Question: 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? What does it mean for your understanding of curriculum that “We are all treaty people”?
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?
There is a huge exclusion of Treaty Education within classrooms, especially if there are no physical features that inform a teacher of a student who has an FNMI background. Treaty Education is quite literally Canadian History. FNMI people’s cultures and lifestyle choices are what helped Canada expand so quickly, as well as helped our nation become multi-cultural in the first place. The expression multi-cultural does not mean only physical features, and I believe that a lot of teachers forget that. FNMI students do not have to look First Nations, Metis or Inuit in order to have FNMI backgrounds. Some students may look “normal” in the eyes of others. They may be blonde with blue eyes, or maybe a redhead with green eyes and both be considered white, yet their grandmother or great grandmother may be of FNMI ancestry. And yet, the student may be looked at by the teacher(s) and not be considered a part of the FNMI culture solely based on the student’s physical attributes. We as teachers and new teachers need to understand that nowadays you cannot look at a student(s) and instantly notice FNMI heritage.
What does it mean for your understanding of curriculum that “We are all treaty people”?
To me, the phrase “We are all treaty people” means that everyone comes from the same land. The land that FNMI people gave to us to survive, and shared their resources with us to obtain a livable environment for many generations to come. The statement above claims that everyone whether they are not FNMI background, do have an FNMI understanding, and that understanding is that the FNMI peoples are what began our beautiful country, and we were able to build and use their land to create our own stable living situations, with proper food and water, and shelters, all because of our FNMI ancestry.
Hi Savannah,
I think your post is so great. I totally agree that to be treat people means that we come from the land I wrote the same thing in my post. I thought you post was very insightful and gave me a totally different out look on some of the topic