I enjoyed the following virtual workshop from the Ontario Ministry of Education about the importance of Indigenous perspectives in STEM. The workshop is presented by Joseph Pitawanakwat, the director of Creators Garden, and Haley Higdon, program director of Natural Curiosity.
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.”
I’m not sure how I came across this video (Youtube algorithm at work perhaps), but it’s called Foundations of Indigenous Worldviews, and it is clear, informative, and rather inspiring:
The speaker, Lewis Cardinal (who is a prominent Indigenous Canadian – I was surprised I hadn’t hear of him), discusses living in relationship not only with other people, but with other beings. He says Indigenous peoples don’t put themselves at the centre of the circle.
With my new understanding of ‘root metaphors’, what I took from this video is that the circle is a root metaphor for Indigenous worldviews. We are all part of a whole.
Key quotes:
“Each person, family and nation is unique and has much to offer.”
“The individual needs the community and the community needs the individual.”