Month: February 2020

I could not access the student’s email it said I didn’t have permission, so I will instead answer the prompts

• What is the purpose of teaching Treaty Ed (specifically) or First Nations, Metis, and Inuit (FNMI) Content and Perspectives (generally) where there are few or no First Nations, Metis, Inuit peoples?

I feel there are two major reasons to have treaty education be taught even if there aren’t many people of that culture. the first reason is to eliminate some of the misconceptions and stereotypes that first nations people have, such as getting everything free, not having to pay taxes etc. while some of these things are truly many people don’t understand the full extent in which they apply. And some people don’t even know why the treaties were created in the first place, so having a better knowledge of our shared history will only benefit us as a people in the future. secondly, even if there is a small amount of the people living in the society they still have the right to learn about their history, benefits and even trauma that the treaties have given. A first nation’s person who is educated on what happened to their ancestors and how they can live with the treaties will not only be a benefit for themselves but for all, a more happy and educated society will benefit any community.

What does it mean for your understanding of the curriculum that “We are all treaty people”?

When I was growing up learning about treaties and how the land we are on was taken by miscommunication and lies that the Canadian government strategized to take the land diplomatically, I did not care at the time since it wasn’t affecting me. but then I realized how it affected my friends. many of them told me about having to go to the reserve on a regular basis or else they would lose their property on that land, or if they wanted to buy a major purchase they needed to get shipped to the reserve land or they won’t get tax-exempt. these things again never affected me. now it affects me more, if I were to have a child with my partner they would not have Indian status since my partner is a 6(2) “Indian” my child would not get dental coverage, education, tax exemption, right to hunt, etc so the saying “we are all treaty people could not be truer. Even if you feel like it doesn’t affect you now, it might one day.
The treaty was made between the first nations people, and the newcomers. today these treaties are still between the first nations people and those “newcomers” have become the government and the people who live here. So the treaties affect everyone; we are all treaty people.

Part 1)

What I understood from the reading is that changing and creating the curriculum is a complex task. It has a mix of educated people and uneducated people to create the curriculum, they often look at how to teach life skills to help the next generation take over running the country. A large portion of the decision making comes from political leaders and those who have the most power. With their power, they have the influence to quickly change the curriculum. in ways that they feel fitting, this often leads to personal bias which leads to uneducated decisions being made. There is also the influence of communities, sometimes they form groups to express their thoughts and concerns to the government or simply having communication with schools that their children are enrolled.
I never really thought that the community had a say in how education is done but it does make sense and is reasonable for a government to listen to community feedback.

the only big concern is the implementation of uneducated opinion, this is a slippery slope to not having sex education, less lgbtq2+ representation etc. I feel we need to get our personal opinions and bias out of the picture but it will happen no matter what.

Part 2)

I personally feel like the implementation of treaty education is doing very well currently in Canada. So far every class that I have had in the university of Regina has talked about the history of the first nations people or acknowledged the land that they are on. aside from that growing up my elementary school and high school often bring in elders, had environment walks, did projects such as beading and setting up Teepees. Ironically I am displaying my own personal bias saying that the treaty education is being done well, even though it was luckily done well for me, but it may not be good in other schools across the country. I know that from my First nations friends in highschool felt they were being portrayed in a harsh light, constantly making them sound like a weak and defeated people who are still trying to get back on their feet. he felt the way that it was being taught was almost causing more harm than good since it was giving people notions of their culture based on history and not what is happening now.

• List some of the ways that you see rehabilitation and decolonization happening throughout the narrative.

The main idea that I took away was the importance of community engagement having guest speakers and elders come in to talk and share information about indigenous history and culture can be a nice change of pace for the students while giving them a new perspective of the culture
they also talked about a river trip, which sounded like a very nice and interactive way to teach the students as they state ” Learning from land and place beyond institutional walls is a return to traditional Mushkegowuk modes of teaching and learning.”
going on the trip helps students build a strong understanding of the environment, spirituality, and build teamwork skills with everyone else who partook in the trip. I feel that any kind of action that goes against the norm in favour of indigenous ways of knowing helps with the decolonization process. I have always felt that decolonization will really show when we affect the student’s minds, show them the errors of the Canadian government and how those errors have affected the first nations people for generations. If we develop our students to have a better knowledge of history and how trauma can be felt through generations than hopefully, we can start to erase some of the racist ideas and foundations that we have built upon to start letting more ways of knowing into the school and out communities

• How might you adapt these ideas towards considering the place in your own subject areas and teaching?

I personally enjoy being in nature, and as a student, I loved it when my class would go outside. so for me anytime there is an opportunity to teach a lesson in a way to get student outside I feel is a good thing to do. creating lessons that have teamwork and outdoor activities give the students time outdoors which many kids nowadays do not get. some lessons I remember doing was research on clouds for science. in a group of three, we studied the different types of clouds and what they mean for predicting the weather. and to this day I remember that Nimbostratus and Cumulonimbus are clouds that release rain. outdoor activities I feel are very memorable. It can be difficult to find ways to have subjects involve nature so that is when its good to simply take group walks as a class to a nearby park or even have a subject be worked on outside. (practivce math problems in groups on the playground