Canadians can cultivate greater cultural understanding and relations with its Indigenous communities by integrating their circular knowledge modalities within the Ontario education curriculum, which is currently based on the linear modalities of Western knowledge. By introducing findings of desire-based research with concepts of Indigenous joy and wisdom, policymakers can better enable settler students to understand and celebrate Indigenous voices and culture. This integration can assist in decolonizing the mind, leading to a more inclusive society through first-hand knowledge-sharing from Indigenous peoples.

Introduction

The Canadian education system has been reformed as part of the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission Canada’s Call to Action to include Indigenous perspectives to Canadian history and policy. While the Ontario education system has integrated Indigenous content with Social Studies and Geography classes, this new content is mostly focused on damaged-centred research: “this framework looks to historical exploitation, domination, and colonization to explain contemporary brokenness, such as poverty, poor health, and low literacy” (Tuck, 2009), possibly leading to a solely negative characterization of Indigenous ways of being. This damage-centred perspective should be balanced with a desire-based framework that teaches students the value of traditions, languages, and land-based knowledge from the Indigenous community, first-hand from members of the local Indigenous communities (Tuck, 2009). This desire-based framework is not currently implemented until Grade 9, when students are invited to explore “Expressions of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Cultures” (Ministry of Education, 2024). This may involve single, isolated experiences such as a field trip, or one afternoon with an Indigenous guest speaker, but such events offer little time to engage fully in the robustness of Indigenous culture.

Approach

Indigenous studies have been included in social studies courses in the Ontario curriculum as per “the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Call to Action 62 and 63, we implemented the revised Social Studies, Grades 1 to 6; History and Geography, Grades 7 and 8 curriculum and the Canadian and World Studies Grades 9 and 10 curriculum,” and in 2019 the Ministry introduced a revised Indigenous curriculum that “increases students’ learning about First Nation, Métis, and Inuit perspectives, cultures, contributions, and histories in areas such as art, literature, law, humanities, politics and history” (Ministry of Education, 2024).

While learning from history books is a reasonable initial approach, it can serve to distance students, due to a focus on colonial assimilationist practices characteristic of our past. Present-day reflection and immersion into Indigenous culture and traditions is needed to connect students with a desire-based learning that is “concerned with understanding complexity, contradiction, and the self-determination of lived lives… so that people are seen as more than broken and conquered” (Tuck, 2009).

Curricular Changes Recommended

This petition is a call to balance colonialist theory and history with active, anti-oppressive learning from our Indigenous community by including the following topics, taught by a member of the Indigenous community:

Physical Education + Land-based Knowledge

Students will learn sports as per the current curriculum as well as their colonial and Indigenous historical roots, such as hockey and lacrosse. As well, students will engage in guided Land-based Knowledge-building activities such as hikes studying invasive and non-invasive plants, nature walks identifying wildlife and preservation techniques, building and using canoes, or creating a Three Sisters garden.  Students will learn about the environment by involvement in immersive outdoor activities with an Indigenous guide, engaging in cross-curricular activities that combine physical education and social studies themes such as environmentalism and climate change activism.

“Indigenous languages are verb-based and demonstrate the spatial relationship of how people are part of their environment, which is interconnected and holistic” (Mashford-Pringle & Shawanda, 2023).

English, French, local Indigenous language such as Ojibwe

Mandatory English, French, and local-to-the-region Indigenous language classes made available to students to learn the value of culture and etymology of Canadian identity; this would also be a huge step forward in preserving Indigenous languages.

Counsellors and Elders 

Having both Western and Indigenous knowledge-based supports on hand at schools to help students find modalities and techniques that speak to them to find what works best for their wellness journey. As well as mindfulness techniques and language to resource from both modalities to aid students in self-regulation and mental health: “Indigenous people have a circular way of living… To achieve health and well-being, balance of all four quadrants among the self, family, community and nation are necessary” (Mashford-Pringle & Shawanda, 2023).

Implications 

By signing you are supporting creating an inclusive education system that gives equal weight to both Western and Indigenous modalities of knowing. By participating in dual modalities, students will cultivate a more balanced foundation of anti-oppressive practices, critical thinking and empathy skills at an early age.

Integrating circular and traditional knowledge heuristics, such as that of the Medicine Wheel, students will grow up with a more robust toolset to draw upon in support of their own mental health, as the “Medicine Wheel uses stories, traditional knowledge, and interconnectedness as a base for viewing the world” (Mashford-Pringle & Shawanda, 2023). This type of learning could reduce suicide rates by strengthening interconnectedness; support anti-bullying programs by learning balancing of the self with family and community; and help diminish the individualism that our neo-conservative society has built over the past few decades. The use of Indigenous circular knowledge with Western linear methods can contextualize the place of the individual within the community and help students recognize the value of helping others.

Conclusion

Decolonizing our education system is imperative to build a better future for all Canadians. By exposing students to different modalities of thinking early in life, not only can we create a more inclusive learning space, but we can set them up for success by instilling in them the knowledge and skills necessary to prove effective in a diverse society. Through exposure to ideas from a balance of damaged-based and desire-based research, students will develop with the tools to practice anti-oppressive and anti-racist critical thinking from an early age. Active participation in Indigenous culture and learning from Indigenous wisdom keepers will allow students to not only understand Indigeneity pain, subversion and oppression, but also recognize these cultures for the deep joy, meaning, and community they have sustained for many generations in the face of European colonialism. 

 

Photo by https://www.evisaimmigration.com/en/blog/post/culture-of-canada

References

Ministry of Education. (2024, January 19). Indigenous education in Ontario. Government of Ontario. https://www.ontario.ca/page/indigenous-education-ontario#:~:text=In%20May%202019%2C%20we%20issued,classroom%20(%20PDF%20%2C%2096%20Kb%20)

Tuck, E. (2009). Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities. Harvard Educational Review, 79(3), 409–428. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.79.3.n0016675661t3n15

Mashford-Pringle, A., & Shawanda, A. (2023). Using the Medicine Wheel as theory, conceptual framework, analysis, and evaluation tool in health research. SSM. Qualitative Research in Health, 3, 100251-. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmqr.2023.100251