I am so sorry that you have to be in this situation where you feel push back against doing the right thing. It is so hard to share what is right when people of authority around you do not agree or think it is a joke. In my experience I think the best way you can handle it is by sitting down with your coop teacher and sharing with them why you think it is important and how you plan on teaching it in your classroom and if they have any suggestions that may help to focus the students in your lesson. Here are some things to consider sharing with them.
Treaty Ed is in our curriculum for so many reasons and it is important to understand them, otherwise it is easy to brush over it because it is difficult to teach. Just because it is difficult however does not mean that it is not important. Dwayne Donald shares in his lecture that it is important to teach the past because it is our past, Canadas past. We teach about FNMI people in Canada because they are the people that were here first. In other places in the world they learn about the importance of their ancestors so we should do the same her. As well, part of the importance of history is to learn from the mistakes of what happened in the past so that we do not repeat them. Learning about the treaties and the relationship between the Europeans and FNMI people is important so that we can acknowledge our mistakes. Claire Krueger shares that the teachers have a large impact on how students will perceive things. If teachers emphasize the importance of something, then students will follow. By avoiding teaching this we avoid talking with students about the importance of it. They will go on having these thought for the rest of their lives that Treaty Ed is not important because it was never talked about in school.
The understanding of the curriculum that “we are all treaty people” is that we are all in this together, we share the land now, and that there are two sides. Understanding that we are all in this together helps to put the responsibility more on Europeans and less completely on FNMI people like it always has been. This will help us support them in recovery instead of just telling them what they need to do. It is part of taking some blame for what has happened to FNMI people onto ourselves. We cannot go back in time and change what happened. What is done is done and now we live together on the same land. However, it is our job to respect, acknowledge, and support the land that we took from them. They helped us and now we can help them. Cynthia puts it beautifully when she said, “[i]t is an elegy to what remains to be lost if we refuse to listen to each other’s stories no matter how strange they may sound if we refuse to learn from each other’s stories, songs, and poems from each other’s knowledge about the world and how to make our way in it.” (Chambers). It is our job to learn from them, listen to them, and support them. Because although it is all in the past, we can take time now to learn about what happened to them. Being a treaty people means that both people matter so both should be heard. That is why it is so important to teach Treaty Education in our school systems.
Cyandra,
you gave a really compassionate response, well done! Saying that a teacher’s empathy can be passed to their students is a really big portion of treaty ed, I believe. There is not much for me to critique on this post; if I had to be picky, there were a few missed punctuation marks. But this post really hit the important points. Ending it off with placing the responsibility for treaty ed on everyone is really important in response to this email. Great job!
-Kristin
I absolutely agree! I think laying it out and emphasizing that it is part of the curriculum is necessary to help the other teacher fix their error of not teaching Treaty Education. I think we also support poor teaching practices if we do not confront a teacher like this. Another thing I like is that we show this teacher why it is important because perhaps they never understood fully what it means. I think a very important part of Tready Ed even is just explaining the context of how First Nations were subsumed by the Indian Act. I think it is so important for students to be informed and to know that they are still settlers and by not helping raise up the voices of Indigenous peoples we continue the legacy of colonialism by subjugation rather than communication. We as teachers will shape the image of Canada by how we educate our students. I think teachers need to believe in the value in what they teach as well, so that it is not just lip service paid to the curriculum. I like your overall response and don’t really have anything critical to say about it 🙂
Hi Cyandra! I loved your response this week. You ability to really capture the spirit of Treaty Education in your response is incredible. You make the great point that the responsibility remains with each person to ensure that Treaty Education is respected and taught effectively. Well done, I look forward to reading more of your thoughts next week!