CHALLENGES TO IMPLEMENTATION

Need for teachers to decolonize themselves, identities & ways they view education; 

Supports (such as workshops or mentoring) to ensure teachers are confident and prepared in using decolonizing pedagogies; 

Changes to typical teacher-student relationship (allowing for more student autonomy) and teachers acting more as facilitators;

Students who disregard transformative learning activities that require them to question established notions of identity and stereotypes about Indigenous peoples;

Preparation time for teachers to locate appropriate materials and resources; 

Class time needed for experiential learning or deeper activities that cannot be done in one class period;

Need to consider what works in each specific community; 

Challenges in assessing students using holistic epistemologies; and, 

Strategies to address potential resistance from Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students, parents and community members. 

At the center of change is the mind and spirit;

Educational leaders and educators must adopt an agentic mindset when viewing Indigenous students (Berryman, et al., 2015);

Must be flexible in thinking in order to be able to accept multiples ways of knowing and strive to understand from another’s perspective;

Must work towards a collaborative conscientization which requires the unlearning of notions of meritocracy and superiority (Battiste 2013); and

Must break free of the notion that knowledge is solely linear, and examine that knowledge may be connected to more.