Traditional Plants - Decolonizing Teaching, Indigenizing Learning

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Name: Brittany Seymour (Tahltan and Tsimshian)
Grades: Kindergarten, 1, 2, 3, 7, 11
Subject Areas: Social Studies, Science, English Language Arts, Career Education, Health and Physical Education
Artifact /Place/ Skill: Traditional Indigenous Knowledge of Plants

· Artifacts: Created with plants, such as cedar baskets.

· Place: On the Land, outdoors, in the community.

· Skill: Readiness to learn, communication skills to communicate in a respectful way with the Indigenous community, and traditional plant knowledge keepers.

· Concept: Technology (creating things, such as food, tools, and art from traditional plants).

· Teaching: The significance of traditional plant knowledges and uses.

Making Space

How might teachers prepare their students to work with this content? What background knowledge might be required?

Ensure that yourself, as the educator, and the students know whose traditional territory that everyone is living, working, learning, and playing on.
Create an inclusive classroom that is welcoming to new thoughts, impressions, and information from a variety of senses and people, secular, sacred, formal, and informal.
Increase outdoor learning field days and use the local Indigenous place names and language to describe the things that you are doing.
Create chances for the students to become interested and engaged with the natural world that is readily available land-based education.
Provide the opportunity for students to understand and acknowledge the existence of a community beyond the classroom.
Understand and think about the holistic outlook and the relationship to all the relatives on the territory that they are on, all the relations involves human and non-human.
To combat racist and stereotypical generalizations of Indigenous people use accurate and specific historical facts and information.
Teachers can pose certain questions to their students to get them thinking about why traditional knowledge about plants was and continues to be important to the local Indigenous community.

Practice Humility

How might non-Indigenous teachers sensitively work with this subject? What might they need to consider in their own positionality?

Maintaining self-awareness: the teacher does not represent themselves as seeing through Indigenous eyes but identifies and analyses their positionality within a dominant culture.
Teachers must be aware and sensitive to the negative effects that colonization has, and continues to have, on Indigenous culture and ways of life.
Realize the political nature of knowledge and the political essence of curriculum.
Respect that knowledge comes from many sources, which involves spiritual and emotional ones.
Be informed about local protocols and processes for knowledge sharing.
Do not treat Indigenous education as a single activity, or token preservation of romanticization.
Be open to criticism.

Acknowledge Sources

What can teachers do to find good supporting resources? How should they be cited, especially when it comes to Indigenous knowledges?

Work with the school, or schoolboard’s, Indigenous support workers, the Indigenous district principle, or trusted local contacts, and involve these supports when seeking to involve knowledge’s from community Elders, knowledge keepers, artists, or members.
Work with locally Indigenous developed resources, be aware of who wrote or created the resource, and how outdated or accurate the resource is.
Recognize and give credit to who and/or where the knowledge is coming from.
Utilize resources that involve skilled Indigenous community members and third-party outdoor education specialists who will assist with the challenges affiliated with learning outside the classroom, such as equipment, risk management, transportation, etc.
Ensure if speaking and learning from a local Indigenous person that the relationship is reciprocal, do not just take information, how are you or your class giving back to the community or community member, whether it be a gift, honorarium, or sharing other knowledge’s. Typically, teachers can speak with the school’s Indigenous support worker to understand what they need to do in order for it to be a reciprocal relationship.
Do not pan-Indigenize information; find and specify local knowledges.

BC Curriculum Connections

How does it relate to BC Curriculum?

Click on the subject area below to expand the section.

Social Studies

Social Studies Kindergarten

Career Education

Career Education 3

Big Idea(s):

Strong communities are the result of being connected to family and community and working together toward common goals.

Curricular Competencies:

Share ideas, information, personal feelings, and knowledge with others.
Identify and appreciate the roles and responsibilities of people in their schools, families, and communities.

Concepts & Content:

Cultural and social awareness.
Roles and responsibilities at school, and in the local community.

Physical and Health Education

Physical and Health Education 3

Big Idea(s):

Our physical, emotional, and mental health are interconnected.

Curricular Competencies:

Explore and describe strategies for making healthy eating choices in a variety of settings.
Explain how participation in outdoor activities supports connections with the community and environment.
Identify and explain factors that contribute to positive experiences in different physical activities.

Concepts & Content:

Nutrition and hydration choices to support different activities and overall health.
Factors that influence self-identity.

Science Education

Science Kindergarten

Big Idea(s):

Plants and animals have observable features.

Curricular Competencies:

Experience and interpret the local environment.
Recognize First Peoples stories (including oral and written narratives), songs, and art, as ways to share knowledge.

Concepts & Content:

Basic needs of plants and animals.
Adaptations of local plants and animals.
Local First Peoples uses of plants and animals.

Science 1

Big Idea(s):

Living things have features and behaviours that help them survive in their environment.
Matter is useful because of its properties.

