The Decolonizing Teaching Indigenizing Learning website supports teacher candidates, in-service teachers, and faculty as they move towards implementing Indigenous education and pedagogies into their curricula. The website centres on Indigenous pedagogies and values Indigenous knowledges as fluid and interconnected. Decolonizing Teaching Indigenizing Learning was made possible by many hands, minds, and hearts. The content and design were a dynamic process between Dr. Shannon Leddy and Kiera Brant-Birioukov. This week in the mentoring circle, we follow the heartbeat of this website – its Curriculum Bundles. Indigenous educators across BC designed each curriculum bundle, many of whom are NITEP students at UBC.
Students in the NITEP program have made significant contributions to the Decolonizing Teaching Indigenizing Learning website, bringing learning from their communities around the province to bear in creating content that is locally grounded, interdisciplinary, and multimodal. The Curriculum Bundles they developed are not lesson plans but are rather offered as rich collections of knowledge and resources that will help users develop lessons and units that meet the needs of their students and honour the land that they teach on. The names and nations of the students are honoured at the beginning of each Curriculum Bundle. Multiple curricular connections across grades and subject areas have been included in each Curriculum Bundle including clear connections to the First People’s Principles of Learning.
In the Decolonizing Teaching Indigenizing Learning website, you can explore topics that interest you, and develop learning opportunities for your students that build on their lived experiences and local environments and resources. The digital situates where our learning takes place and asks us to listen to the welcoming words of local Elders Larry Grant (Territorial Welcome) and Gerry Olemann (Education and Wellbeing). After being grounded by the words of Elders, explore the Curriculum Bundles and Curated Resources as interconnected webs and conversations. Their intention is for every Curriculum Bundle to be applied in any classroom, without the limitations of specific lesson plans. Decolonizing Teaching Indigenizing Learning serves to inspire educators of all backgrounds and subject areas. Educators accessing this website can take these digital resources in any direction they wish!
It is an exciting time for Indigenous education because there are many places to access Indigenous knowledges, teachings, and perspectives. The active response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action has provided many resources to bring Indigenous perspectives to the forefront inside classrooms. As there are limitless resources online, Decolonizing Teaching Indigenizing Learning has compiled a curated list of authentic Indigenous resources in the Curated Resources section of its website. Also, check out the Foundational Resources page to begin exploring the complexity of terminology in Indigenous education. The website also shares a checklist to assist in mapping out whether the resource is authentic and appropriate. Visit the Curated Resources to find a variety of links to support your work with the Curriculum Bundles.
Decolonizing Teaching Indigenizing Learning adds to their content constantly, if you are an Indigenous educator who would like to share your expertise of local Indigenous knowledges in the classroom, you can contact them. Please email Dr. Shannon Leddy (sleddy@mail.ubc.ca), requesting the template for Curriculum Bundles, to get started! The project would be pleased to showcase Indigenous educators’ work in their Curriculum Bundles. Perhaps you wish to offer a new Curriculum Bundle, or maybe you have taken up one of our existing Curriculum Bundles in your classroom. The BC curriculum connections in the Curriculum Bundles are not meant to be exhaustive, but a starting place. Each Indigenous educator who contributed teachings and artifacts suggested the natural connections they envision to be complementary to their Curriculum Bundle.
In the Versatility of Salmon Curriculum Bundle, an Indigenous educator envisioned a conversation around the “cultural, economic, and scientific implications” of salmon. With this, there are direct links to Social Studies, Business, and Science education, but could be also taken up in the visual arts, French, health and physical education, music education, and so on – possibilities are endless. The Decolonizing Teaching Indigenizing Learning website highlights what the strongest connections are first – to stimulate new ideas – but by no means does this mean that these are the only connections. The website is meant to be exploratory for educators of all backgrounds to consider how diverse Indigenous knowledges can be taken up across diverse subject areas to decolonize teaching and Indigenize learning.
