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Welcome. The authors of this site welcome you to our site and hope that after perusing will feel more confident about what decolonizing is and means and how makerspaces can play a vital part in unlearning practices of Eurocentric education. While neither of the authors identify as Indigenous we approach this work with an attempt to celebrate Indigenous culture in Canada through an educators lens.
Defining Makerspaces
Makerspaces are not new phenomena or fad but rather a movement that incorporates all age groups, abilities and interests into an ideology around collaboration, sharing, entrepreneurship and creativity. Common synonyms for makerspaces are hackerspaces, FabLab and tech shop (What is a makerspace?); all concepts and terms that support a similar ideology, just each with its particular history and path to the present spaces they now are. There are no necessary components to establish a makerspace; no-tech to high-tech tools can be incorporated and considered a makerspace. Halverson and Sheridan (2014) broadly define the maker movement as “the growing number of people who are engaged in the creative production of artifacts in their daily lives and who find physical and digital forums to share their processes and products with others” (p. 496). According to Dillon (2013), "A makerspace is a destination where students-sometimes alongside staff, parents, and mentors-can create, problem solve, and develop skills, talents, thinking, and mental rigour." This excerpt exemplifies maker mentality and the community therein. It is essential to highlight that these communities and spaces are built around a collaborative philosophy that promotes learning over commodification that often pervades attempts at authentically Indigenizing.
Decolonizing
As a result of the TRC’s work education systems and buildings are working towards decolonizing their spaces. Recently a Toronto based school renamed their school in an effort to highlight diversity and address the issues of racism while recognizing the lasting impacts of the Residential Schooling system had by removing the monarch’s name (Sarrouh, M., 2021). Within these institutions teachers are attempting to remove the systems that supported colonialism in an effort called decolonizing. Massey-Jones (2019) defines decolonizing as “the dismantling of colonial systems that were established during the period of time when a nation maintains dominion over dependent territories”. This gives a broad concept of decolonizing, and supports many institutions, however, we want to establish a definition that draws directly to education institutions. So we turn to Battiste (2013) who suggests "[d]ecolonized education seeks to reconcile contemporary education with the past and with the peoples’ present ensuring that the ideological and self-interests within Eurocentric education are not imposed on Indigenous peoples and they build their own present with their own agency and power” (p. 26). From Battiste's definition we can see the possibilities of a makerspace as an opportunity to remove past practice and hierarchical systems that support colonial practices, and allow students to reflect on their past and present experiences and bring free of the industrialized Eurocentric education system that exists in most institutions.
"Decolonization is the process of undoing colonizing practices. Within the educational context, this means confronting and challenging the colonizing practices that have influenced education in the past, and which are still present today. In the past, schools have been used for colonial purposes of forced assimilation. The TRC reports remind us that residential schools were specifically designed to colonize the mind, the heart, and the spirit. Nowadays, colonialism is more subtle, and is often perpetuated through curriculum, power relations, and institutional structures. Perhaps the most essential part of decolonization is continual reflection. Schools should be willing to reflect on curriculum, power dynamics, their own structuring, and any action undertaken on behalf of their students." From University of Victoria Centre for Youth & Society
The TRC Calls to Action is something educators and all stakeholders need to consider when they are designing and building practices. Click below on the different icons to learn some of the 94 Calls to Action.
Practical Tools to Consider a More Inclusive Approach to Makerspaces in Schools
Protocols
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Digital Storytelling: Oral Traditions
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Land-based Design Challenges
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