The most important thing I brought back from the Wyoming Native American Education Conference was a reckoning of what it means to teach from love and resistance.
The conference was held on August 12-13, 2026, at Central Wyoming College in Riverton, and its purpose is to instill pride and strengthen the engagement of Native youth. This conference supports educators throughout the state in achieving the goals of Wyoming's Indian Education for All Act, passed in 2017, which aims to educate all students about the Native American tribes of the region. The majority of attendees are teachers, with a significant portion coming from Fremont County and the Wind River Reservation.
Rose Ann Abrahamson, a descendant of Sacajawea, opened the conference with her keynote, Walking Together: Forging a Collective Path through Indigenous Knowledge. Her message was about ancestral knowledge as living strength, carried from generation to generation, and the importance of drawing strength from their ancestral legacy for that knowledge and lineage to continue into the future. Their ancestors have solved hard problems, survived impossible circumstances, and built knowledge systems sophisticated enough to sustain entire nations across generations. Walking in the footsteps of ancestors is a methodology of looking backward with intention to move forward with direction.
The Wind River Reservation is home for Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho families. Both tribal nations are actively reviving languages and cultural and spiritual practices that were once suppressed and outlawed by the U.S. government. The educators teaching in the districts on the Wind River Reservation carry a particular kind of weight and wisdom. They are protecting culture, healing historical trauma, and simultaneously preparing young people to navigate a digital world that was not designed with them in mind.
Sitting in the same room with these educators gave rise to memories of what it means to teach from love. Every lesson that centers Shoshone or Arapaho language and culture is an act of love for their students and communities. And in its own right, it is also an act of resistance against a system that spent generations trying to erase their history, their stories. Most professional development programs will never teach you that. You learn it by being in the room with people who live it.
Screening: Generation Warrior
Another profound moment of the conference was the screening of Generation Warrior. The film, shot over four years, follows eight Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone youth as they confront the realities of early adulthood. It offers an unfiltered look at their lives: the choices that shape their futures, the cultural expectations they carry, and the challenges that come with stepping into a world shaped by rapid change, historical trauma, and ongoing structural violence. The film is co-produced by former Northern Arapaho Tribal Chairman Jordan Dresser and Eastern Shoshone cultural preservationist Lynette St. Clair, who also serves on the Wyoming PBS Foundation Board. They partnered with Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Bobbie Birleffi and Jeanne Begley to create a remarkable documentary that centers Native voices and experiences. These are stories of strength, identity, resilience, and leadership taking form with a new generation preparing to carry their communities forward through challenge and change. Watching this film alongside educators and community members from the very Nations whose experiences it reflects was profoundly moving. More information can be found here.
Our Session: Understanding the Foundations of AI
We had the honor of presenting on Understanding the Foundations of AI: Building Student Awareness, Voice, and Critical Thinking. Our approach is focused on critical AI literacy and Indigenous data sovereignty. We teach students that AI influences information, decisions, and opportunities. We emphasize skills that question systems and how data is used and misused. It is also important to recognize how technology can both help and harm communities. This matters for Indigenous students. AI systems are being marketed as universal but are often built on datasets that have historically omitted or maliciously surveilled Indigenous communities.
Students need opportunities to recognize bias and misrepresentation, understand the consequences of surveillance and data extraction, and protect community and cultural knowledge. Sovereignty is the bridge between ancestral knowledge and technological futures. Students do not have to abandon their histories, cultures, or community knowledge to participate in innovation. Ancestral knowledge can be the source and strength to build technologies grounded in the priorities and values of their own communities.
Teaching AI literacy to Indigenous students is an act of love and resistance. For generations, Indigenous communities have encountered systems created without their voices, knowledge, or consent. AI is the latest version of that same pattern unless we actively work to change it. Rose Ann Abrahamson’s keynote offered a powerful message: root young people in ancestral knowledge, walk forward together, and draw upon the collective strength of community and culture as they encounter, question, and ultimately help shape new systems, including AI.
Every child. Every community. Every voice deserves a place in shaping the future.
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