Category Archives: MODULE 1

Module 1 – Post 3 – Elvio Castelli – First Mile

http://firstmile.ca/#home

This website provides a place for Indigenous communities from across Canada to learn from each other in developing their own ICTs and broadband to provide services to their communities. The site has a vast archive of articles and discussions about treaty rights, infrastructure, e-justice, e-learning and many more categories. The researcher can search by category or geographic area to narrow down their search. Further, First Mile provides a bibliography linking to many other informative websites. I think First Mile can provide insight into the goals and struggles of communities creating their own ICTs and broadband. 

 

Module 1 – Post 2 – Elvio Castelli – Wapikonia

https://evenementswapikoni.ca/vision

I found this website from Haley Lewis’ article. Wapikoni is a great resource for educators. They have collaborated with UNESCO to create a pedagogical guide for educators. I thought this was a great resource to share because they provide teaching material related to Canada’s Indigenous cultures. Further, the website provides a vast collection of videos and biographies of Indigenous peoples from throughout Canada and details their initiatives. I hope to learn valuable information from these initiatives that I can apply to my research assignment.  

 

Module 1 Post 5

Module 1 Post 5
My fifth and final Module 1 post is both a reflexion and a question.
Personal Reflexion: 
First, the term ‘reflexion,’ which is essentially reflection in action, not on action after the fact (Schon) Mentioned in Lewin, Piaget, Schon and Gibbs’ Cycle of Reflection, concepts differentiating reflection and reflexion are provided Reflexivity: Reflective vs Reflexive; Reflection vs Reflexion – YouTube. 
This is a cyclical type of approach to learning, in line with Indigenous Education. Interestingly, it also appears on the Indigenous Principles of Learning indicating a cyclical type of approach to learning, in line with Indigenous Education. Essentially it is the idea of being to manifest new behavior in the moment of action rather than retrospectively. I feel I have been in a state of reflexion compiling these resources and understanding the opinion of Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators because I wonder: am I allowed to do this? Am I appropriating? Am I a wannabe? There seems to be a mixed consensus on how much that I, as a WEIRD WASP settler-scholar-educator, am able to know and use. As a personal anecdote, I was admonished by a group of colleagues when suggesting using an Indigenous cultural practice in an EDIDA presentation for another course. I was embarrassed and confused. Since I wish to continue to respect hermetic learning systems and ways of knowing, and since I hope to focus on this topic for my final project, I am asking for feedback on this issue.
Question:
How can a Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic White Anglo Saxon Protestant (well, Muslim married to Palestinian, but that is another story, another post…) settler-scholar-educator respectfully integrate Indigenous ways of knowing into ESL Tertiary curriculum for international students newly arrived in Canada?

Module 1 Post 4

Module 1 Post 4
My fourth post for module 1 blog should have been my first post. It should be all our first everythings, after a proper land acknowledgement. In this post, I would like to talk about The First Nationals Principles of Learning: First Peoples Principles of Learning – First Nations Education Steering Committee FNESC (**Interestingly, note the use of reflexive and reflective on this statement. How would they differ in this context?)
Again, from an ESL and Canadian Newcomer’s perspective, this is an invaluable tool maximizing the use of culture, language and digital technology in the form of an infographic to communicate Indigenous education requirements and standards. For international people coming to Canada, it also provides them with a sense of empathy for and similarities with linguicide and cultural assimilation. While the West has desecrated many cultures and environments, I know that the genocide done on this land to Indigenous Peoples is incomparable. This poster should be on every course outline. This poster should be printed at the entrance to every school. This poster should be memorized and internalized. But there are a lot of ‘shoulds’ in that sentence that have no legs without agency. I want to give this poster the ‘legs’ of my international students.
However, as a coloniser-settler-academic-teacher who has returned to Canada after 20 years overseas, much has changed in this true north strong and free. The major challenge I am having at the moment, and what has thus far surfaced from writing these blogs and exploring texts, is how can I be an ally without being framed as a WannaBe? What am I allowed to and not allowed to do and teach and say? And as a result, how much can I support Indigeneity on these lands to my international students similarly struggling with identity issues?

