Through my education math was always a subject I had better at. Through all of elementary I was not very challenged and understood it well. Through high school most of it came pretty naturally to me. In university it hit me like a truck but to be expected. In most of my experiences I have known a lot of people who happened to struggle. With math being mostly memorizing rules it just wasn’t always a good way to remember, especially if math wasn’t your thing. The main thing I think that really didn’t help was that most teachers teaching math wouldn’t teach or try to teach or word math in more then one way. When they would help someone they would just repeat the same thing which didn’t do anyone any favors.

Through Inuit ways of teaching math, they take a different approach then what we are used to. Firstly, they do it by 20’s as a main stepping stone instead of 10’s like we use. Secondly, they attach it more to the environment and the world around. Lastly, they also do math very orally compared to writing it down and memorizing it by writing it down (Poirier, 2007)

Multilingualism in Canada has become a more and more common thing as we have people with all different backgrounds more than ever before. In this student in the classroom are also bringing more language and culture to the class. This is where English Additional Language shows. The use of this terminology is a lot more accepting to the students as it shows their understanding of multiple languages as a strength and not a damper on their knowledge.

Some teachers have even included a portion of class daily where an EAL student can teach their fellow classmates and teacher a word from their first language. This is beneficial as it opens up vocabulary and teaches the student that it is helpful to poses multiple languages (Cummins, 2019).

There are many other avenues to implement multi lingual ways into education and more ideas come as it is becoming more of the norm and accepted. These help the EAL students, their classmates, and improve grades and writing across classes.

References:

Cummins, by: D. J., by: Dr. Shelly Russell-Mayhew, K. M., by: Miriam Miller, D. D. B., & Hagerman, by: D. M. S. (2019, February 26). How can teachers maximize engagement among multilingual students? EdCan Network. Retrieved March 24, 2023, from https://www.edcan.ca/articles/multilingual-students/

Some starts to the systems we use to teach is our own curriculum and textbooks do not go into depth if even mention anything to do with queer and trans people. A big step in the right direction would be working towards mentioning these in class and teaching despite what the curriculum outlines. These can be worked into a handful of classes to build knowledge for students and introduce it to them from a young age. This can help in some cases where students can know about it from an educational standpoint which may lead to them not being taught by someone who may be homophobic/transphobic and cause the student to not learn for themselves and continue the viscous cycle. 

We can also fight for more queer and trans representation in the curriculum so that it can be taught more so, and has to be. This can also grow knowledge and awareness for teachers who may be undereducated on the topics and can learn for themselves before teaching in their classrooms. To push this not through curriculum and teaching we can also address students differently. We can use inclusive language like “students” or “class” or a whole variety of other words instead of “boys and girls”. 

A large part of why teachers may be afraid to teach these is due to backlash from students, parents or possibly even colleagues. Being able to teach about this is protected and allowed under human rights, however. This can also be used to educate students on their human rights as, at least from my personal experience, something that you’d think would be common knowledge such as human rights are not something taught or even talked about (Saskatchewan Ministry of Education p.4).

Hello, (Whoever this ma concern)

Treaty education is a crucial tool we must use in the Canadian education system. Regardless the population of Indigenous students at the school may be it is important we teach all students about the cause of trauma and the injustices done to indigenous peoples since the land was colonized. Teaching students in a school with less indigenous culture may actually be more important to the students then the opposite. In these cases, students have less natural exposure to the history and hardships given throughout time. There also tends to be that incentive of relevancy when it’s just as if not more relevant to teach in these situations. It also can give a better perspective as these students may also have not learned in their younger years as their classes were likely similar in culture where they had close to none if no indigenous representation in their education careers.

Part of treaty education that is crucial to teach is that we are treaty people. You may hear it a lot and think it’s some corny saying. That couldn’t be further from the truth when you are able to have proper education in the treaty ed. We are all treaty people and it is all our responsibility to make sure everyone we live with and share the land with is able to live their lives fairly and sustainably. We can say this, however it is not a reality yet as many people living on reservations don’t even have access to clean water. There is also racism still happening daily everywhere. In some forms it is used as humor even by students. This behavior isn’t condoned and learning about trey ed and why we are all treaty people helps us to understand why these behaviors should not be tolerated and why they should be called out, and how they only harm the community.

Sincerely, Brodi

Cultural relevancy in a classroom is more and more important as we move forwards in education. It is important to keep teaching and learnings to be open and culturally appropriate. Making the classroom a more open place of learning gives students a place of belonging, and further can educate other students who may not have been able to have access to such education and learnings other than in the classroom. In doing this there also has to be the respect to keep any teaching educated and respectful and not to make it offensive or share misinformation. This can also be tailored into many classes through English to science in some respects.

In elementary education, in respect to music education, there is more to music than just playing instruments and belting music. There has to be a relevancy to other classes, the world around them and possibly even in making a sense of place making it more culturally diverse than just western music. There are many ways you can do this by introducing instruments, the history and relevancy of them. You can incorporate dance into the music as well, just keep in mind if it’s going to be cultural you should make sure beforehand that it’s respectful and if possible, get someone from the culture to properly teach and inform the students of the dance in hand with the music. Music education in elementary can be very diverse and help teach students many different topics through many avenues as it is a diverse topic.