During the Lhulh’uts’ut’en We Come Together Workshop I had the opportunity to listen to two excellent keynote speakers, as well as the “Science, Art, and Indigenous Ecological Knowledge: A Holistic Approach to Training Future Health Practitioners” and “Restitution and Restorative Practice – Using Circles to Build Community” workshops. I found all speakers had extremely valuable insight into how to promote and include Indigenous ideas and ways of being into our education system, but the session I found resonated with me the most was Dr. Dustin Louie’s keynote on truth and reconciliation, and decolonizing and indigenizing our education system.
Early in the keynote he brought up truth and reconciliation as a current goal in our society that we are trying to achieve. Truth requires that the stories of our country’s past be told, and information about our mistreatment of Indigenous peoples comes to light. Reconciliation requires not only apologizing and making reparations for the past but to create an equitable present and future. As educators and aspiring educators, we can and will carry a large part of the responsibility for this work going forward.
To work towards this equity we need to decolonize and indigenize our education system and society as a whole. We need to break down the idea that western world views are the “neutral” view and that “other” views are different or an alternate to the normal view. Dr. Louie described how indigenous people have been torn away from their culture and left with very little framework and community to show young indigenous people what it is to be indigenous other than the mirror of media that is tinted by the prejudices and stereotypes that the general western culture holds of indigenous people. It is crucial to provide a learning environment that is decolonized and open that can foster the revitalization of traditional ways of being and knowing that existed before colonization, and to include these values in our education system.
This workshop reinforced the idea that as a new teacher I need to continue to learn about indigenous ways of knowing and being and strive throughout my career to continue to decolonize and indigenize my practice. It will also be important to continue to build relationships with the local community and to seek out help from elders and other teacher to guide me in this process.