentions that he wants to go back to his homeland, far away from Alice Springs.

Clip 3: #LandBack (47:22-49:00, length: 1:38 min)

The clip begins at 47:22 with Dujuan and a relative speaking about their culture. The clip ends at 49:00 with Dujuan riding in a vehicle discussing what he wants to do when he grows up.

Now back with his father and his family, Dujuan is spending time on his ancestral homelands. A relative of his mentions that the world is difficult because you can lose your culture, and Dujuan mentions that in order to take back the land, to fight back, you have to know “white people and their stuff” so that you are able to take back what belongs to your family. The clip then takes us into a historical account of the protests and activism of Aboriginal people and their fight towards sovereignty, land and water rights, and rightful recognition. Dujuan comments on how when he grows up he wants to fight for Black people, how history runs in respect to all Aboriginals, and that when he gets the chance to meet the Prime Minister of Australia, he wants to to tell them to “Stop killing Aborignial people”.

Clip 4: Embodied Medicines & Sovereignty (3:39-6:12, length: 2:31 mins)

Clip Description: The clip begins at 3:39 with Dujuan out in the street talking about the history of Aboriginal people. The clip ends at 6:12 with Dujuan taking a bath in the Arrethe (bush medicine).

Clip Summary: Dujuan talks about how history runs in his blood, and how he has memories of the aborigional people and how he feels those memories. We then see a cutscene of Aboriginal people demanding that they want their ceremonies, their language to be taught, and their stories be listened to and told to their children.

The Arrethe (bush medicine) is commonly used in the Arrernte community and Dujuan talks about how that medicine heals sores on the inside. He also reminds us that before the cars, the houses, and everything else in the world was made, that all there was were the Aboriginals in Australia, meaning that the Aboriginal peoples are the original caretakers of what is now known as Australia. We see Nana Carol creating a bath made from the Arrethe that Dujuan picked earlier, and we see Dujuan bathing in the Arrethe and Nana Carol reminding Dujuan to speak in their language of Arrernte.

Step 1: Vocabulary Word Cloud Collage

Begin the first activity by dividing students into small groups. Provide each small group with 1-2 vocabulary words from the list below. Students will need access to the internet so they can research the vocabulary words to write a definition and an illustration to represent the vocabulary word(s). After each group has finished writing and illustrating their vocabulary word(s), have them tape, glue, or paste on a poster board, butcher paper, or the wall so the entire class can see the Word Cloud Collage.

Vocabulary words:

• Aboriginal
• Indigenous
• Western schooling and knowledge
• Settler colonialism
• Land/territory
• Education (system)
• Medicine and healing
• Words in Arrernte
• Historical memory
• Ancestral homelands
• Sovereignty
• Storytelling and stories
• Settler and/or colonizer
• Intergenerational (include elders)
• Indigenous resurgence

Note to teacher: We ask that as you look up definitions of these words you look for definitions provided by Indigenous and Aboriginal peoples. The resources at the bottom of the curriculum are a good place to start (i.e. Teacher Guide in Native-Land.ca.).

Step 2: CRITICAL CARTOGRAPHY/MAPPING REFLECTION

Next, share a map of what is commonly known as Australia as well as a map of Aboriginal Australia.

After displaying both maps, ask the students to notice any differences between the two:

1. What do you notice about the maps?
2. Who do you think made these maps that you see?
3. How was the information that is presented in the maps gathered?
4. What connections can you make with other maps you have seen?

Then, identify a map that highlights the current location where your school is located or where most of the students reside. Additionally, find a map that is representative of current Indigenous territories of your current location.

After analyzing and reflecting with the maps you all find, ask the students to notice any differences between the two:

1. According to the first map, what is the name of the city or place where you are?
2. What Indigenous territory are you on according to the map of Indigenous territories?
3. What do you know about the territory that you live on? Or, what do you want to learn?

Next provide students with a piece of blank paper to creatively respond by drawing or mapping the answers to the following questions:

1. How did you get to this territory?
2. What is your relationship with this Land/territory?

Finally, have students share in small groups, partners, or the entire class. In a chart paper you can create a web of themes that emerge from this learning activity.

Step 3: FILM INTRODUCTION, YOUTH VOICE, AND HISTORICAL MEMORY

Note to teachers: Make sure to review and define any vocabulary words that students may need more clarification about. Remind students that as they watch the film, to keep in mind the map activity about Aboriginal and Indigenous territories and how they critically analyzed the information that is often presented in school curriculum as ultimate truths. The film in My Blood it Runs, as Dujuan states, “[has] some messages for you” and to take this learning opportunity to learn about Aboriginal peoples, their territories, experiences, and knowledges.

