When living on the land that we do, we will always come across First Nations people and their perspectives within our education system, as they are our first people. But, what about in areas of our province where there is no abundant amount of Indigenous students? How do we as educators go about these topics in the right manner?
I myself grew up in a school community, elementary and high school, where I was surrounded by little to no Indigenous students, and Indigenous and Treaty education was always discussed from an outsiders point of view. This has definitely affected the way I view Indigenous education, and how little knowledge I truly have in this subject area. Students in my school did not act in such a way that they were disrespectful towards any notions regarding Treaty education, but they definitely showed their preference towards European history education much more than Treaty education, although I personally found Indigenous education very interesting and important considering the place we live.
When talking about the statement. “We are all treaty people,” we are saying that we all are living here on treaty land, so we all have a part in this agreement. This only further proves that Indigenous education must always be implemented into all of our subject areas, as we must respect the people of the land we reside on and the knowledge they have to offer us.
As future educators we must know how to properly go about teaching treaty education depending on our audience, as this will always be changing.