-
Imagining Reconciliation
The following was created as an introduction to a panel discussion about how to build pathways toward reconciliation. What are the qualities that help people along this journey for a more inclusive society? As a Manager at the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning, I have been helping the University move forward in building reconciliation for more than 5 years. Over this time, I have witnessed our institution take significant steps forward. Unlike many other universities, we are well on our way to acknowledging the truths about colonization and the harms that Canada has committed against Indigenous Peoples. So many educational institutions, including our own, have not provided culturally…
-
Land Acknowledgements – A Reflection 5-years After the TRC Report
By Stryker Calvez and Rose Roberts Five years after the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report, Land Acknowledgements are still gaining strength as an important component of the University landscape. In fact, it is more common to notice when this statement has been missed at an event, meeting or in a course than when it is present. More often than not we have people tell us about how uncomfortable someone got when they didn’t hear the land acknowledgement at the beginning of a proceeding, and the lengths people have gone to right this wrong. These stories are a testament to the power of this protocol, its intended purpose, and the readiness of people and society to embark on the journey toward reconciliation. Five years after the TRC report, the concerns for land…
-
Why Do We Acknowledge Treaty 6 & Metis?
[social_share/] [social-bio] A session on this topic will be held during the Fall Fortnight on Monday August 29, 2016 from 9:30 – 9:55. Register here. Many of you may have noticed that across the campus that there has been an increase in number of people who are acknowledging “that we are on Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis. We pay our respect to the First Nations and Métis ancestors of this place and reaffirm our relationship with one another”. One year ago the University of Saskatchewan’s academic governing body, the University Council, agreed to use specific language to acknowledge that the University was built on Indigenous peoples’…
- Curriculum Development, General, Inclusivity, Indigenization, Decolonization, Reconciliation, Instructional / Course Design
Historical Biases in Understanding Culture – A Barrier to Indigenization?
[social_share/] [social-bio] Western society has made significant advances in empirically derived truth and scientific inquiry (e.g., anthropology, psychology, linguistics, etc.) since the Age of Enlightenment (e.g., Descartes, Diderot, Montesquieu, Turgot, Vico, Voltaire, etc.). The impact and importance of this epistemological approach to the world and its mass adoption by Western societies can be perceived in many elements of European civilization and culture (Boon, 1972; Goodenough, 1961; Keesing, 1974; Triandis, 1994). The rise of Europe’s epistemological renaissance occurred during the era of colonial expansion. At the time that Europe was pressing itself onto numerous societies around the world, dominating the global stage, many Western thinkers were using this colonial perspective as…
- Curriculum Development, Inclusivity, Indigenization, Decolonization, Reconciliation, Instructional Strategies
Indigenizing Education Series: Getting started …
[social_share/] [social-bio] As an Indigenous educator, researcher, and scholar, academics have asked me more often about ‘how’ we, the collective we, can improve the situation for the First Nation, Metis, and Inuit peoples than ‘why’ we should do this? While I appreciate the recognition that something needs to be done, I am often taken back when I realize that the reasons for this change, the ‘why’, are not well understood. How do you Indigenize an institution, like the University of Saskatchewan, if you don’t now what the issues are that need to be addressed? Therefore, my response is always preceded by a pause as I contemplate where do I start?…
-
Truth and Reconciliation – Call to Action for Educators
[social_share/] [social-bio] Indigenous people and their communities have had a long and contentious experience with Western education. For far too long, schools and education were used as instruments to systematically dismantle Indigenous culture, their way of living and knowing. Generation after generation of children were taken from their homes, sometime forcefully, in the name of providing them with a civilized education. Instead, what many of these children experienced was at its best a destructive education, and at its worse an inhumane brainwashing, aimed at having these children renounce their ‘savage’ Indigenous perspectives for a more ‘sophisticated’ Canadian approach to life. Many Canadian universities are just beginning to acknowledge their role…