Treaty Education – November 23

           There is always a purpose and a place for teaching treaty education in the classroom. No matter how many FNMI students are in your classroom, every student should learn about treaty education. As teachers, we need to educate ourselves on anything that has to do with treaty education or indigenous history in general. We need to know when is the right time to incorporate it into a teaching lesson, not throw the whole history at them in one lesson. Claire touches on that because there may only be a few indigenous students in the classroom, it is more important to teach about it. There is still tons of racism towards FNMI students and even adults; we need to teach or non-FNMI students that it is not right, and they are the same as everyone else. Claire also mentions how “the problem we have isn’t an Indian problem; it’s a white problem. The focus needs to be on our non-indigenous students and the racism that we have gotten so good at teaching them.” Growing up, I’ve noticed a lot of racism coming from my grandparents about indigenous people because that’s how they were taught to think. Not everyone will understand treaty education as it can be more challenging for some people, but it is our job to help people understand as best as they can. The phrase “We are all treaty people” comes from us learning about it in school and acknowledging that we all live on indigenous land, treaty territory. Treaties are a big part of Canadian history and always will be taught in school. As non-indigenous people, we need to be there for our indigenous students and non-students. We need to listen to them and help them share their history.