Indigenous Connections and Lessons

The school board I am currently with has an Indigenous Learning Team (ILT). The ILT creates learning opportunities for staff and students. It has also created external partnerships. These partnerships include possible outreach to community partners and Elders and Knowledge Keepers that have a pre-established connection to the school board. These connections include:

• Ahwenehaode Indigenous Justice Program

• Anishnabeg Outreach

• Conestoga College

• Grand River Métis Council

• Healing of the Seven Generations

• NPAAMB – Indigenous Youth Employment and Training

• University of Waterloo

• White Owl Native Ancestry Association

• Wilfrid Laurier University

While these external partnerships are great for a local connection, that does not mean we should ignore farther groups that can be worked with. Here are five other organizations and activities that would benefit the students to participate in.

• https://www.kairoscanada.org/what-we-do/indigenous-rights/blanket-exercise

• https://projectofheart.ca/teacher-guideslesson-plans/

• https://beechwoodottawa.ca/en/blog/letters-dr-bryce

• https://fncaringsociety.com/bear-witness-day

• https://woodlandculturalcentre.ca/experience-woodland/

Working with others, both in and out of the school, can allow for more voices and perspectives to be shared. When working with others in the school or school board, collaboration is key. Here is a general framework of how to work collaboratively to go through documents on incorporating Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing, using “First Nations, Métis, Inuit Connections: Scope and Sequence of Expectations, Grades 9 to 12” as an example.

• Share the First Nations, Métis, Inuit Connections: Scope and Sequence of Expectations, Grades 9 to 12 document with all the colleagues working in the divisional group and provide time for everyone to read it
  

• Create a collaborative Google Doc
  

  • Share the document with colleagues in the divisional group.
    

  • Provide access to edit the document for collaborative purposes (don't forget this part!).
    

• As a group, specify what the purpose of using this document (and the subsequent amount of meetings you are all about to attend) is
  

  • Place this information at the top of the document for easy of reference
    

  • Hyperlink the ministry document near the top too, for ease of access (and to minimize the amount of “can someone please share the ministry document again?” emails)
    

• Create small subject-based groups and allow time for discussions on how to implement the recommendations into their classes
  

  • Encourage colleagues to add their thoughts and ideas to the document.
    

  • Request feedback and suggestions from colleagues of what they might need in order to accomplish their ideas
    

• Break the subject-based groups into mixed-subject groups
  

  • Facilitate discussions between different subjects for different perspectives on what they came up with
    

  • Provide opportunities for cross-curricular connections
    

• Return as a full group to review and discuss the contributions to the document made by each subject
  

• Establish regular meetings for the subject-based groups and the group as a whole for check-ins on the process and review which supports are needed.
  

Though, this is just the framework on how to work with others on how to implement Indigenous topics and highlight pre-existing ones within courses. I find the document does require some prerequisite knowledge on Indigenous topics which may influence how people speak with others in their department since they may feel like they do not know enough to contribute to a meaningful discussion. It may be important within the first meeting to impress upon others that learning is continuous and they are not meant to be experts, especially on day one. We are all trying to learn more and that these meetings are to provide opportunities for department and cross-curricular collaboration, discussion, and reflection.