Week 9- Treaty Education

Treaty Education is a topic that is still till this day looked at as very conflicted. Not only is Treaty Ed becoming mandatory to be taught within the curriculum, many teachers have these views as if it’s “not important”. In response to the email that was shown, I’d argue how crucial treaty education is becoming and how it’s now mandatory for teachers to be teaching these outcomes to all students with diverse backgrounds. I’d encourage this intern to reflect on their own self and where they stand on the land in which they’re teaching. Whether someone is indigenous or not, it’s the teachers role to educate these students on different perspectives and worldviews considering these students will end up becoming the leaders and providers in the future. As Claire stated in her presentation, she addressed the concern coming from her own children and how they just want their classmates to understand what it means to be indigenous, and to not have the colour of their own skin be a barrier for their success. Overall this idea of fairness should be a no-brainer especially for teachers, and in order to make an effort to show what fairness looks like we need to stop making racism and colonialism our underlying curriculum. 

 

The term “we are all treaty people” I believe is reflected through the education which is being taught. I feel like many people struggle to understand this concept without realising how we are all settlers on this land. This idea of how we are all treaty people can be easily integrated and explored through many different projects where students dive deeper and do their own research on what being treaty people means to them and how that may look. I personally believe that although yes it’s so important for educators to be teaching these topics and exploring treaty education, I wouldn’t narrow these topics down to my own knowledge. I think having students learn and increase their knowledge through outside sources, or elders becomes so beneficial considering there’s a ton of information that needs to be explored. Having different views can provide major growth for students in terms of what is being taught and one way I witness that being shown within today’s schools is through dedicated days such as orange shirt day, where stories and truth are being shared.