Intro to Learning Pathway

“Stories go in circles. They don't go in straight lines . . It helps if you listen in circles because there are stories inside and between stories, and finding your way through them is as easy and as hard as finding your way home. Part of finding is getting lost, and when you are lost you start to open up and listen”. (Terry Tafoya)

The Learning Pathway was an evaluation learning journey shared among nine African Nova Scotian and Mi'kmaw participants, a Wisdom Circle of African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw community leaders who provided guidance and support, a facilitation team that supported the work (with an African Nova Scotian and a Mi'kmaw evaluator and two or three White evaluators) and a provincial government official who champions evaluation and communities.

Learning Pathway Storyboard

“The understanding I have is, it's a community that everybody's made together, people are contributing from their wealth of experience. It's not that there’s actually a structure that they are just passing information to people. Space has created room for people to express themselves, to bring their ideas”. (Learning Pathway participant)

The purpose of the Learning Pathway was to learn about decolonizing evaluation and support new and emerging evaluators conducting evaluation in ways that reflect community worldviews and values. We wanted to influence the ecosystem in which evaluation takes place in Nova Scotia, so that it can better serve African Nova Scotian and Mi'kmaw communities.
The group gathered for the first time in November 2021 for an orientation and welcome to the Learning Pathway. Beginning in January 2022 we met monthly until June 2022. Because of pandemic restrictions, all of our meetings were virtual except for the final gathering, which we held in person.At each monthly gathering, we explored a high level topic related to evaluation (e.g., framing evaluations, asking good questions, and collecting data). Drawing on the experience of Wisdom Circle members, African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw members of the facilitation team, guest speakers, and participants, we looked at these topics through African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw world views.

One of the ways we tried to keep an open dialogue about learning from the unfolding path was by creating a storyboard that everyone could access with links to all the information about the Learning Pathway as we were gathering it. We built on the storyboard each month as the process was unfolding.

Between our monthly gatherings, participants and facilitation team members met for 'evaluation thought partnership' to support evaluation projects participants were working on in their communities, where they had an opportunity to apply what they were learning, and from which they brought their experiences back to the larger group.

The Learning Pathway design was emergent and unfolding. We didn’t follow a curriculum; the facilitation team and the Wisdom Circle planned each gathering based on what participants were interested in at the time. Community leaders grounded each of the gatherings in African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw culture.

Overview of Content Covered in the Learning Pathway Gatherings

November 2021

We grounded the session in African and Indigenous culture, through a libation ceremony and a smudging
We introduced ourselves by telling stories about our names
We talked about what we wanted to learn together: sharing experience and skills, focusing evaluation work on serving communities, and sharing stories

January 2022

We explored good ways of working together, what each person can contribute and what we need from each other - openness, listening, sharing, honouring of lived experiences, honouring of culture
We designed the most colonial evaluation we could imagine
This exercise highlighted the importance of understanding & respecting community ways, engaging community members, the importance of stories, taking our time, thinking about the impact that evaluation can have on a community (for good or ill)
People started introducing the evaluation projects they were working on in their communities
We introduced the idea of evaluation thought partners (pairing participants with facilitation team members who would provide ‘thought partnership’ and resources to support participants’ evaluation projects)

February 2022

With leadership from Wisdom Circle members, we explored cultural artifacts & metaphors to think about and frame evaluation.
This showed the strength of honouring different ways of knowing, connecting the evaluation to the larger meaning of the artifacts, the importance of taking care in each step of the process, showing how cultural artifacts can help us recognize patterns, interpret findings
We introduced a traditional evaluation planning tool that people could consider using or adapting for planning their evaluations
Participants continued to introduce their evaluation projects
March 2022
With leadership from a facilitation team member, we focused on asking good questions - and explored who decides on the questions, what is asked, who asks, who is asked We talked about authenticity of voice, being curious, communities reclaiming validity and rigour
We shared content (video and article) fromJara Dean-Coffey at Equitable Evaluation Initiative and introduced a cultural checklist from Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation
We touched base about where people want to focus the remaining sessions: engaging communities, sensemaking, reflection, sharing learnings
Participants continued to introduce their evaluation projects
April 2022
With leadership from Wisdom Circle members, we talked about engaging communities and the power of stories in Africentric engagement processes
People shared qualities of good engagement processes: kitchen table talks, being in the community, not separating yourself out, acknowledging we have shared experiences, drawing on people's lived experiences Another Wisdom Circle member taught us about and led us in a Sharing Circle, where we reflected on the Learning Pathway so far Participants continued to introduce their evaluation projects
May 2022
A very well respected educator from the African Nova Scotian community joined us to share her wisdom about Africentric sensemaking. She described evaluation as declaring the sacred and grounded her presentation in Nguzo Saba, The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa.

A brief description of the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa

We each shared an object that showed what sensemaking means to us
Participants finished introducing their evaluation projects

June 2022

We met in person for our final gathering - we shared a meal and some social time

Learning Pathway participants at our final gathering

We shared what we are thinking or doing in practice to decolonize evaluation and make it more Indigenous/Africentric
We each showed and talked about an artifact that shows the most significant change we have experienced with the Learning Pathway
Each person brought a gift they created that someone else in the group would receive in a giveaway ceremony that honoured the gifts each person brought to the Learning Pathway