This resource will help classroom teachers and staff better serve the needs of their Aboriginal students. The process of development was one of consultation, information gathering, drafting, more consultation and re-drafting. The contributors to this resource include Aboriginal Elders, teachers and psychologists, as well as other members of Alberta's Aboriginal communities. Culturally-relevant approaches effectively serve the learning needs of Aboriginal students. Traditional and contemporary Aboriginal cultures offer a number of frameworks for understanding, guiding, learning from and teaching students. The relationship between student and teacher is the heart of Aboriginal education. The teacher's relationship with each student is based on observing and learning about the individual child and his or her unique learning needs in order to help the child grow holistically--spiritually, physically, mentally and emotionally. This resource offers information about Aboriginal cultures and perspectives, practical ideas, and sample strategies that will help teachers meet the needs and recognize the gifts of Aboriginal students. Many of the sample strategies are good for all students and are relevant for a range of educational settings and contexts. The guiding principles reflect understanding and respect of diversities of aboriginal cultures, languages and histories, respectful classroom atmosphere, collaborative relationships with families and communities and teacher recognition and continued assessment of the learning strengths and needs of each Aboriginal student. The resource is organized into seven chapters: (1) Worldviews and Aboriginal Cultures: Where hearts are rooted; (2) Aboriginal Students: Who are they? How do they learn?; (3) The Classroom: A community of learners; (4) School, Family and Community: Sharing the responsibility; (5) Learning Strategies for Aboriginal Students: Opportunities to make learning meaningful; (6) Assessment: Authentic reflections of important learnings; and (7) Teaching Aboriginal Students with Learning Disabilities: Recognizing gifts and strengths. Each chapter contains information, sample strategies, shared wisdom from Aboriginal scholars and Elders, and related stories shared by Aboriginal teachers and liaisons. An index and feedback form are included in this document. (Contains 25 appendices.)
Alberta Education
Article scientifique
Outward Bound Canada's (OBC) Giwaykiwin Program was founded in 1985 in response to a recognized need for programming specific to students from Indigenous backgrounds. The Giwaykiwin program aims to integrate Outward Bound (OB) and Indigenous philosophies and traditions. Giwaykiwin means "coming home" in Ojibwa and signifies the program's philosophy of creating an opportunity for students to reconnect with their Indigenous cultures and the land. Giwaykiwin participants come to OB from a variety of backgrounds. Some are referred by social service organizations, while others enroll with the support of their families or communities. Communities or organizations may also request exclusive contract courses. The author had the opportunity to work as an instructor with OBC's Giwaykiwin Program and in this article he describes his experiences.
Greg Lowan
Livre
Petits enfants réprimés dans leur curiosité, étudiants vivant leur échec scolaire comme une responsabilité personnelle, employés aspirant vainement à des apprentissages significatifs dans l’entreprise, aînés exclus de la vie éducative… Les traumatismes et les dommages éducatifs subis par les individus tout au long de leur vie abondent. Pour l’auteur de cet essai, l’avenir de nos sociétés passe pourtant par une citoyenneté active et réfléchie. Dans ce sens, le développement continu du potentiel individuel et collectif des populations devient une nécessité économique, sociale et culturelle. Et si on commence à reconnaître que les transgressions et les agressions du corps ont des conséquences souvent dramatiques, la question mérite également d’être posée à propos du parcours éducatif : qu’en est-il de l’intimité blessée des individus dépossédés de leur projet de vie ou des moyens de le réaliser ? Afin de mieux comprendre ce que signifie, pour nos sociétés, la construction continue de soi, Paul Bélanger passe en revue les théories, les pratiques et les politiques liées à l’éducation entendue dans son sens le plus large et montre, imposante documentation à l’appui, que la reconnaissance de l’intimité dans l’acte d’apprendre est, au sens fort du terme, un véritable enjeu social.
