Tag Archives: Indigenous worldview

Module 2 – Post 1 – Indigenous Education Holistic Lifelong Learning Framework

The Calgary Education board published a guide in 2022 called the Indigenous Education Holistic Lifelong Learning Framework with the extensive support of Elders and Knowledge Keepers of the Piikani, Kainai, Metis, Tsuut’ina, Stoney Nakoda, Kahkewistahaw, Muskoday and Siksika Nations.

The guide clearly states it is “not a how-to guide for Indigenous Education or a recipe for closing gaps” and instead is a foundation where we can “meaningfully position and deepen our individual and collective knowledge, decision, and actions to meet the holistic needs of all students.”

This guide is interesting to my research because the approach, though from a very high-level school board, is meant to adapt to include Indigenous students, but does not single them out. Instead, they use holism, and Indigenous worldview, to attend to all students’ spiritual, emotional, physical, and intellectual needs. They use the medicine wheel to visualize the framework.

M2 P1 Indigenous Digital Skills Training Program Which Teaches Kids How to Bring Indigenous Cultural Knowledge, History and Language to Life Through Augmented Reality, Minecraft and Python Coding

I find this idea of a training program that enables Indigenous and non-Indigenous kids to connect with and learn from elders about cultural knowledge, history and language, while learning digital skills in technologies like augmented reality, animation and coding to be fascinating. I see this as a potential to not only teach children valuable digital skills while simultaneously learning from elders about Indigenous culture, history and language, but also as a way to build up XR language learning content that could help teach learners down the road. For example, I attended a Secwepemc language immersion school called Chief Atahm School and if a training program like this was included in the curriculum, the students could be contributing to Secwépemc language learning content while also gaining valuable skills that can help them in a growing area of employment. Some of the students that go through the training program and have learned Secwepemctsin at Chief Atahm School would have the skills to continue to work in language revitalization using XR technology after they have graduated high school. This could be part of creating the infrastructure to develop the required skills and talent to produce XR language learning content to help preserve and revitalize Secwépemc language and culture.

https://indigitalschools.com/impact/

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:

Actions for teaching: Engage and collaborate with Indigenous peoples, knowledges, and cultures in your course design and curriculum.
Sign up to take Indigenous Canada, a Massive Open Online Course from the University of Alberta.
Read: Indigenous History Month Reading List from Massey Books
Indigenous Ally Toolkit, compiled by Dakota Swiftwolfe and others from the Montreal Indigenous Community Network

Learn about decolonizing your course materials and teaching practices:

Actions for teaching: Learn and integrate First Peoples Principles of Learning into your work as a designer and facilitator of learning experiences for all students.
The BCcampus Pulling Together Indigenization guides include a foundations guide as well as guides for teachers, leaders and administrators, front-line staff, curriculum developers, and researchers.
Indigenous Pedagogy: Decolonizing Higher Education resource from Vancouver Community College
Consider adopting one or more of these 100 Ways: Indigenizing & Decolonizing Academic Programs.

Module 2: Post 4 – It’s all about relationships

I came across Lewis Cardinal when I was looking for Indigenous perspectives on Youtube, so after watching an hour-long talk from him on Youtube, I looked for more of his knowledge and perspective and I found this podcast episode. The podcast is called Shift Management so it’s a workplace, human resources focussed podcast.

In this episode with Lewis Cardinal, he talks about how to develop relationships, the importance of communication, and the values you inherit from the culture or cultures you’re from. He says, “If you want to improve relationships, if you want to improve prosperity, communication is central, and it has to be meaningful.[…]Meaningful conversation means that you start talking with the heart and you start talking about the same things that you find in common looking in the same direction.” He also says, “When you move the heart, the mind follows.”

He also discusses the importance of (everyone in Canada) being treaty peoples, and that we should be learning about what that means in school. As Cardinal says, “The great indoctrinator of any nation is its educational system.”