Decolonize and Indiginize

My role in reflecting on my practises  as an educator include thinking about decolonizing the curriculum.    The term "decolonize" has been widely used by non- indigenous people who have experienced colonization in their ancestral lands.  How can I focus and center my teaching on indigenous knowledge?  Can this fit into every subject?  There has been a lot of talk about museums, teachers college and other facets of teaching to decolonize their material.  

Under the Indian Act, the Potlach ban legally denied and actually criminalized Indigenous people for any expression of their traditions, ceremonies and caused tremendous harm to generations of families, communities and our nation. [1] What I do today or tomorrow will never make up for those 67 years of loss and hurt but it can help to repair and rebuild for this generation and the future.   

I wish I had some of this knowledge when I went to teachers college in 2006.  Lorna Williams at the University of Victoria is looking at decolonizing Teacher Education programs.  She states that in Indigenous education can provide alternative perspectives and reshape our thinking about how preservice teachers can better prepare themselves for a teaching career. Using principles such as those listed below which were realized by Lorna Williams (2008) in her course, Teaching and Learning in an Indigenous world.  
 These include the need to provide:

• respectful and welcoming learning environments;
• respectful and inclusive curricula;
• culturally responsive pedagogies to improve the quality of knowledge, understanding, and pedagogic skills that all educators gain;
• mechanisms for valuing and promoting Indigeneity in education; and
• culturally responsive assessment (Archibald, Lundy, Reynolds, & Williams, 2010, pp. 5-8). [2] 

[1] [Online.]  Accessed at https://medium.com/viewfinder-reflecting-on-museum-education/decolonize-and-indigenize-a-reflective-dialogue-3de78fa76442.  February 19,2019. 
[2] Sandford. K. (2012). Indigenous Principles Decolonizing Teacher Educaion:  What we have learned.  InEducation. Vol 2. Issue 18.