Paul Bélanger
Article scientifique
La pedagogía de base local se centra en el desarrollo y la instrucción curriculares que dirigen la atención de los estudiantes hacia la cultura, los fenómenos y las cuestiones locales como base de al menos parte del aprendizaje que adquirirían en la escuela. También se la conoce en inglés por el equivalente a «educación fundamentada en el lugar y en la comunidad», o como «aprendizaje consciente del lugar». Además de preparar a los estudiantes académicamente, los maestros que adoptan este método de enseñanza lo presentan de una forma íntimamente ligada tanto a la protección del medio ambiente como al desarrollo de la comunidad. Estos dos últimos aspectos son preocupaciones primordiales de la educación para la sostenibilidad. Su propósito es fomentar en los jóvenes el deseo y la capacidad de convertirse en ciudadanos comprometidos con el bienestar de las comunidades tanto humanas como con el de aquellas más que simplemente humanas de las que forman parte. La creencia central de este enfoque educativo es que los niños de cualquier edad son capaces de contribuir de una manera efectiva a la vida de los demás y que, haciéndolo así, aumenta su deseo de aprender y su conocimiento de las capacidades propias para constituir un factor de cambio. Cuando se pone en práctica de manera eficaz la educación de base local, tanto los estudiantes como las comunidades se benefician, y sus maestros suelen encontrar un sentido renovado de satisfacción profesional y social. En muchos aspectos, la educación de base local no tiene mucho de nuevo, pues se trata de un intento por recuperar elementos del proceso de aprendizaje que la mayoría de los niños tenían antes de que se inventara la escuela. A lo largo de la existencia de la humanidad sobre la faz de la tierra, los niños han aprendido de sus propias experiencias en los lugares y comunidades en las que vivían: exploraban su entorno con sus compañeros, imitaban las actividades de los adultos, participaban en ceremonias culturales y religiosas, y escuchaban las conversaciones e historias de sus familias y vecinos. La mayor parte de este aprendizaje era informal, aunque en momentos importantes de cambio, tales como la pubertad, los ritos de iniciación les proporcionaban una formación más directa acerca de la comprensión de la comunidad con respecto al mundo y a las responsabilidades del adulto. De esta manera, los niños crecían y llegaban a ser miembros competentes de la sociedad a la que contribuían, capaces de cuidarse a sí mismos y a los demás de maneras que sostuvieran la comunidad de la cual formaban parte. Este resultado, centrado tanto en el individuo como en la sostenibilidad de la comunidad, es la meta de la educación de base local. Es importante reconocer que, durante las décadas pasadas, una amplia gama de innovaciones pedagógicas ha anticipado o incluido elementos de la educación de base local: la enseñanza al aire libre, la instrucción cívica, la educación de la comunidad, la educación ambiental y la educación para la sostenibilidad. La diferencia entre la educación de base local y muchas de estas modalidades es el enfoque específico en el ser humano y en el entorno natural, su preocupación por cuestiones de igualdad y justicia social al igual que del medio ambiente. No todos los programas que se denominan a sí mismos «de base local» incluyen estos elementos ni tampoco incluyen oportunidades para que el estudiante participe en proyectos que beneficien a los demás y al mundo natural. Esto, sin embargo, constituye el ambicioso objetivo al cual aspira la educación de base local, y esto es también lo que la diferencia de otros enfoques similares.
Gregory A. Smith
Article scientifique
Se analiza el contenido pedagógico de las luchas que las comunidades Zapatistas y las comunidades purépechas en México llevan a cabo contra del despojo y por la defensa de los territorios y el entorno ecológico. Se plantea que tales luchas de resistencia de los pueblos indígenas, en la medida que se orientan a la defensa del territorio y toda forma de vida que habita sobre éste, producen saberes y prácticas pedagógicas sobre los cuáles es posible construir, en los países del norte del mundo, una pedagogía transformativa que busque la protección de la vida a partir de formas de democracia densa y contra-hegemónica. El artículo discute una serie de principios que pueden orientar la práctica de una pedagogía crítica de corte ambientalista, democrática y emancipatoria, que aquí denominaremos eco/demopedagogía transformativa. Este artículo construye sobre los postulados teóricos de la pedagogía de la liberación latinoamericana y la pedagogía crítica norteamericana. Su base metodológica es la investigación documental y la observación etnográfica directa en las comunidades indígenas mencionadas. This paper discusses the pedagogical implications of the struggles that the Zapatistas in Chiapas and the Purépecha communities in Mexico have been carrying out against dispossession and for the defense of the territories and the ecological environment. Such struggles, insofar as they focus on the defense of territories and all forms of life that dwell on it produce forms of pedagogical praxis from which we can learn and build, in the Global North, a form of transformative pedagogy aimed at stimulating the conscientization about and protection of all forms of life based on counter-hegemonic and transformative forms of democracy. The article discusses a set of principles that are meant to guide the development and practice of an environmental/ecological, democratic and emancipatory critical pedagogy, which we have labelled herein transformative eco/demopedagogy. This article builds upon the theoretical tradition developed by the Latin American liberation pedagogy and the North American critical pedagogy. Documentary research and direct ethnographic observation in the aforementioned indigenous communities constitute, likewise, the methodological basis of this article.
Paul R. Carr; Eloy Rivas; Nancy Molano; Gina Thésée
Article scientifique
In this article, the authors share autobiographical reflections from their journey to the Northern Nishnawbe Aski Territory in Ontario, Canada where they taught several courses in an Aboriginalfocused Bachelor of Education program. Sessions were held at a remote fishing lodge that opened up opportunities for the authors to explore their understanding of Land as first teacher and Land as pedagogy while integrating Indigenous and Western knowledges. They refer to these insights in relation to the tensions, challenges, and contradictions they faced while embedding Land in pedagogy and classroom practices, engaging in relationship-based teaching, resisting relations of power and privilege, and re-conceptualizing authorship. Calling on us to expand understandings of pedagogy within Aboriginal education and resist tendencies to look for universal and prescriptive ways to do Aboriginal Education, the authors present individualized, contextualized, intimate, and iterative pedagogy and classroom practices.
