Tag Archives: First Nations

Module 4 – Post 1:Best Practices in Aboriginal Community Development

Best Practices in Aboriginal Community Development: A Literature Review and Wise Practices Approach is a report developed in 2010 by Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux and Brian Calliou with the aim of providing newly-elected or appointed Aboriginal leaders with an overview of best practices for community building, management, administration, and governance. The report highlights how, in recent times, Aboriginal leaders are experiencing increasing authority and responsibility as both federal and provincial governments make jurisdictional space for Aboriginal self-governance. The report offers some interesting insights on Aboriginal leadership development and capacity building, and emphasizes their critical necessity for true self-government and economic viability.

Module 4.5 Four Directions Teachings

This is an interactive website which includes five First Nations across Canada: Blackfoot, Cree, Ojibwe, Mohawk and Mi’kmaq. You are able to listen to elders or traditional teachers as they share stories from their perspective about their cultural traditions and values. I really liked that downloadable transcripts are available for teachers and students as well as a teacher’s resource guide full of activities, photographs and audio narrations. A valuable, user-friendly resource for teachers and students!

http://www.fourdirectionsteachings.com/transcripts.html

Module 4 Post 2

Aboriginal Women & Traditional Healing: An Issue Paper

My previous post shared the Canadian Cancer Society’s thoughts on Traditional Healing and I interpreted from their findings a need for further research on evidence supporting traditional medicine. This next paper calls for the same, asking that in hopes of encouraging use of traditional healing in Aboriginal communities, that researchers focus on evaluating different methods of healing, and share when these methods do work. Furthermore, they ask that researchers look at the use of traditional methods in tandem with Western methods, in the hopes that they will provide relief for conditions, help to improve the position of women (traditionally healers) in Aboriginal society, and help to motivate Canadian physicians to avoid dismissing useful methods.

Module 3 | Post 5 Culturally responsive education

This is a resource prepared by the University of North Carolina and provides an overview of the issues and challenges that exist for teachers and the introduction of culturally responsive education content into their curriculum. It talks about rethinking teacher education pedagogy and provides guidelines for developing culturally responsive teacher education pedagogy. http://www.nccrest.org/Briefs/Teacher_Ed_Brief.pdf

For a comparison and more local resource, here is the Assembly of First Nations Education, Jurisdiction, and Governance paper on culturally responsive education and its impact on the academic achievement of First Nation students.

http://www.afn.ca/uploads/files/education/soul-of-sovreignty.pdf

Module 3.4 – CIHR Institutes of Aboriginal People’s Health

The Canadian Institutes for Health Research have an institute dedicated to Aboriginal Health. I was interested in this initiative specifically because it is run by a self-identified First Nation member scientist, and focuses on funding and organizing research related to Aboriginal issues. Also important, they emphasize traditional aspects of wellness (a holistic approach supported by the medicine wheel) and are interested in investigating meaningful reasons and interventions to increase Indigenous lifespan in Canada.

I think that dedicated funding and a commitment to funding Indigenous researchers is a first step to encouraging medical students and researchers to pursue their interests in Indigenous medicine.

Module 3.3 – Canadian Medical Schools and “Affirmative Action”

Affirmative Action is a buzzword in the United States. US Universities and Colleges frequently use applicant demographics to select students for admission, including increasing the percentages of ethnicity diverse students admitted, sometimes with slightly lower scores than other applicants. The intent of such a program is to increase minority representation at institutions of higher learning and to, ideally, decrease negative outcomes experienced more frequently by minority groups, primarily underemployment and poverty.

McGill University’s medical school is an example of such a policy put in place in Canada. I know that at UBC we have created a distributed medical program which puts our students into clerkships in smaller communities across the province in the hopes that they pull put down roots in these more disparate regions and thus help to resolve a doctor shortage. I’d hope that in addition to admitting more Indigenous students that universities are making more efforts to have, for example, Inuit doctors train in Inuit communities with the resources that are available there.

Module 3.2 – Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre

I have chosen to focus my research on the use or lack of Aboriginal pedagogies in higher education (specifically undergraduate medical education) in Canada, but I am interested in examining the landscape for use of Aboriginal pedagogies in education, full stop. My first graduate degree focused on health information provided to Manitoba First Nation communities, and to Inuit communities in the Circumpolar Health Region (which is served by Manitoba Health and the University of Manitoba) and I used to work with Manitoba Health to support Northern Medical Officers of Health, so I have a more substantial familiarity with the Manitoban landscape.

I was interested to learn of the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre which provides “second and third level education services” to first nation schools. I think this site and the resources shared there could be a great resource for any teacher hoping to integrate more content on First Nation, Aboriginal, Metis, Inuit or other Indigenous content into their courses, because it was created by FN instructors in conjunction with FN groups. This resource fills a gap that many of us recognize in the education sector.

Module 3.1 – Intercontinental Cry

Intercontinental Cry is a magazine/web journal that serves to “amplify the voices and strengthen the efforts of Indigenous Peoples around the world” due to the significant lack of representation of Indigenous people in news media.

What I was particularly interested in at this point was the fact that this website is very focused on using Indigenous writers to speak on their own experiences. Much of the academic literature on Canadian First Nations, Aboriginal, Inuit, and Metis populations is written by white researchers, probably due to their familiarity with the publication cycle and their access to services that help them to gain publication. Fortunately a resource like IC helps authors with potentially less access to traditional streams of publication to have their voices heard, amplified, and shared with the world via the internet.

I think this could be a useful resource particularly at the high school level, for students to read and reflect on the impact of Indigenous voices on the Web.

Module 2, Post 4 – Enthobotany

Ethnobotany

I was very interested in the Nancy Turner video. I was not too aware of the field of ethnobotany before but it sounds fascinating.

This document is a catalogue of plants native to the prairies. It describes the plants and also explains how the First Nations traditionally used them.
http://www.galtmuseum.com/pdf/NativePrairiePlantsGarden-Ethnobotany.pdf

This website talks about a project at the Montreal Biodome where the “living landscape” of the 11 First Nations groups of Quebec. It is part educational in nature and part research with scientists looking at traditional remedies for health problems.
http://www.nccah-ccnsa.ca/302/Traditional_Plant_Knowledge.nccah#1

Catherine