We (teachers, students, researchers) of Sahasatsuksa school found art to be an opportunity to reflect and re-tell stories of ourselves and our own journeys to shift schooling towards Indigenous family futures in Northern Thailand. Sahasatsuksa school is a private welfare urban Indigenous school with over 2600 students from 13 different tribes. One Akha student-artist, Misu, took on the role of storyteller to design the graphic novel you see featured here. Misu’s novel tells her own story of making relatives in school, how she came out of her shell by finding her own joys in learning and teaching others as part of the Tutoría learning community. With the guidance of Kru Beam and other Tutoría teachers, this included finding her unique role in the learning ecosystem, understanding her interests and strengths, growing as a storylistener for others, and shifting power paradigms of who teaches and learns, what knowledge counts, and how families and land-based practices can enrich and enliven learning.

I (Meixi) alongside a team have had the joy of co-designing with Kru Beam and the team of teachers over the last decade, and getting to know students like Misu. As I learned about Tutoria from Mexico, I too began to desire and cultivate similar relationalities within teaching that is more open and responsive, learning that makes us giggle, shine, ask critical questions, and feel proud and responsible to students, teachers, families, and the knowledges systems from home. To these ends we have been organizing annual learning festivals within and across schools, designing land and family based curriculum to expand the bounds of knowing and places of learning.

At the learning festival in March 2024 where Misu and Beam were participants, we printed copies of the graphic novel to gift to two other schools. The Mai pedagogy project reminded us that to be liberated is also to be in relation. It is to be in story with one another and recognize the gift of each young person and their stories to tell. It gave us an opportunity to co-create and collectively acknowledge each others’ ongoing transformation in multimodal ways – that we are excited to share with you.