ECS 210
Teaching Treaty Education in Schools7/30/2020 Treaty Education is a difficult topic to teach, as there is many people who don't believe it is important for students to learn about, especially when there isn't any Aboriginal students in the class or school. I also believe it can be difficult to teach as a white settler because we have no idea how Aboriginal people feel and the discrimination they went through and continue to go through. I also don't know Aboriginal culture and there ways of life but that is why it is so important to learn about Aboriginal culture. I will continue to keep learning so I can educate the youth of our province.
"For the immigrants of my grandmother's generation it was as if their adopted country had no story, or at least not one worth learning about or remembering. They acted as if the story of their new home only began with their arrival on its shores (Chambers, 2020)". I felt this quote from Cynthia Chambers fit how people view the relationship with Aboriginal people and the settlers. Lots of people choose to ignore the past discrimination of Aboriginal people and therefore continue to discriminate against Aboriginal people. If people do not learn the history no one will ever learn from it. "The present and past tie together, we need to work backwards to proceed into the future (Dwayne, 2010)". We also have to recognize that the history of Aboriginal people is our history too. "We are all treaty people; it is our story, what was shared and what was lost (Chambers, 2020)", therefore we shouldn't be looking at learning about Aboriginal people but learning about our history as treaty people. One thing I found interesting was when Claire Krueger stated that we shouldn't be "programming specifically aimed at educating Aboriginal students (Krueger, 2017)". I always thought the way to integrate Aboriginal students into our classes was to aim our content around those students, so that they saw themselves in the curriculum. Kruger states this is not the case, we "should be focusing on non-indigenous students and aim at fixing racism that we have gotten so good at teaching (Kruger, 2017)". We as a province must look at the covent of the treaties in Canada "As long as the sun shines and the river flows", "this statement is a true curriculum, the one that calls us to renew our relationship with one another, that calls us to renew our commitment to what we have in common, to our stake in the world and its survival, upon which our own depends (Chambers, 2020)". This statement will help us reach our destination of reconciliation, and will help us to fix the past history we have with Aboriginal people to renew our relationships with the people and the lands.
1 Comment
Janelle
8/11/2020 05:22:00 pm
Hi Meagan, insightful read. I agree with you when you say that learning about Treaties shouldn't be viewed as learning about Indigenous peoples, but rather learning about our own history as Canadians and as fellow Treaty people. I also understand where you're coming from when you mention that it can be difficult to teach about Indigenous perspectives as white settlers. Even though it may be uncomfortable to teach things we can't fully understand, we have the agency to break through the feeling of discomfort and teach such topics so future generations grow with different perspectives.
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