​Who?​

How do you define who belongs to or who comes from Indigenous education?  An Indigenous student is someone who comes from an Indigenous family that attends a public school. The Indigenous person is from a local community or  from another Indigenous community  living in vicinity of a local Nation. 

 

What?

What is Indigenous education? Indigenous education, from my experience, is a term that was created for political reasons to show a sign of acknowledgement - but it can also be a difference or another category. Indigenous education is not mainstream education and curriculum.  Indigenous education extends beyond classroom rows, pens, paper and books. Most Indigenous learners are not mainstream learners but we do not want to be singled out as only belonging to Indigenous education. 

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When?

When did Indigenous education come into existence? I do not know any specific dates of when Indigenous education came into existence because I live it.  In our worlds, it begins when we were born and carries into a public school system as a separate defined category.  Our experience with Indigenous education in the school system is different than our lives but we do remember how we were treated by educators in the school systems. 

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In the 1970s we had a movement called "Indian Control of Indian Education" and this movement was our own people acknowledging and fighting for our rights to have a school system to include and teach about our people.  In grade 4 I learned about the fur trade and the gold rush but I never learned anything about our people.  I remember learning abut newcomers and I did not know what that really meant but they were literally newcomers to our land. They were here to make a buck or settle on a piece of land that even the government does not own. 

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Why? 

Why is Indigenous education important? It is important because we have no choice in education, we are stuck in the routines of society to become law abiding citizens. All schools t in our territories exist because our people were kind enough to welcome newcomers into our homelands. Indigenous education is important because the colonial structure and acts against our people - harmed our way of life and harmed our way of being. Intergenerational trauma is real in our communities. Language loss is real. Culture loss is real. Without these parts of our lives, we sometimes find ourselves trying to fit into the boxes that are defined by society. We are often judged by others because of lack of understanding. Sometimes our kids struggle in a mainstream school because it does not honour who we are as people. Where is the dedicated Indigenous space in the education system. Today, the public education system still fails our Indigenous students. 

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Where?

Where should Indigenous education exist? Indigenous education should exist at all levels in education systems. Starting from the top all the way down to the students in the classrooms. Localizing education as much as you can is very important. Do you know who’s traditional land your school is on?  And no, it will not be MST. Localizing education might be difficult but it’s not that hard to go outside onto the local landscape and learn about what you see. With time, more resources will become available but we too are rebuilding many parts of who we are as Nations - we’ve never surrendered all parts of who we are - but now we are reconnecting with intergenerational transmission.  We are building up our language speakers, we are weaving, we are hunting, we are gathering resources, we are cedar harvesting, and we are fishing. We are living our ways of being despite colonial sovereignty over our homelands. 

 

*These are my words and my words only from my lived experience*

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