Teaching grades one to six in three school buildings over the first five years of my teaching career, allowed me to see the endless ways to teach the same mandated curriculum. Teaching grade five my last two school years, I have been reminded that you can utilize a variety of teaching approaches to help meet students where they are at. I was reaffirmed in this understanding while reading chapter seven of Goulet & Goulet’s book Teaching Each Other: Nehinuw Concepts & Indigenous Pedagogies (2014).

Goulet & Goulet share that connection to process requires educators to design a learning environment that supports and nurtures Indigenous students (p. 133). I appreciate that this supports all learners within the classroom as well. As educators, we are tasked with taking a group of 20+ students each year, determine their abilities and needs individually and then craft learning opportunities that help each student to grow. I do not take this task lightly. Having the autonomy in the way that you teach is a blessing. There is beauty in crafting a learning environment that is supportive, inviting, challenging and engaging for students. As this post develops, I will explore a few key ideas from chapter seven that explore my understanding of connecting students to the process of learning.

Understanding Underlying Needs For Learning

Educators must understand the underlying needs of students for learning to take place in authentic and memorable ways. From reading chapter seven, I was reminded that teachers play a major role in creating spaces that are safe for students to grow in. This can take place in the form of developing a sense of belonging in the classroom (p. 136), with adults and amongst peers, which is described in earlier chapters of Goulet & Goulet’s book. I agree that teachers need to foster student buy in to support the creation and maintenance of a safe space for all students (p. 137). In the future, I would like to spend more time at the beginning of the year cocreating the expectations for our classroom with students. The method of using the Circle of Courage (Brokenleg & Van Bockern, 2003) to cocreate classroom norms and expectations is something that I would like to explore support future Indigenous students in the class as well. As Goulet & Goulet (2014) have mentioned, teachers can support Indigenous students by making culture visible, supported and valued in the learning space (p. 142). I connected to our classmate Dana’s activity of connecting to the land and developing meaningful land acknowledgements. I appreciated the value that was placed on stepping away from performative land acknowledgements and doing the work to make an acknowledgement that is personalized and contains statements of action. For Indigenous students, seeing people share their personal steps towards truth and reconciliation through a personalized land acknowledgement is another way to value indigenous cultures. Essentially, Indigenous students need to see themselves within the learning context to support learning and resilience.

Next, teachers can support safety in the school by working to counter intergenerational trauma narratives that exist among students and their families. Goulet & Goulet mentioned that “[m]any Indigenous students approach school as a colonizing institution of exclusion, discrimination, and imposed submission to authority” (p. 133). Indigenous student need the negative narrative towards school to be met with consistent encouraging and affirming experiences. If educators are to take active steps to develop and repair perceptions and relationships with schooling, then we need to focus on antibias and antiracist education (p. 143). I recognize that this is a huge undertaking, but it can be worked towards in small steps. An example from my course work includes our classmates Alyssa and Patrick’s weather reflection activity. This activity supports developing and utilizing empathy through a listening and art activity. In pairs, one member shares their experience or emotions verbally as a description of a weather type. Concurrently, the other partner listens and represents what is shared in a visual art form, such as drawing. I can see this would be an excellent check in activity to use within the classroom to regularly have students connect with one another while also developing empathy and community. I would like to implement this activity in the classroom when I return to work.

Additionally, as mentioned, educators need to provide a space to value all types of knowledge. Kelly Daniels, Elder Helper at First Nations University, helped me to make different connections during his presentation in our seminar class. Kelly shared that learning starts in the womb. The knowledge that Kelly shared about the development of learning for young ones was refreshing for someone with an early education background. I was intrigued about the teaching of responsibilities that are passed down to children at certain ages and how we can learn from anyone and anything if we are willing to listen and watch. The teachings that Kelly shared reminded me that Indigenous students need a learning space that encourages and respects Indigenous culture and worldview.

Planning & Preparing Effectively

For myself, planning and preparing for learning is a large portion of my work responsibilities outside of teaching hours. Within chapter seven, Goulet & Goulet outlines various components to planning and preparing for learning that supports Indigenous student success.

I am very comfortable with the idea of discovering and utilizing student strengths to support learning. This is an area of personal interest and I chose strength based learning as the basis for my action plan this term. Chapter seven affirmed my perspective that each student has their own gifts and personality that are assets to community learning (p.141). As a teacher, knowing your students and utilizing their strengths is a recipe for growth and learning. I love when a learning opportunity can be supported or ran by a student. The pride and joy shared in these moments is unmatched. I enjoy finding moments for students to be the expert on a topic and share their knowledge with the classroom as an another way to help support positive self esteem in students and further support their success in learning (p. 167). Additionally, educators can support the development of self by setting high standards (p. 154), value Indigenous other’s culture (p. 155), and publicly recognize student success (p. 156). Teachers improve their classroom environment and lessons when students are able to use their strengths to support their identity and academic learning.

Going Forward

The sections of Accommodating Characteristics of Indigenous Students (p. 142) and Structuring For Success (p. 146) within Goulet & Goulet’s chapter seven affirmed and added to my understanding of supporting students. As mentioned previously, Indigenous students need to see and engage with traditional and contemporary culture (p. 142). Integrating traditional knowledge is something that I have tried to work to do in the classroom so far. On-the-other-hand, I will admit that I have not focused on incorporating contemporary Indigenous culture within the classroom. Going forward, I would like to go beyond knowledge keepers, elders and division Indigenous supports to find people in our local community that are role models for Indigenous youth. Clearly, students needs to learn about traditional cultural connections while also seeing Indigenous peoples who are successful in their passions and pursuits today.

From chapter seven, there are a few instructional methods that I would like to explore further when I return to the classroom. I am very interested in finding ways to encourage and incorporate Indigenous languages in the classroom (p.143). I think it would be an excellent community building experience to have any students who speak a different language share and connect or contrast their words to English. Secondly, as Goulet & Goulet mentioned, our mandated curriculum is developed for the middle class (p. 144) and therefore as a teacher, I should not assume that all students have a running context for all of the content that is covered in school. From this perspective, I see the value of hands on (p.149), experiential (p. 152) or land-based (p. 153) learning as explored in chapter seven to give students a context for the information covered in mandated curricula. Lastly, I connected to the ideas of structuring success for students in a safe space (p. 147) where they can take risks, learn, grown and start over as much as possible. This safe space is a never-ending goal for myself so I can help students blossom each year.

As I continue in my teaching career, I would like to focus on utilizing my students’ strengths to support their learning. I plan to take some time to look at assigned curriculum with a critical lens and seek out opportunities to integrate learning beyond the walls of the classroom. This analysis can support my goal of being an antibias educator. I appreciated chapter seven by Goulet & Goulet as it reminds me that there is not one way of teaching and if one way does not work for students then creative thinking is needed to structure learning so all students, including Indigenous students can be successful. In the pursuit of modifying the learning environment and experiences to the students in the classroom, we connect them to the process of learning which should be as authentic and engaging as our day to day life experiences.

References

Goulet, L. M., & Goulet, K. N. (2014). Teaching Each Other. UBC Press.

Brokenleg, M., & Van Bockern, S. (2003). The Science of Raising Courageous Kids. In martinbrokenleg.com. https://martinbrokenleg.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/12_1_Brokenleg_Van_Bockern.pdf