Those of us volunteering and working with ITMP strive everyday to provide inclusive educational support through a lens of decolonization to Indigenous students. But this is easier said than done, for everyone involved.
What does decolonizing education really mean? What efforts are being made to make education more inclusive? What Indigenous values are being considered, what aren’t, who is deciding what values to include, and how are they being integrated into an education system that has been so imperialist for so long?
These and other questions are the types that we at ITMP endeavour to answer, or at least consider, in our role as tutors and mentors for Indigenous students. We’d also like to bring more awareness to the insufficiencies of Canada’s school system to provide appropriate and inclusive education to Indigenous students, and work being done by teachers in cooperation with Indigenous leaders to make public education in Canada more inclusive of Indigenous values.
Much of this work uses the “First Peoples Principles of Learning” as a sort of template or starting point. In this series of blog posts, ‘Decolonizing Public Education,’ we will be discussing efforts being made across Canada to include the Principles of Learning in Canada’s public education system starting with the first principle.
Author: Lexa, ITMP Blog Coordinator
Image Credits: https://www.fnesc.ca/first-peoples-principles-of-learning/
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