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Indigenous Issue: Education in Indigenous Communities, Screen Shot 2024-02…
Indigenous Issue: Education in Indigenous Communities
Nature as the Classroom
Experiential Learning
Supports the First Nations Principles of Learning, especially learning from the land and developing one self through connections with one's land and self.
Constructivism & problem-based learning - Through experiential learning, gain knowledge and possibly develop answers to real life problems. Additionally, participants use their own knowledge to build on and expand, and quite possibly change.
History
Elders - did and still do play an instrumental role
Experimental Learning was the classroom - Learning in the past was onsite 24/7 365
Residential Schools
Put in place to 'take the Indian out of the child'
Education at schools was against the wills of children and families
Abuse in many forms
Any First Nations way of life, teaching and learning was considered wrong. Shame was felt.
Caused trauma across generations
It is incredibly important to listen and to understand the impact of generations caused by the residential schools.
Listening and Learning
Community Members
Knowledge sharers/keepers
Indigenous peoples who hold knowledge and wish to share. They are key to passing along information, traditions, and are the best resource.
Non-Indigenous
Non-indigenous community members, play an important role in education within indigenous communities. Becoming allies learning from indigenous peoples (The Globe and Mail, 2024)
Indigenous
Those that wish to learn Indigenous ways or share their stories and/or knowledge.
Elders
Knowledge share/keepers
Elders, in many Indigenous communities, are the 'go to' for information. Traditionally, elders passed on information, ideas, stories, and many ways of doing. They are the keepers and shares of knowledge, and highly respected (UBC MET, 2023).
Safety
Critical to create a safe and supportive space for all to share and celebrate stories and ideas. Reliving some stories can be very traumatic. However, these stories are important to share and pass along (Zhang, 2021). Without a sense of safety, there can be no education.
Collaboration
According to the First Nations Principles of Learning - Learning is deeply relational, therefore collaborating is way to connect and form reciprocal relationships
Sense of Belonging/Identity
For too long, Indigenous people and communities were stripped from their identity (UBC MET, 2023), finding a sense of belonging is key to education within indigenous communities, and any community for that matter.
Accessibility
Digital
Ted Talks
TedTalks allow for accessibility to a greater audience, both indigenous and non. Additionally it recognizes that importance of Indigenous knowledge being passed on through storytelling.
DST (digital story telling) supports the traditional act of storytelling, while also including modern digital skills
A interesting perspective that warns not all Indigenous groups favour the idea of digitizing. Found
here
Community
Community centres
Friendship Centres
- A place for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to come together, to share traditions, and to learn from one another
Schools
New(er) programming of Forest Schools are integrated into the daily curriculum offer Indigenous principles to learning.
School libraries are setting out to include more books by Indigenous peoples
Further Education - In Ottawa we have
Mādahòkì
farm. Their mission is of sharing the land, stories and food from an Indigenous perspective to our community.
Libraries
Libraries offer an accessible way for the community both through their meeting spaces and their digital archives.
An example of a library with a variety of Indigenous resources
.
Note that although there are places and spaces for non indigenous and Indigenous peoples to access materials and share their stories, there is still far too few. We have come a long way and we have a long way to go. Therefore, the resources here are examples of those that are moving in the right direction.
Reciprocity and Respect
This is a term/idea/way of life that is found in most Indigenous cultures. It is a common thread that weaves through actions, words, how one treats not only themself, but others (MET UBC, 2023).
Two Eyed Seeing - Both Western and Indigenous ways of life are important to understand and respect (FNESC, 2024).
An Understanding/An Education
Teachers (and school districts) with Indigenous students have the opportunity and responsibility to provide transformative change. Not only with Indigenous students, but in the entire student body and the families of the student body. Then effects of understanding and education reach above and beyond the school community. It is a ripple effect (ictinc, 2015).
Find more about key practices in supporting indigenous students
here
.
More tips for educators
here
, highlighting multimodal learning and the support of elders.
Understanding the history
Maker Ideas: Education in Indigenous Communities
To promote, celebrate, and honour Indigenous ways, specifically Indigenous ways of learning
Storytelling: a key part in many Indigenous cultures.
Maker Idea #1: Giving life back to lost artifacts. Read the article
here
and
here
. Choose an artifact to give a story to (you might look
here
). Through choice of no, low or high tech. You might represent the artifact with an art piece, a poem, an interpretive dance, or a monologue or any other mean. Next, using the First People's Principles of Learning, share the importance story telling and history.
Maker Idea #2: DST (Digital Story Telling) - Choose an Indigenous story read aloud (
ideas found here
) - Next, choose a a format to share this story digitally. For example, you might create a simple video of it being read aloud. Or you might dig deeper and create a VR in order for participants to have an immersive experience in the story.
When possible, Elders and/or Indigenous community members are best to be consulted and involved. Schools might also use Indigenous representatives at their school for guidance too.
Rationale: To honour Indigenous stories through storytelling and have them reach a greater audience
Rationale: To honour and storytell artifacts that were stolen and to bring greater awareness to Indigenous ways
References
Branigan-Pipe, Z. (2017). A holistic approach design project: A practical guide for educators merging 20th-century pedagogy with 21st-century practices. Retrieved from
https://dr.library.brocku.ca/bitstream/handle/10464/12972/Makerspace%20Resource.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
First Nations Education Steering Committee. (2020, October 13). First Peoples principles of learning. FNESC.
http://www.fnesc.ca/first-peoples-principles-of-learning/
FNESC. (February 20, 2024). First Nations Steering Committee.
https://www.fnesc.ca
Levy, D.(2021). Decolonizing pandemic programs: Sharing Indigenous-led traditional knowledge in the library makerspace. British Columbia Library Association.
https://bclaconnect.ca/perspectives/2021/12/20/decolonizing-pandemic-programs
sharing-indigenous-led-traditional-knowledge-in-the-library-makerspace/
UBC MET (Dec. 1, 2023). Transformational Practices Through an Indigenous Lens. Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5BVViCQ6lw
Zhang, H. (2021). Self-representation and decolonial learning in library makerspaces: Indigenous digital storytelling. Pathfinder: A Canadian Journal for Information Science Students and Early Career Professionals, 2(2), 53-69.
https://doi.org/10.29173/pathfinder33
