Teaching Treaties in the Classroom

Last week I had the opportunity to take a workshop on teaching treaties in the classroom.  Teaching treaties is a requirement in Saskatchewan’s curriculum and I think that it should have been for years.  I was raised and schooled without much First Nations content.  I did not know hardly anything about the history of Canadian First Nations.  Since I started attending university I have had the opportunity to learn about Canada’s past.  Canada’s past, when it comes to First Nations, is disgusting.  On top of the history courses I have taken, I have had the opportunity to listen to First Nation elders speak.  I am learning both sides of the story.  Why was I never privy to both sides of the story before now?  One reason my be that I was never taught it, and the other is because I had not taken the time to learn.  In my time at the university I have learned that if I want to know something, I have to find it out for myself; no one is going to spoon feed me with the knowledge I need.

Teaching treaties and other First Nation’s content in the classroom is very important because there are so many untruths, discrepancies, and misunderstandings in society today.  With education, there may be change in the future.  I do not remember where I read it, but I read that racist attitude begin in infancy.  It is no wonder that racism is so hard to change; kids do not have a chance to escape it if family members have racist attitudes.  The more youth and adults who are educated the better the chance of racism being part of history.

The workshop was my fourth opportunity to communicate with an elder as they tell about the past, the present, and the future.  Every time I learn something new and there is never any blame against me for what my ancestors did years ago to the First Nation People.

Through understanding the past, the future is only going to get better.  And that is why we need First Nation’s content in schools.

Darin

Playground Wisdom 5 to 8

5. “Always play nicely” and 6. “Challenge yourself everyday”

Well, I consider myself a nice guy and I pretty much get along with everyone, so always play nicely is something that I do everyday.  It is not something that I necessarily strive for, it is just me.  As for challenging myself everyday, I do.  Every morning I get up and go to school at the university; then I come home and spend hours doing homework.  That daily grind is a challenge everyday.  I go to school and have to think; some days my mind hurts from thinking and reflecting so much.  But, what a great thing when those hours of thinking and reflecting finally start to make the connections between what is happening at school and where I am going.  I have to play nicely and challenge myself or I am not going to end up being  the teacher I want to be  and especially the teacher I need to be.

7. “Don’t give up” and 8. “Trust”

We have been hearing since the beginning of the year “trust us” “don’t give up”.  At the beginning of the year I had problems doing that because sometimes I did not understand what the heck my professors were teaching us.  It just did not make any sense at times.  I do trust and I am not giving up, and I know that my professors have the big picture in mind.   I just do not always see the picture clearly.  Some days I wish I could go back and retake my fall semester because with what I know now, I could have learned a lot more from those professors.

Now let me look at it with a different lens.  When I think about “don’t give up” in a classroom,  I think about not giving up on a student.  If something is not working I should approach it from a different angle until that student gets it.  I have seen teachers giving up on students and I hate seeing it.  Pass the student on to someone else because the student does not get it, is out of control, or has a learning disability.  “My kids can’t do that” is giving up before allowing that students an opportunity to try.  Some days kids amaze me because they “can do that” if they are giving the opportunity and the freedom to try to do it.

Darin