The treaties are at the heart of Canadian identity. Treaty Education is important and can be related to any area of subject matter in teaching. It is not just for Indigenous students! The treaties have created the country that we live in and know today as Canada. They have created the social hierarchies and injustices that still persist to this day as well as the racist and colonial views of seeing indigenous peoples as ‘other’ and less than. Everyone who lives in Canada is a treaty person, we are all living in conditions created by these treaties and the cultural genocide and exploitation that followed. To simply ignore this past or deny it, is to do as many of our ancestors did, and it allows the negative perceptions of indigenous peoples and the injustices towards them to continue to persist. When we address these issues, we not only teach our students, but we teach their parents and their families as well; students go home and talk about what they learned that day and they can broaden their parents understanding as well. It is important to be transparent with parents, especially those who did not receive Treaty Education, and to encourage them to engage in these meaningful conversations at home as well.
The fact that it is being resisted by students, parents, and some teachers in schools makes it even more important to teach. Many emigrants to Canada had a “blindness to a past not their own” which lead to years of misunderstandings, prejudice, and discrimination against the Indigenous people of Canada (Chambers 25). Through colonial expansion of Empires such as Britain, there was a focus on capitalism and expansion of wealth and exploitation of resources in colonies. There emerged this idea, still persistent today, that Indigenous peoples are unproductive, “without the brains, industry, or culture to realize what they [have]” because they were not using these natural resources to their own benefit to accumulate wealth (Chambers 28).
Colonialism is “an extended process of denying relationship, whether it be with the places where we live, or our head and our heart, people who are different from us. Everyone has been colonized… it doesn’t matter where you are from” (Donald, 2010). If we want to teach our students to be inclusive, understanding, and to help them to continue to try to mend the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, we have to practice the same thing. We need to be very attentive to the dynamics that are there (in society, in the classroom, at home, etc.), our prejudices, the prejudices society has, and how to address them, deconstructing our shared past and acknowledging that the past and present are closely tied to one another. It is important to show the relationship between the past, present, and future. They are all interrelated and we need to examine the effect that our past has had on the present and how it can be used to change the future. Simply giving a timeline of the residential school history will not repair relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.
We can think of ways to honour the treaties today, to renew and rebuild relationships with Indigenous peoples. You can never teach it perfectly, especially if you have not lived through the experiences you are talking about (treaty negotiations, residential schools), but you can continue to be open to learning more, bringing in people who have first-hand knowledge of the history as well as people who can bring in different types of learning to the classroom. Acknowledging that we will never teach it perfectly allows us to expand our knowledge and teaching strategies, and to continue to improve. Some of the things you could start with include: acknowledging the treaty territory that you are in; providing visuals of treaty territory on Canadian maps; acknowledging how you identify and the role your ancestors played; taking the time to learn local Indigenous languages (and using them in the classroom); bringing Elders into the classroom; creating opportunities for students to learn from Elders outside of the classroom; and acknowledging that you are not perfect (and you are continuously working to expand your knowledge and understanding as well).
Treaty Education is always relevant and important, because the mentalities behind things like residential schools, the pass system, and the Indian Act still persist today. Owning this history allows us to work towards Reconciliation, repairing these relationships and (hopefully) improving the future. Education is a tool to change the world, and as teachers, we have a responsibility to talk about difficult subjects (especially when they are resisted by many), helping our students to better understand who they are (their place in the world and their relationship to the land they are living on) and how they relate to other people, rather than sweeping them under the rug and exacerbating the problems.
This post is written in response to an email written by an intern, detailing her struggles with teaching about Indigenous history and Treaty Education. I will paste a copy of it below as well as the links to the resources and articles I used to formulate my response.
As part of my classes for my three week block I have picked up a Social Studies 30 course. This past week we have been discussing the concept of standard of living and looking at the different standards across Canada . I tried to introduce this concept from the perspective of the First Nations people of Canada and my class was very confused about the topic and in many cases made some racist remarks. I have tried to reintroduce the concept but they continue to treat it as a joke.
The teachers at this school are very lax on the topic of Treaty Education as well as First Nations ways of knowing. I have asked my Coop for advice on Treaty Education and she told me that she does not see the purpose of teaching it at this school because there are no First Nations students. I was wondering if you would have any ideas of how to approach this topic with my class or if you would have any resources to recommend.
Resources:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RpFQAVShNlNLA9u6aXv7udGnzTGk5LNN/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bxm_ZQFO_bQ1rHYWmXFmxrs5my9gUWQE/view?usp=sharing