Potential for Decolonizing Pedagogical Practice

Decolonizing praxis and methodologies engage with colonial relations of power and privilege—Maori scholar LT. Smith (2019) writes in Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education: Mapping the Long View that the aim is to unsettle and disrupt the status quo within educational contexts. Know that the term "education" is in relation to the epistemological and ontological systems of knowing and being, and how knowledge is transmitted. In Decolonizing Education, Nurturing the Learning Spirit, Mi'kmaw scholar Marie Battiste writes, "in order to effect change, educators must help students understand the Eurocentric assumptions of superiority within the context of history and to recognize the continued dominance of these assumptions in all forms of contemporary knowledge" (2019, p.186). She explains that within the classroom, one mode of knowledge production dominates other ways of learning, which creates "cognitive imperialism" (p.33). She writes that power manifests in "cognitive imperialism" through determining what is legitimate knowledge, which excludes Indigenous thought. Indigenous thought conflicts with this dominant pedagogy because it promotes white values and beliefs that perpetuate the oppression of Indigenous people. Author Michele Tanaka affirms Battiste. In Learning & Teaching Together: Weaving Indigenous Ways of Knowing in Education, she explains, "making Indigeneity an educational priority is challenging and requires bringing experiential and holistic emphasis to formal educational settings that have typically privileged intellectual knowledge to the exclusion of other ways of knowing…building on the connection between the learner and their learning environment and materials including the land" (2016, p.5).

My project builds on frameworks offered by Smith, Battiste, and Basso–along with many other authors that examine the connection between community members and understanding of their stake and position within history and society. The authors don't explicitly discuss the idea of teaching teachers to inspire generations of students, which is what the interviews in my thesis undertake. The relationship fostered through the co-creation of curricula combats the current models of how knowledge is disseminated to students. This is precisely why my focus is on building relationships and what curricula are developed.