Odelein Journal #3
In the First Nations world and culture, there is much to learn outside of what the government considers mandatory education. From the beginning, schooling was a nightmare for them. Unable to practice their own language or culture in residential schools, they began a long fight for proper, fair education. To this day there are few schools that teach the culture of Indigenous people the way their families would teach it. First Nations grow up learning through experiences and stories in their homes, and through textbooks and notes at school.
As a future teacher, I believe education is supposed to provide us with equal opportunities. Not everyone learns or succeeds at the same rates, so this becomes problematic quickly. Learning for First Nations people has been manipulated and twisted to how the Europeans once thought and still believe it should be. In residential schools, they were made to forget their language and culture to become a “good Canadian”. The education system is far from perfect and today there still remains holes in the teachings of different cultures, specifically First Nations.
The Indigenous ways of learning are through stories and memories. They adjust these stories with the times and audiences they are faced with. Because they don’t write things down, the best way to learn about the Indigenous culture is to go to the community and experience it yourself, or pay a visit to an Elder with a gift in exchange for his/her stories.
Many schools offer First Nation classes and lots of history lectures dig into the First Peoples interactions. Information is not directly from the source, and often not from the perspective of First Nations. This could be called hypocritical as the way the subject matter is being taught is false to the First Nations culture. Although there are schools that have the majority of First Nations, there is a select few that alter their ways to explore the First Nations culture properly.
A school in Saskatoon named “Oskayak (young people) School” brings the First Nations ways to life. Students learn and experience the culture in the way they would if they grew up learning from their families. Much of the language is practiced and multiple teachers there come from First Nations descent. This was an amazing motion brought forward by parents to enable a more culture varied school to teach the First Nations culture, which in turn opened doors for many students.
Everyone should have equal rights to an education and should be able to have a safe and home like place to go to learn. People who want to learn about their culture shouldn’t have to suffer from only European perspectives. The Oskayak School gives young First Nations an opportunity to learn their culture and history first hand. The school is incomparable to how the First Nations peoples first began education in residential schools. It is a long way from perfect, but it is an opportunity this generation of First Nations would have a hard time passing up.
Odelein Journal 6
The area and subject of teaching Indigenous Studies is a very hard topic. Of course, we assume that each school learns and understands the First Nations culture, but I believe to what extent varies completely. In my high school, we learned about the rebellions and colonization, but there was never really a mention of what First Nations culture really is. We are all undereducated in the First Nations study area, as new realities and stories come to light every day.
My history teacher taught us through movies and power points, which seems to be the general way to teach history. Not just notes that are boring, but movies to visualize what happened and to keep us interested. Still to this day, learning anything depends entirely on interests and on your personality. You have to learn the way your teacher teaches which isn’t necessarily how you learn best. Teachers have to adapt their ways of teaching every day to make sure students can understand and are learning properly. In teaching Indigenous Studies, the approach has to be a little different than the average class.
The first teachings of Indigenous Studies were racist and all in the white settler’s perspective. It was thought that teaching had to be fun and light. Things were talked about in a way that was probably offensive and hurtful to many; lots of people were out of their comfort zone. Today we learn reactions and how things were thought of in both cultures.
To me, teaching Indigenous Studies should mean a variety of things. It should cover the history, the culture, and the racism/stereotypes. If I taught a history course I would like to think I would incorporate many methods to help kids understand and relate. A method I would use would be the involvement of nature. Reading about it is effective, but being part of it is even more so. I believe going to historical places, going outside to learn about the earth, and taking part in cultural activities would create a better knowledge. Those who struggle learning from notes would have an alternative this way and everyone would be able to make connections with nature. I would also involve more critical thinking about similarities in one’s own life. What does a dance mean to First Nations and what would something like that mean in your life or what would have a similar meaning? Questions like these would teach kids to relate things to come up with a deeper understanding of their own culture as well as the First Nation’s one. I would hope it would resonate a sense of respect within the children and diminish racism at an early age. These forms of teaching would be introduced to not just my Indigenous Studies class, but also others. I would try alternative paths to introduce topics and incorporate multicultural approaches in my lessons. This would create a wider variety of thinking in the classroom and many approaches to teach, answer questions, and discuss.
Odelein Journal 8
The Truth and Reconciliation Acts of Canada provide us with 94 calls to action. Number 62 briefly states the call for Education reconciliation. It requests that there be “age-appropriate curriculum on residential schools, Treaties, and Aboriginal peoples’ historical and contemporary contributions to Canada” (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2012). To incorporate age appropriate curriculum, you must consider what the previous knowledge is of the children and how to build on that. For Kindergarten students, one would have to start at the basics by first explaining that there is diversity among people in communities. For older students, a teacher would have to aim for an understanding of cultural differences, the history of First Nations and settlers, and how to stop racism. In my high school years, I was taught about the history of Canada, including First Nations and residential schools, but not much depth to Aboriginal people’s culture was provided. I would have liked to learn more about their values and spiritual connections. The lack of learning could have been a result of lack of education, which leads into the second part of the Education reconciliation call to action. Federal, Provincial and Territorial Governments must “Provide the necessary funding to post-secondary institutions to educate teachers on how to integrate Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods into classrooms” (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2012). As I begin my journey to become a teacher, a lot of the Education classes focus on diversity, racisms, and First Nations culture. It is recognized that we must find ways to teach to students of all races, and adequately cover the subject of First Nations in Canada. Today there is much more recognition for teaching lessons about this topic and students like me, who are hoping to one day become teachers do not have a lack of resources and information on teaching First Nations culture. Because diversity in schools is all around us, it is obvious different schools and cultures will have different methods of teaching. This is true for First Nations, as they are much more spiritual in their ways than the Western Views present. Therefore, number 62 also states Aboriginal schools must receive funds to incorporate these different ways of teaching into their schools (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2012). The last section of this call to action is to have high level government positions at prestige levels dedicated to content in education related to Aboriginals (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2012). This means that in the government, there must be people in charge of Aboriginal education, specifically to the content to be taught in all schools across Canada. This will ensure that everyone is educated in the First Nations ways, producing a general knowledge of what happened and how we think about it in today’s world. As a future teacher, I believe this call to action is adequate in that the requests are not absurd or far-fetched. Part of our history relates to First Nations and the struggle today continues which is important to know about. I believe learning about culture diversity is important to our world today, as diversity is everywhere. It is also necessary to know about the roles and wars these diversities represent. In the future I hope to see more learning in different cultural ways. For a non-Aboriginal it is hard to incorporate ways of learning you are not familiar with, but the understanding students will get will be greater if it is taught in the way it would be taught in said culture. Therefore, my main goal as a future teacher is to make sure the first call to action is met in my classrooms. That knowledge of residential schools, Treaties, and the history is not only well known, but understood and fairly represented in my classroom to students.
References
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action. (2012).
A. Miller, personal communication, November 1, 2016
J. McNinch, personal communication, September 27, 2016
Sabrina Odelein 