For seminar this week we were asked to identify ways that reinhabitation and docolonization occur withint the educationa narrative and how we want to adapt the ideas of reinhabitation and decolonization to considering our place as teachers within the classroom.
To respond to the first question, reinhabitation can happen through reintroducing people to nature. This is not only an important aspect within indigenous culture but can be beneficial to the mental health of all students. No matter how you look at it, our essence as beings on this planet comes from nature, we started out there and we’ve learned to mold it to our benefit. Buildings, technology, medicine, these are things were are no doubt better having than not having. What we seem to have forgotten is that what we had before, Nature, social interaction and natural remedies weren’t bad things to have in our lives. Our advancements though have brought us far in some areas, have also taken us backwards in others. Stepping back out into nature, learning to connect with and respect the environment around us I believe to be critical to our personal development, social development and our own survival.
To talk about decolonization is obviously a stressful subject, because along with it comes an admittance of wrong doing. White people have historically taken over other cultures and imposed their will, beliefs and values on others. This creates not only a separation of superiority and inferiority but it can create generational fractures like what happened during the residential schooling period. Many people to this day are still feeling the effects of residential schooling, either through personal experience or familial experience. These people were forced to conform to a society and a mindset that was not their own, and the treatment of students in these school were simply unacceptable. The consequences of these actions gave us people who were broken, addicted, resentful, depressed, unsure of their own culture and identity. That’s why decolonization is so important, because it is a step towards mending the damage done, and school is the perfect place to do this. Curriculum can allow teachers to approach colonization in a way that can make students uncomfortable, though not an easy thing to do, this is effective in teaching kids what is right and wrong, and that a person’s culture is something that is to be respected.
Physical education being my domain of choice in education is a perfect subject to tackle these ideas through cross-curricular content, sports, games, and teaching for personal and social responsibility (TPSR). TPSR being Don Hellison’s idea is one of my favorite educational methods because at it’s core it changes physical education (or any subject for that matter), into a process that demands that students learn to respect themselves, in terms of their beliefs and points of view while also realizing that they can have a social impact on the people around them through both their words and actions. This means that students need to be aware and act in ways that are respectful not only to themselves but also do no infringe on the beliefs of others. The biggest component of this is building trust and relationships. If we can learn to trust one another and build a relationship with someone, we then become more open to their own point of view and to come to better terms with it, even if it doesn’t match our own. One exceptional way to build relationship and trust is through physical activity and sports. Nothing like some teamwork to make us all fit better together. In terms of cross-curricular activity I think it’s also important to remember that the games and sports played in physical education don’t need to just been your standard sport or game. Things such as history and social studies in terms of colonial relations can be made into a game. Ideas from science and how animal ecosystems function can also be made into a game. Language an literacy can be turned into scavenger hunts or a time rally. Why not then integrate things important to indigenous culture into games like these to make for a more impactful lesson.
In summary, decolonization and reinhabitation are crucial learnings for students, regardless of background. Sometimes the learning that need to strive for isn’t what we are well versed in or what what feels the most comfortable to teach. Learning is a process that develops people’s identity and it should be a foremost objective for teachers to give students and understanding of cultural differences, respect of other cultures, relationship building, and ownership of misdoing. It is then important for myself as teacher to also realize that I have my own biases as well. So just like Michael, I’ll out myself. I have had racist thoughts before, despite my desire to be a welcoming person. I have biases, many of which I’m aware of and others I have not even realized. I hope to be able to tackle these issues in a positive way so that I can become a better role model for the students who I will one day teach.
Jean, you bring up a great point about how as settlers we have molded the environment to suit our way of life. I had never thought about it this way before. I also appreciated the reminder when you stated that in essence as beings we come from nature and in the end we return to nature. Even though we come from a different culture as the Indigenous people described in this research, the commonality is that when we die, we bury the deceased, which returns us back to nature. There is obviously symbolism behind it for Europeans, but I just don’t know what it is. Do you?