Movements Toward Living Relationally Ethical Assessment Making: Bringing Indigenous Ways of Being, Knowing, and Doing Alongside Narrative Inquiry as Pedagogy

As teacher educators deeply committed to relational narrative inquiry and the centrality of living in relationally ethical ways alongside co-researchers, our initial turns toward living narrative inquiry as pedagogy were inspired by wanting to live in relationally ethical ways alongside undergraduate and graduate students. Following the sudden passing in 2015 of Singing Turtle Woman— Anishinabe kwe Elder, scholar, and long-time friend and research collaborator Mary Isabelle Young, we often told and retold stories of how her teachings of  Pimosayta  (learning to walk together) and  Pimatisiwin  (walking in a good way) were continuing to guide us. In this midst we gradually realized that Mary’s teachings opened potential in conjunction with our desires to live/practice relationally ethical assessment making alongside students. As we engage in autobiographical narrative inquiry into our recent coming alongside undergraduate and graduate students, in two  Assessment as Pimosayta  courses in two differing teacher education programs in Canada, we show how our bringing Indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing alongside our practicing narrative inquiry as pedagogy supported our movements toward living relationally ethical assessment making.