Integrating Aboriginal Culture into the Rest of ON

Background: As apart of the Trent U ABQ course, we are looking at the possibilities and implications of adapting the Aboriginal Studies into the rest of ON, WHY NOT!?


Why not learning about another culture, language or peoples? Really? I mean, without saying that its quite the same as when a teacher takes it upon themselves to become a member of a Catholic School Community or non-native french speaker integrates themselves into a French Immersion School Community. On some level I feel there is a moment where education needs ensure that teachers have the training they need to meet the needs of their students.

To be frank, I thought it was a mandatory course through my concurrent education year. I must say that it was extremely helpful with experiences after during teacher's college.

Students in public schools and Catholic schools of ON are living in a bubble when it comes to the foundations and history of Canada. The Social Studies curriculum begins preparing them for what is to come in the high school history education but by that time the students have already developed a conception that Canada is and always was a culture mosaic. To extent “Canada” itself has always been, but it was what came before that which is important.

The curriculum that is offered now begins to tie up the loose ends of the past educational curriculum but needs to offer more than a bit of knowledge to help students truly understand where Canada came from. The native people lived by a simple philosophy in life and once the Europeans arrived, things became complicated. A modern world mingling with a world that didn’t want to remove itself from what had always been. Not unlike today, there are many traditions that these cultures (we call the First Nations) have many beliefs that offer more than animism and theism in general. Their teachings offer a fundamental respect for all living things and that is what kept their cultures alive for the amount of time it has.

This fundamental belief of respect for one another (including the earth itself) is a crucial teaching that applies further than simple religion and language but also into the basic science elementary school students learn. Biodiversity, food chains, etc.

The reading of culture and tradition is poetry in itself. The Ojicree practice chanting that offers teachings and stories in many different respects. The students we teach in our schools are indeed learning English but why can’t they also be observing another language’s translated chants or scripts of dialogue, etc. This allows students to view a text from a different viewpoint. The teachings of cultures are applicable to language arts on most levels. Yes, they would most likely need to be translated but its not as if they are not already.

Overall, the idea of learning about indigenous studies is a matter of developing understanding of the world around us, and respect for not just fellow Canadians, but other humans. This is not just an English world, or a French World, is multi-cultural and just as we show willingness to work closely with one culture, we certainly should for all.