K-12 Curriculum
All lesson plans include the Alberta Program of Studies program objectives.
Indigenous
Teachings
Resources
Welcome to our free resource page, Thank you for your patience as we update the website.
Reconciling ACTIONS
It was education that facilitated cultural genocide through the Indian Residential Schools, and it will be education that helps establish peaceful Indigenous relations within Canada. Chief Justice Murray Sinclair
A decolonized approach to education has the power to rebuild the damaged relationship that "Canada" has with the First Peoples of the Land through the legacy that was left behind by residential schools. In response to the TRC’s recommendations, I encourage educational leaders, health institutions, and all organizations to support staff through this time of Truth and healing.
Support to reconcile could be done through Indigenous workshops and training sessions that focus on the Truth and history of Canada. Additional support can be done through sharing scholarly articles, and sharing links to Indigenous education sites or hosting professional development days that focus on the meaning of reconciliation.​
Decolonizing actions involve marrying Indigenous ways of knowing with mainstream Canadan culture, history, and legislate. Decolonizing also means the inclusion of Indigenous ways into the public school and post-secondary school curriculums.
Indigenous Pedagogy
Indigenous learners view education from a wholistic perspective. Indigenous teachings encompasses many facets including: language, land-based teachings, storytelling, community-based learning, herbology, song and dance, hunting, cosmology, ethnobotany and Ceremony.
Indigenous ways of knowing support the notion that life is sacred and all things living are interconnected. The wholistic teaching methods of Cree pedagogy encourage mutual respect with all living things. Indigenous education is based on respect, relevance, reciprocity, and responsibility (Kirkness and Barnhardt, 2001). Critical thinking and developing metacognitive skills are central elements of Cree teachings. Traditional Cree pedagogy focuses on the learners' needs, abilities, and interests, and the student helps in deciding what he or she wishes to learn (Alberta Education, 2006).
The Indigenous community views the classroom as an extension of the community and education involves “observation, listening, modeling, demonstration – with multi-sensory and hands-on experiences” (Alberta Education 2006, p. 6). Cree epistemology honours the following aspects:
- the interconnectedness of all things
- connection to the land and community
- the dynamic and changing nature of the world
- strength that develops in power not power over (Alberta Education, 2006)
The current and Eurocentric programming from Kindergarten to Post-secondary does not include Indigenous Pedagogy as a standard teaching practice, and rarely is Indigenous history and knowledge incorporated into the curriculums and programming; this leaves a mismatch between the Indigenous learners' home education and education that the public schools provide.
The Western school systems and the colonial approach to education has failed Indigenous students and forced assimilation has left a gap in interpretations of Indigenous knowledge (Hansen, 2018).