Introduce students to Dujuan, a child healer, who’s story is narrated in the film In My Blood it Runs:

Share with students that in 2019, Dujuan at the age of 12, addressed the United Nations Human Rights council as part of an impact campaign. Show the video of Dujuan’s speech and provide a copy of the speech to each student.

This is what Dujuan said:

“Werte. My name is Dujuan, I am 12 years old. I am from Arrernte and Garrwa Country and I have travelled here from Australia. Adults never listen to kids - especially kids like me. But we have important things to say. I came here to speak with you all because our government is not listening. I am in a new documentary, In My Blood It Runs. In this film there are some messages for you. There are some things I want to see changed: I want my school to be run by Aboriginal people who are like me and understand me. I want the adults to stop locking up 10 year old kids in prison. I want my future to be out on land with family, strong in culture and language. I hope you can find a way to make things much more better. Thank you – I hope you enjoy my film.”

After Viewing clip ask students:

• What words or phrases in Dujuan’s speech stand out to you? Why?
• Are there any words that are new to you?

Note to teacher: We suggest that you all show the entire documentary before moving on to the next sections of the lesson.

Step 4: INTRODUCING “SETTLER COLONIALISM”

With your students, review all the new learnings this lesson has covered.

Tell them you are going to continue thinking about the map activity about Aboriginal and Indigenous land. In order to do so, tell them you are going to introduce the topic about settler colonialism. More specifically, in this step you will engage your learning community in discussions about how schools and the education system are involved in the ongoing processes of settler colonialism.

Before Viewing Clips: Ask students to consider this question for a couple of minutes:

• How do you think students learned or were “educated” before schools were made? Before there was an “education system”?

Teacher moment for reflection:

Did students draw their community for learning and education? The land? Their ancestors? Their home? Ask students why they drew what they did for each, or a few of the squares.

Preparing for group discussions and video clip analysis:

Divide the students into groups of 3-4. Give them chart paper and writing utensils. Encourage students to not only use words but also illustrations, abstract representations, and colors to respond to the following questions once they watch the designated clip.

Optional Activity: This activity is to allow students to begin to question common notions of schooling and education, and who dictates what is considered “learning”.

1. Have the students take out a piece of paper and divide the paper into four sections using a pencil or writing utensil.
2. In the first square ask students to draw something that captures the following: “learning”, “education”, and “school”.
3. In the second square, ask students to draw a school and what goes on in a school.
4. In the third square, ask students to draw the “education system”.
5. Lastly, ask them to draw how learning and education looked like before “schools” were created.

Teacher Note before viewing clips: Depending on your classroom context, students can respond to following questions in small groups/large groups, reflect in a journal, or a combination of these.

Watch clip 1: Western Education as Settler Colonialism (clip 1)

• What are the similarities and differences between the schools in Australia and the schools in the U.S?
• Dujuan mentions in this clip that what he learns at home, from his community, is different from what he learns in school. In what ways do you see education being used for the purposes of assimilation and settler colonialism? How is what is learning at home a form of education?
• What has been your schooling (K-12th grade) experience with mainstream U.S./American history? Has it always been a positive experience? If not, why do you think that is?

Watch clip 2: Resurgence of Aboriginal Education Systems (clip 2)

• What kind of student comes to mind when you think of “bad”, “at-risk”, “troublemaker”, “delinquent”? What comes to mind when you think of a student who is “gifted”, “smart”, “good”?
• How is Dujuan seen in school, compared to how he is seen back at his ancestral homelands? Provide examples from the films where Dujuan is being told that he is not smart and threatening to separate Dujuan from his family. Also provide an example from the film where Dujuan’s family sees him as a healer, important person in his community, and as a student of his own language.
• In what ways is Dujuan’s community pushing back on mainstream or “western” education through their own cultural practices, language, spirituality, and relationship to the Land from which they are from? And how is this also a form of learning?

Watch clip 3: #LandBack (clip 3)

• How are maps used as colonial tools? Think about the maps that you see in your K-12 education. Do they always show the Indigenous people and their territories? If not, why do you think that is?

Step 5: (RE)STORYING OUR COLLABORATIONS WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

Note to teachers: If possible, try to establish communication earlier on so when you are on step 5 there is already a relationship with the Indigenous people of your area.

