Treaty education is meant to help with reconciliation and decolonization in Canada, we want to provide the perspective of Indigenous peoples. Claire Kreuger refers to it a “settlers ed” when you are teaching a majority of non-indigenous students and in her video she defines it as “Learning the benefits and responsibilities that come with sharing this land, and it is about honoring the long history of this place.” She provided an outline to strive for within a classroom setting beyond the curriculum provided by the government, she also adds that no one will be a perfect treaty education teacher. Both Claire and Dwayne Donald mention that this is not just something that will happen overnight it is going to take time. Dwayne mentioned in his video that is is important to bring together the past, present and future to educate and fully understand, we have to look back to understand where we are heading. They also must learn about the relationships, and for each student to learn about their identity with in those relationships.
For me personally, I had only learned that we are all treaty people in the past two years, as a came to university and left my small town. It was never included in any of my early education, I remember the first time I had ever heard some recognize, the treaty land we were on at the U of R orientation, and I remember thinking to myself why would thing do that? As the year went on I have learned that we are all treaty people, we all live on the land represented in treaties. We also need to understand that there are two sides to treaties, and they do not just pertain to the Indigenous peoples, it applies to all canadians living on land provided to us through treaties. I still do not have a full understanding of what it all means to be a treaty person, but it is important to provide an understanding to students.
Do you believe as a future educator that “Learning the benefits and responsibilities that come with sharing this land, and it is about honoring the long history of this place.”? How will you incorporate this within your own classroom and make sure that each student understands?
Although you have only learned about Indigenous/ Treaty culture within the past two years, do you feel as though it has been enough or do you think that more information is needed? For myself, I learned about Indigenous/Treaty culture from Grade 2 until now and it gets to be over whelming and irritable because of how long I have learned. When we constantly discuss it in it raw form, this becomes more interesting, but when discussed by that of someone who originates from a privileged, white, dominant background, my thoughts on it become negative.