Curricular Competencies:

Experience and interpret the local environment.
Recognize First Peoples stories (including oral and written narratives), songs, and art, as ways to share knowledge.

Concepts & Content:

Classification of living and non-living things.
Names of local plants and animals.
Structural features of living things in the local environment.
The knowledge of First Peoples:
- shared First Peoples knowledge of the sky
- local First Peoples knowledge of the local landscape, plants and animals

Science Education 3

Big Idea(s):

Living things are diverse, can be grouped, and interact in their ecosystems.

Curricular Competencies:

Demonstrate curiosity about the natural world.
Make observations about living and non-living things in the local environment.
Experience and interpret the local environment.
Identify First Peoples' perspectives and knowledge as sources of information.

Concepts & Content:

Biodiversity in the local environment.
The knowledge of local First Peoples' of ecosystems.

Science 7

Big Idea(s):

Evolution by natural selection provides an explanation for the diversity and survival of living things.
Earth and its climate have changed over geological time.

Curricular Competencies:

Make observations aimed at identifying their own questions about the natural world.
Make predictions about the findings of their inquiry.
Collaboratively plan a range of investigation types, including field work and experiments, to answer their questions or solve problems they have identified.
Apply First Peoples perspectives and knowledge, other ways of knowing, and local knowledge as sources of information.

Concepts & Content:

First Peoples knowledge of changes in biodiversity over time.

Environmental Science 11

Big Idea(s):

Human practices affect the sustainability of ecosystems.
Humans can play a role in stewardship and restoration of ecosystems.

Curricular Competencies:

Experience and interpret the local environment.
Apply First Peoples perspectives and knowledge, other ways of knowing, and local knowledge as sources of information.
Contribute to finding solutions to problems at a local and/or global level through inquiry.
Implement multiple strategies to solve problems in real-life, applied, and conceptual situations.
Communicating
Express and reflect on a variety of experiences, perspectives, and worldviews through place.

Concepts & Content:

First Peoples knowledge and other traditional ecological knowledge in sustaining biodiversity.
Human actions and their impact on ecosystem integrity.
First Peoples ways of knowing and doing.
Resource stewardship.
Restoration practices.

Life Sciences 11

Big Idea(s):

Life is a result of interactions at the molecular and cellular levels.
Organisms are grouped based on common characteristics.

Curricular Competencies:

Experience and interpret the local environment.
Apply First Peoples perspectives and knowledge, other ways of knowing, and local knowledge as sources of information.

Concepts & Content:

Levels of organization.
Taxonomic principles for classifying organisms.
First Peoples understandings of interrelationships between organisms.
First Peoples knowledge on classification.

Science for Citizens 11

Big Idea(s):

Scientific processes and knowledge inform our decisions and impact our daily lives.
Scientific understanding enables humans to respond and adapt to changes locally and globally.

Curricular Competencies:

Use local knowledge to experience and interpret the local environment.
Apply First Peoples perspectives and knowledge, other ways of knowing, and local knowledge as sources of information.

Concepts & Content:

Personal and public health practices, including First Peoples traditional health and healing practices.
Impact of technologies.
Actions and decisions affecting the local and global environment, including those of First Peoples.

First People's Principles of Learning

Which First People's Principles of Learning apply?

Learning ultimately supports the well-being of the self, the family, the community, the land, the spirits, and the ancestors.
Learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential, and relational (focused on connectedness, on reciprocal relationships, and a sense of place).
Learning involves generational roles and responsibilities.
Learning recognizes the role of Indigenous knowledge.
Learning is embedded in memory, history, and story.
Learning involves recognizing that some knowledge is sacred and only shared with permission and/or in certain situations.

Inviting Community

What is one way that teachers could work with community members for this project?

Take the time to get to know the local Indigenous community, best practices with Indigenous community member, and learners, are grounded first in relationships.
Work with the school, or schoolboard’s, Indigenous support workers, the Indigenous district principle, or trusted local contacts, and involve these supports when seeking to involve community elders, knowledge keepers, artists, or members.
Create a meaningful school-community relationship and agreements that are based in time, reciprocity, respect, trust, relevance, and actualized plans.
Utilize resources that involve skilled Indigenous community members and third-party outdoor education specialists who will assist with the challenges affiliated with learning outside the classroom, such as equipment, risk management, transportation, etc…
A significant aspect of Indigenous education is community involvement in learning. Teachers, children, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, and other people in the community all have contributions to make.
Students participate in service learning, community-based service activities.

Indigenous Perspectives

How does your lesson relate to decolonization or reconciliation of education?

The teacher would have to look into local, relevant contacts within the community in which they are working and learning. For example, if working in Terrace, the teacher would have to get in contact with the local Indigenous groups, which are Kitsumkalum and Kitselas.
Local contact information can typically be found on the band website, for example Kitselas’ band website has the cultural coordinator’s contact information, who would be able to assist an educator with further contact information if needed.