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This competency not only ensures Indigenous cultures and history are taught in schools, which are topics important for students in Canada to learn as they are a very big part of Canadian culture, but also has teachers ensure they 'de-colonize' the classroom. Meaning they use an Indigenous view of education to foster their classroom environment. This can be seen through student-centered learning, using non-traditional teaching practiced, or even deciding to incorporate ungrading, a practice that focuses on learning by not given students a calculable grade (percentage, letter, number, etc.)
For EDU 309:
This has to have been the hardest competency I've had to develop out of all fourteen. Figuring out how to ensure Indigenous values, knowledge, worldviews, cultures and history are introduced properly in the classroom can be quite difficult, especially when you are not knowledgeable in the topic, don't currently have the connections or time to make said connections during a six-week practicum, and are not confident in your ability to detect a reliable source from an unreliable one. My AT, at the time of our discussions on what my LES (Learning and Evaluation Simulation) should be, was in the process of gaining their nature-based teacher certification of which one portion asked them to incorporate Indigenous teachings and themes. As a result, my AT wanted me to incorporate Indigenous knowledge or history into one of my lessons, specifically of the Abenaki seeing as the school my practicum took place in was located on the traditional and unceded territory of the Abenaki people and the Wabenaki confederacy.
Lesson 7 - Plants are Important.pdfI decided to incorporate a lesson on how the Abenaki people used the plants around them for medicine. I found it very difficult to find information that I trusted. I also did not know anyone of Abenkai decent nor was I going to be at the school long enough to have time to find said connections. Although finding out how Indigenous people of various areas used plants, finding information on one group in particular was what made it difficult. Once I did find the information, I then did not know how to create an activity for my students to do. How can I create an engaging lesson when I am not confident in my ability to find information nor am I able to figure out an activity for them to do with said information that I found?
In the end, I decided on a little crash course on who the Abenaki are and a few examples of plants the students can see in the area, what they were used for and an equivalent you can find in a pharmacy. As for an activity, I found that it did not have to focus solely on how plants were used. Rather, I should incorporate Indigenous values as well. Competency 15 isn't limited to simply history and botany lessons, after all. Students coloured trees and flower pictures to then glue on a poster showing their appreciation for the plants around them. Students then, in another lesson, wrote about reasons as to why plants are important to them.
In the end, this competency was the hardest one I had to practice but I learned a lot out of it. I went from not being comfortable with the topic to knowing what I can do next time to ensure I am teaching information properly and accurately to my students.
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