Tell Story: Tyson Yunkaporta on Deep Time, Creolization, and Education

In this episode of the Getting Smart Podcast, Mason Pashia and Jason Cummins sit down with Tyson Yunkaporta for a thought-provoking conversation on Indigenous knowledge, relational learning, and the role of schools as spaces for dialogue, contradiction, and meaning-making. Together, they explore how language shapes worldview, why Indigenous leadership brings vital governance protocols to education, and how schools can move beyond reinforcing boundaries to becoming places where relationships, complexity, and shared understanding can grow.

Outline

• (00:00) Introductions & Indigenous Identity
• (06:54) Language, Knowledge & Relational Thinking
• (11:24) Creolization & Indigenous Agency
• (18:59) Schools as Sites of Conflict & Culture
• (24:41) Good Protocols & Indigenous Leadership
• (31:42) Why Do This Work & Deep Time

Links

• Read the full blog
• American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program
• Declaration of Peace for Indigenous Australians and Nature: A Legal Pluralist Approach to First Laws and Earth Laws
• LinkedIn
• Deakin Research