- 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