Module 1 Post 3

Module 1 Post 3
In my third blog post for module 1, it gets personal.
I was drawn to the story “Fatty Legs” by Christy-Jordan Fenton. Christy-Jordan Fenton reads the first chapter of Fatty Legs – YouTube. While this link is for the first chapter read by the author, subsequent chapters are asked to be paid for. This is a fair exchange. It is a story about a young Inuit girl who felt embarrassed about her legs for 60 years after being forced to wear a pair of red stockings as a child. The story goes on to describe how she made those stockings disappear. This resonated with me due to my own inner rebel.  But I had a major complex about my legs after a boy had told me I had “tree trunk” legs after a  soccer game (when really the focus ought to have been on the fact that I was a good enough player to be the only girl on the team!) So, here I was, personal self-consciousness as a girl growing up in western educated, industrialized, rich, democratic, white, anglo saxon, protestant (WEIRDWASP) society; full privilege and talented and being knocked down by a white boy. Imagine I had been a minority? Or disabled? I am honestly not sure that I would have been able to handle it.  At that point in my life, I was able to see how much privilege I have always had on my journey in life. I fell victim of a western depression that is not common in other parts of the world where survival is more acute.

Module 1 Post 2

Module 1 Post 2

In this second blog post, I would like to address how I have tried to include the 94 Calls to Action into my ESL Classes. While it is always a danger to use material designed for children with adults, I do use the Spirit Bear version with my International ESL students: Spirit Bear’s Guide to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Calls to Action | First Nations Caring Society (fncaringsociety.com) For an adult, false beginner language class, just going through the Table of Contents and the Introduction can be taxing as a vocabulary activity. The proper Affective Domain scaffolding must be included prior to delving into any of these issues.
This also needs to be contextualized for how individual minorities groups were treated in Canada historically. Living in the Kootenays, close to one of Japan’s sister cites (Nelson Izu-Shi Friendship Society – Home (nelsonizushi.com)), we get a lot of Japanese exchange students who have never heard of Nikkei, the historically preserved WW2 Japanese Internment Center: The Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre – New Denver. One can visibly see the students cringe and slouch in shock and fear that such an event could happen in Canada. While not wanting to scare the students, I do want them to know the truth of their ancestors.
I also share with them the stories which I feel comfortable to tell about the lands on which we study.  While we always begin with Indigenous Territorial Land Acknowledgements and I take them for a visit to the Gathering Place to meet college and community elders, the white settler history of the region also includes Doukhoubour pacifists (Doukhobor Discovery Centre – Visit Castlegar (doukhobor-museum.org)) who were funded by Tolstoy’s sales of ‘Ressurection’ (Tolstoy’s Canadian Doukhobors Return to Russia Over 100 Years After Fleeing – The Moscow Times) to come to Canada because they did not want to fight the Japanese in the Sino – Japanese – Russio – Siberian wars at the turn of the 20th century.
Talk about coming full circle.

M1 P5 XR Indigenous Language & Culture

Below is a link to an episode of a podcast talking to a Mohawk woman doing very interesting work in the XR space with a focus on revitalizing language and culture. She is also creating virtual spaces for language learners to drop in and speak in the language. I find this idea fascinating and a great way for people to share knowledge.

 

https://www.kunm.org/arts/2021-04-12/xr-indigenous-language-culture-ep-2-extending-reality-with-native-spaces

M1 P4 Indigenous Peoples Teach the World First Nations Wisdom Through Technology

I believe that mixed reality can be a way to teach language and culture that can incorporate Indigenous place based knowledge into the teachings.When using technology to teach and share language and culture, many of the cultural nuances and knowledge of the land can be lost in translation. Using technology such as Microsoft’s Hololens mixed reality headset, may have the potential to be a game changer for teaching and sharing Indigenous knowledge. An Indigenous language  learner may be able to see the world around them as their ancestors did. Learning place names and plant knowledge could be an immersive experience through mixed reality technology and a way to help preserve precious language and knowledge.

 

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/08/indigenous-people-augmented-reality/

Jessica Presta: Module 1, Post 5

For my final post in Module 1, I wanted to discuss the First Nations Health Authority (FNHA). The FNHA emerged as a health governance structure in BC in an attempt to improve First Nation’s health outcomes and close the gaps that exist between BC First Nations and the rest of the population. The FNHA is a first in Canada and is a province wide health authority that “plans, designs, manages and funds the delivery of First Nations health programs and services in BC” (First Nations Health Authority, 2022). One of the resources on their website I am most interested in is their Cultural Safety and Humility Framework. This infographic is highly detailed and outlines the many steps required for a transformative healthcare system that is culturally safe for Indigenous people.

 

References

First Nations Health Authority (2022, October, 10). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Nations_Health_Authority

Jessica Presta: Module 1, Post 4

For this post I wanted to share a resource for educators to support the indigenization of their programs, classrooms, and pedagogical practices. BC Campus is an online resource that aims to support the evolution of education across the province through collaboration, communication and innovation. One of their resources for this is their Indigenization project. The goal of this project is to offer open resources to educators to support the incorporation of Indigenous epistemologies into their practice, systematically decolonizing post-secondary education. Some of these resources include:

Learn about Indigenous histories in Canada:
Learn about decolonizing your course materials and teaching practices: