Indigenizing Post-Secondary Education
Indigenizing means acting. It involves making changes to curriculum that moves towards decentering Eurocentric knowledge and the colonial worldview. It involves bringing Indigenous ways of understanding into programs and courses in a systematic, thoughtful, and sustained way. It means writing the expectation that Indigenous content be covered in courses into the learning outcomes and the course assignments, for leaving this to happen through good intentions and hope, is not enough.
Indigenizing involves consulting with the people whose land your institution is on to learn the teachings of that land and then doing the work to incorporate those teachings into your pedagogy. Indigenizing does not mean taking Indigenous content and teaching it in colonial ways. It means taking all content and considering how it can be taught in Indigenous ways.
Indigenizing includes decolonizing your mind. There is not just one way of doing things. Indigenizing means opening yourself up to new possibilities, to pluralism, to many minds being brought together in the circle.
Indigenizing incorporates the teachings, languages, cultures, traditions, stories, and understandings of the local Indigenous communities into the everyday life of the institution.
Indigenizing provides the opportunity to incorporate a new worldview, one that arises from the land.
Indigenizing delivers on the responsibilities we all have towards fulfilling the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Calls to Action and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA Calls for Justice.
Indigenizing is upholding our responsibilities as treaty partners.
Indigenizing is an ongoing process of learning and sharing.
Indigenizing unites us with global Indigenous communities.
Indigenizing is reflecting on who we would all be today if, instead of forcing colonial values upon the people of Turtle Island, Europeans had incorporated Indigenous values into their own lives.
