Presenters:  Edō​sdi / Dr. Judith Thompson (Tahltan) & Yahlnaaw / Aaron Grant (Haida) “Decolonizing our Colonized Minds: Educational Systems”

This event will be livestreamed  www.unbc.ca/livestream

  

Abstract: As Indigenous peoples in Canada, we begin from a colonized place. Indigenous children are raised in school systems that focus on Euro-Canadian worldviews and ways of knowing. The need to support Indigenous children to not only understand the many Indigenous worldviews, but to actually make that paradigm shift to the worldviews of their people, is paramount. Through the Indigenization of curriculum and school environments, learning our peoples’ ways of knowing and ways of being will support that paradigm shift and the decolonization of our minds. However, it is important to differentiate between the terms Indigenization and decolonization. Indigenization is about re-centring Indigenous worldviews and transforming curricula, pedagogy and research. Indigenization of the academy needs to involve post-secondary institutes working with Indigenous communities to maintain and revitalize what colonial educational institutions have tried to destroy. While Indigenization can be seen to be a foundational process of decolonization, actual decolonization is the reclamation of land and languages. We need to be clear at all levels of education what needs to happen in order to decolonize our colonized minds.