After viewing and analyzing video clips:

Throughout the film Dujuan and his community remind us that the original people of Australia are the Aboriginal people; that Australia is Aboriginal territory. Inspired by this teaching, the teacher and educator should establish communication, and therefore a relationship, with a local Indigenous community leader, organization, and/or Elder for a learning collaboration. In establishing this communication, make sure you are being respectful and you are thinking about reciprocity. Meaning that this is not a transaction, but that in reaching out that you are acknowledging a continued relationship and respect for the Indigenous community. Share your intention with them on the curriculum you are implementing and ask them what they feel comfortable sharing, what resources they need, and how as a teacher, educator, learning community you can be of service to them and show gratitude. Highly suggest: Ask the Indigenous community member, keeping in mind different abilities, if they could lead the class in a walk of the landscape to learn with the Land and the plants, waterways, or even changes due to climate change and industrialization (this could be done in any setting, urban or rural, because all Land in the U.S. is Indigenous Land).

After the learning collaboration with the Indigenous community member or Elder:

Think back to the map activity that you created to represent your relationship to the territory or Land you are on and how you got there. Take a few minutes to ask the students and yourself to self-reflect on the following questions: What do you want to add to your illustration? How has your perspective evolved since learning with Dujuan, Indigenous community members, the Land that you’re living on, and your peers?

Optional Activity: Have the students be the ones to initiate a dialogue between a local Indigenous community organization or leader. This could look like having the students suggest Indigenous community members that they already know and/or researching the history of Indigenous people in their local area and then create a letter, email, or action plan to initiate communication between them as students and the respective Indigenous community member/organization.

Now watch the clip: Embodied Medicines & Sovereignty (clip 4)

Dujuan begins sharing his story by introducing us to the ways memory runs through his blood, the historical memory that is embodied, which disrupts settler colonialism and how it manifests in schools and education systems.

After watching clip 4:

In post-it notes write or draw lessons, advice, or memories you’ve learned from that you can always refer back to. Some examples of where these lessons, advice, or memories can be passed down from are:

• your dreams
• family member(s)
• community caretaker(s)
• Friend(s)
• the rain
• plant relatives
• the elements
• The food that nourishes your body.

Lastly, after short post it activity:

create a collective collage by asking everybody to put their post-its on a large piece of poster paper, wall, white-board, etc. Markers and other collage materials can be used to add to the collective collage. Once the collage is complete, have students write a short reflection, poem, or concluding thoughts about their learning experience.

Books:

Indigenous Children’s Survivance in Public Schools by Leilani Sabzalian

An Indigenuos People’s History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

We are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom

Resource List

1. 'Stop jailing 10-year-olds': Indigenous boy addresses UN on Australia's youth detention laws
2. I am cheeky, but no kid should be in jail. This is why I addressed the UN at just 12 years old | Dujuan Hoosan
3. Convention on the Rights of the Child
4. Languages Map Activity (Secondary)
5. Let's Talk… Land Rights

Other Non-Australia Additional Resources

1. IIYC
2. Native-Land.ca | Our home on native land
3. Native American Children's Literature Recommended Reading List
4. Indigenous Comic Con
5. Indigenous Education Tools
6. Home | SBI

Standards:

9th & 10th grade:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.6: Compare the point of view of two or more authors for how they treat the same or similar topics, including which details they include and emphasize in their respective accounts.

11th & 12th grade:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.6: Evaluate authors' differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors' claims, reasoning, and evidence

About The Authors

Pablo Montes
Pablo Montes is a PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin in the Cultural Studies in Education Program. He is the son of migrant workers from Guanajuato, Mexico, the ancestral territories of the Chichimeca Guamares and P'urhepecha. He currently serves as the Youth Director for the Indigenous Cultures Institute with the Coahuiltecan community in the Lands of Yana Wana (spirit waters of central Texas). Additionally, through a generous grant by the University of Texas at Austin’s Green Fund, he is working with co-author Judith Landeros and other Indigenous people to create a Land Based Education Curriculum. His interests include the intersection of queer settler colonialism, Indigeneity, and Land education.

Judith Landeros
Judith Landeros is a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin studying Cultural Studies in Education with a focus on Indigenous girlhood, traditional healing knowledge, and schooling. Her family is from Michoacán and Jalisco, the ancestral territories of the P’urhepecha and Chichimeca. She is a former bilingual early childhood teacher and advocates for the inclusion of Critical Indigenous Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Land as pedagogy within teacher preparation education programs.

Lesson Plan Producers, POV

Courtney Cook
Education Manager

Thanks to those who reviewed this resource:

Rachel Friedland
POV, Senior Associate, Programs & Engagement

This resource was created, in part, with the generous support of the Open Society Foundation and the MacArther Foundation.