Nahui Ollin

Nahui Ollin has been adopted as an educational framework by various social justice and ethnic studies institutions to guide students through a process of "reflection, action, reconciliation, and transformation."

[8][2] Educators at the Xicanx Institute for Teaching & Organizing describe the concept as follows:The Nahui Ollin represents the cyclical movement of nature with respect to the four directions.

The Nahui Ollin uses cultural concepts representing community, knowledge, education, will power, transformation, and most importantly, self-reflection.

The Nahui Ollin is composed of traditional Aztec ideologies, including the concepts of Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli, and Xipe Totec.

The Nahui Ollin is used as a culturally responsive method of teaching and ultimately supporting the development of harmony and balance of the mind, body, spirit, and community.

[9]In the educational framework, Tezcatlipoca represents self-reflection, "silencing the distractions and obstacles in our lives, in order become intellectual warriors.

It is the 'Smoking Mirror' into which the individual, the family, the clan, the barrio, the tribe and the nation must gaze to acquire the sense of history that calls for liberation."

Arce describes that Huitzilopchtli "as praxis, presents students with the will and courage to enact their positive, progressive, and creative capacities to create change for themselves as well as for their community.