Dawn Zinga; Sandra Styres
Article scientifique
For Indigenous peoples, knowledge and science are written onto the landscapes our lan- guages ''talk into being'' through the ''individual and collective consciousness of our communities (Cajete 2000, 284).'' Our landscapes are the storied histories, cosmogonies, philosophies and sciences of those Indigenous knowledges which are increasingly being pushed aside by the 'gray uniformity' of globalization and its progenitor, European colonization. It is within storied places that we can still glimpse alternatives to this gray uniformity of globalization which brings with it a rhetoric of capitalism, modernism, abstract space and Western science. It is this rhetoric produced through globalization which erases the storied land- scapes, destroying the libraries embedded within Indigenous toponyms, creating a terra nullius: an empty land awaiting a colonial/neo-colonial his- tory and economy. As Paulo Freire has challenged us to see, critical consciousness requires us to ''read our world,'' decoding the images of our own concrete, situated experiences with the world (Freire and Macedo 1987, 35). A critical pedagogy of place recognizes the concrete experiences of communities grounded in shared histories, stories and challenges based within a politics of place. A critical pedagogy of place seeks to decolonize and reinhabit the storied landscape through 'reading' the ways in which Indigenous peoples' places and environment have been injured and exploited. This paper seeks to discuss how through reading the places in the world as 'political texts,' one may engage in reflection and praxis in order to understand, and where necessary, to change the world.
Jay T. Johnson
Mémoire
This thesis reviews the literature on indigenous place-based environmental education in Canada. The concept of place is considered a starting point to localize, decolonize and integrate indigenous and non-indigenous knowledges (the culturally-situated subjective and intersubjective ways of knowing and meaning-making) in mainstream environmental education. Following a discussion of how a critical pedagogy of place can be situated in indigenous contexts, this thesis explores how indigenous and non-indigenous peoples and their knowledges can contribute to a place-based environmental education. While mainstream environmental education is conventionally considered the domain of Western sciences, knowledges of all cultural groups are needed to address the environmental challenges of the 21st century and enrich sustainability education. The inclusion of indigenous and other knowledges in mainstream curricula can foster intercultural understanding between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. This can help to heal the relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in Canada after centuries of colonialism, assimilation, and discrimination against indigenous peoples. Transdisciplinarity and social learning theory can provide epistemological and methodological frameworks for the integration of indigenous and other knowledges in mainstream environmental education for an inclusive, place-based education.
Jasmine Chipman Koty
« L’APNQL a décidé d’être proactive et de produire son propre Plan de lutte au racisme et à la discrimination. Le Plan comprend des dizaines d’actions concrètes qui peuvent facilement être adoptées dès aujourd’hui. Il y en a pour les municipalités, les institutions scolaires, les entreprises, les médias et pour toutes les organisations de la société civile, tout comme pour les individus. Chacun peut faire sa part. Nous avons tous un rôle à jouer dans la lutte au racisme et à la discrimination » Ghislain Picard, chef de l’APNQL.
Assemblée des Premières Nations du Québec et du Labrador (APNQL)
Article scientifique
Cet article aborde la question des droits et des responsabilités territoriales chez les Atikamekw Nehirowisiwok à partir de leurs propres termes. J’explique notamment en quoi le concept nehirowisiw otiperitamowin, utilisé pour parler des droits, des pouvoirs et des responsabilités, fait aussi référence à des valeurs fondamentales comme l’autonomie et la réciprocité. En articulant ma réflexion à l’aide de la perspective issue du pluralisme juridique et des travaux de Roberts (1998), de Panikkar (1999) et de Jullien (2008), l’article montre en quoi cette perspective peut être une amorce intéressante à un exercice de dialogue entre les ordres juridiques autochtones et étatiques. Cet exercice soutenu par des exemples ethnographiques est une prémisse à la comparaison et à l’analyse des dynamiques d’enchevêtrement, de négociation et de résistance entre les ordres juridiques autochtones et étatiques.This article addresses issues pertaining to the rights and territorial responsibilities of the Atikamekw Nehirowisiwok in their own words. I explain in particular how the concept of nehirowisiw otiperitamowin, used to talk of rights, powers and responsibilities, also refers to fundamental values such as autonomy and reciprocity. By articulating my thoughts from the perspective of legal pluralism and the works of Roberts (1998), Panikkar (1999) and Jullien (2008), I explain how this perspective can be an interesting exercise to engage in a dialogue between First Nation and States legal orders. This exercise, supported by ethnographic examples, is the actual premise for the comparison and analysis of the dynamics of entanglement, negotiation and resistance between First Nations and the State legal orders.
Benoit Éthier