As per course,
Choose one quote and write a response to it using the above questions.
From the TRC Commission of Canada Calls to Action, 2015
Quotes Protocol
Review the following quotes and consider: In what ways do you connect to the quote? In what ways does the quote extend your thinking? In what ways does the quote challenge your understanding? Are there ways the quote leads you to think about any recent classroom or school experiences?
Education is what got us here and education is what will get us out.
Justice Murray Sinclair
The road we travel is equal in importance to the destination we seek. There are no shortcuts when it comes to truth and reconciliation. We are forced to go the distance.
Justice Murray Sinclair
Many of the calls to action by the Truth and Reconciliation are about education and awareness and put us at the forefront to empower our students to not walk with shame or carry the burden of guilt but to see themselves as being transformative.
Kevin Lamoureaux
Reconciliation isn't an act of pity, it is Canada going through a process of healing itself.
Kevin Lamoureux
Nothing about us without us.
Judi Chamberlin
Reconciliation requires changes of heart and spirit, as well as social and economic changes. It requires symbolic as well as practical actions.
Malcom Fraser
When we talk about the history and legacy of residential schools, it is also acknowledging that it is not over.
Dr. Marie Wilson
I want to ask you to get uncomfortable with discomfort. If Canadians want reconciliation, they can't turn away.
Jesse Wente
Sitting in corners wringing our hands and wondering what to do is not going to advance anything, including yourself. Read the calls to action, and as you go through them one at a time ask yourself: do I belong in this call?
Dr. Marie Wilson
We are involved in a national project of remedial learning, and the academy is in the front row
Dr. Marie Wilson
I see you. I hear you. I believe you
Dr. Marie Wilson
It's not going to be fast, and it's not going to be easy, but it's going to be rich and uplifting for us all.
Dr. Marie Wilson
It's time for the rest of us Canadians to understand these stories and understand what it means to be a Canadian. Because I do believe, since the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and then the apology of the Prime Minister, that Canadians are experiencing a sort of existential crisis - who are we? What is this country? We've been told who we are and it doesn't fit with these descriptors.
Kathleen Mahoney
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As per discussion,
Education is what got us here and education is what will get us out.
Justice Murray Sinclair
This quote mentions the idea of education, being such a grand topci with so many avenues of discussion, I reflect on the evolution of the education itself as something that resonates with me ultimately. Students in public schools and Catholic schools of Ontario are (maybe most cases were, but I haven't really done a concensus on the decolonization of social sciences/history in Ontario yet), living in a bubble when it comes to the foundations and history of Canada. The Social Studies (History) 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 an extent “Canada” itself has always been, but it was what came before that which is important.
The curriculum that is offered now (from the professional circles I am a part of at least). begins (emphasis on 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.
To be frank, its uneasy to believe that many school boards are still struggling to decolonize something like "history" (or had for so long). I thought "Aboriginal Education" was a mandatory course through my concurrent education year. I must say that it was extremely helpful with experiences after during teacher's college, but I certainly (after teaching this long), question why it isn't (if it still isn't).
I find that within the realm of how materials are taught, I find making something accessible only in a particular manner or way is too exclusive and almost counter productive. 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. Ultimately, why throw a great example of oral-story telling, like Shakespeare out the window only to replace it with something that (yes, maybe is more applicable to this country at this time), seems more palatable to one group? I understand the idea of decolonizing a curriculum and system to root out systemic racisim. At what point does one stop and recognize that the same thing was done with French language learning. I don't believe that has necessarily changed, but I do know that had French been an option I would maybe have been more interested in choosing rather than being told to study it (I mean, maybe not, elementary school-we had a French teacher who did a great job at making everyone never want to study French). To this day, I reflect heavily on what I missed out with in regards to French language learning and how if I don't move into administration, I'd like to move into a direction of French or Mandarin (Chinese) language/International Language teaching.
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, its certainly a matter of fact-educators are going to need to step out of "The stranger" paradigm be ready to include the worldviews/histories of cultures other than their own as apart of their taught epistemology (Dion, 2014). 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. I have been working with colleagues (while in China), on decolonizing our curriculum in two ways, one not making it solely about "Canadian identity" and the other, "Not leaving out the history of the land".
Sources:
National Center for Truth and Reocnciliation (2015)
Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action - Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf (trc.ca) (Education calls #6-
12 on pages 1-2, Education for Reconciliation calls #62-65 on pages 7-8)
Statistics Canada. (2016). http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/171025/dq171025a-eng.htm
Dion, S. D. (2016). Mediating the Space Between: Voices of Indigenous Youth and Voices of Educators in Service of Reconciliation. Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue Canadienne de Sociologie, 53(4), 468–473. https://doi.org/10.1111/cars.12128
This is a document use in this Module (Task 2). The perspective of the indigenous students was of great focus and importance in regards to the ability to build voice for these students.
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