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Wisdom Keeper
Jamie Sams, author of, The Original 13 Clan Mothers, offers a template for personal and professional consideration. Through the wisdom passed down to her from the medicine lodges, Sams’s knowledge can be a tool for bridging meaningful relationships in educational systems that were historically were not inviting spaces for Indigenous people. Last month, we invited some thought into the first moon teaching, Talks with Relations. In this teaching, Sams shares the appreciation of the unspoken language to communicate with, not just one another, but to be mindful of what the animals, plants, and sky can teach us. This understanding creates a space of understanding diversity that allows insight into the…
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Talks With Relations
Jamie Sams, author of, The 13 Original Clan Mothers, leaves with us a wealth of knowledge that was passed down to her by her grandmothers, Cisi Laughing Crow, and Berta Broken Arrow. Sams was of mixed descent, her heritage included French, Cherokee, Seneca, Choctaw, and Mohawk (Brussat & Brussat, 2006). While the teachings are centered around women, the lessons and values are both universal and versatile. Sams explains that the clan mothers’ teachings, passed down through medicine lodges, are acknowledged with gratitude to grandmothers, Cisi Laughing Crow, and Berta Broken Arrow. However, she continues to remind us that these teaching also belong to, “all of the Children of Earth” (Sams,…
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Sing Me Your Song
I recently attended a KISS concert where the familiar tunes triggered a nostalgic trip to my teenage years. I realized that I had grown older with two of the performers, and that very moment of realization had impacted me more than I had bargained for. As the music played, I found myself captivated by the diverse crowd that had also aged alongside the band and many had brought younger versions of themselves to indulge in the shared nostalgia. My party, spanning three generations from my late grandmother’s brother to my eldest daughter, shared in this representation. The two hours of non-stop music reconnected me to stories of a younger me;…
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Indigenization and Assessment – Rethinking Traditional Practice
“Education got us into this mess, education will get us out of it.” – Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair, Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, December 2015 Higher education is embarking on a journey of Indigenization, decolonization and reconciliation (IDR). Location will impact understanding of how to accomplish IDR and who will be involved in actualizing the initiative. One thing will be consistent, how we define assessment. Merriam-Webster’s definition is “the action or an instance of making a judgment about something.” This definition highlights the challenge when educators work to Indigenize assessment actions that may be subjective. In a world where people of First Nation, Inuit, and Métis identities face bias…
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Graduates with perspectives and approaches the world needs
We often talk about the skills our graduates will need for success in their work and within our communities. As we aspire to be the university the world needs, we can’t overlook how essential perspective taking and cross-cultural competence are in our increasingly diverse world. In this place, we have a collective commitment to improve the situation for the First Nation, Metis, and Inuit peoples, and to truth and reconciliation. And we can also see the impacts of nationalism and nativism on the global stage, a problem that is prompting us to equip our students with the skills they will need to respond.This post is one in a series related…