Indigenous Perspectives

 As if Indigenous knowledge and communities mattered: transformative education in First Nations communities in Canada

The article “As if Indigenous knowledge and communities mattered: transformative education in First Nations communities in Canada” explores a powerful educational innovation, the First Nations Partnership Programs. It highlights how culturally grounded, community-based curriculum development can serve as a tool for Indigenous capacity building, healing and empowerment. The argument in the article is that traditional, “one-size-fits-all” post-secondary education models have often failed Indigenous learners. In contrast, the “Generative Curriculum Model” invites elders, students, and university faculty to co-create a curriculum that honours both Indigenous and Eurowestern knowledge, allowing students to “walk in both worlds”. This model supports personal growth, community development, and academic success by embedding cultural understanding at the heart of education.

This approach strongly resonates with my understanding of innovation in teaching and learning. Innovation means creating a safe space for students to share their ideas, bringing those ideas to life and finding a way to support all learners. The article states, “students can experience a high degree of agency in determining what they learn and how they learn it”. This reminds me of a student I once supported who was struggling after a family loss. Their leaking began not through. Their healing began not through curriculum, but through connection with stories that fostered a sense of belonging and being seen. Reading how “Elders brought with them their wisdom… and we learned together” reminded me of the power of learning rooted in relationships and shared lived experiences.

This article has significant implications for my practice. It challenges me to ask: whose knowledge is being privileged in the classroom? How can I make learning more reciprocal? I was partivaly struck by the ideas that “education is not neutral…it has impact, it has meaning, it has motion” (pg.36). Moving forward, I want to bring more storytelling and cultural awareness into my teaching, not only to support inclusion but for my students to know their roots.

A question I would ask the author is how teachers who aren't part of the indigenous community can use this kind of teaching in their classroom.

Pedagogical Pathway for Indigenous Education with/in Teacher Education

In the article “Pedagogical Pathway for Indigenous Education with/in Teacher Education” by Brooke Madden, she explores how teacher educators engage Indigenous education within Faculties of Education. She organizes her analysis around four “pedagogical pathways”: (1) Learning from Indigenous traditional models of teaching, (2) Pedagogy for decolonizing, (3) Indigenous and ant-racist education and (4) Indigenous and place-based education. Each pathway reflects different goals, themes, and teaching methods, yet all aim to support Indigenous students better and promote relational, culturally relevant and transformational education.

Madden highlights the complexity of this work, noting that it cannot be addressed though a single strategy. Instead, she emphasizes that these pathways often “wind, meet and diverge” depending on context. One quote that stood out to me was: “Teachers' attempts to model Indigenous approaches to teaching and learning will not always resonate with Indigenous students and families” (Madden,2015, p.2). This reminds me that good intentions are not enough, educators must approach Indigenous education with humility, patience, and willingness to learn continuously.  This reminds me of my experience with my Indignious learning course I took in teachers' college. The course took place in the summer term, after we had all completed our practicums. The course helped us learn how to approach indigenous topics respectfully, but I wish it had been taught at the beginning of the program, so we knew how to approach these topics when teaching. As teachers, we are always learning, especially around approaches to Ingdinous education, and wish this was taught earlier on to support us better.

This article deepened my understanding of innovation in education as something that goes beyond new tools or strategies. Here, innovation means challenging dominant systems, integrating the indigenous worldview and shifting teaching identities to reflect ethical responsibilities and community-based learning. It's about system change, not surface-level fixes. Those changes might seem scary, but the surface-level modifications are not enough or will only last temporarily, just like a band-aid.

For my practice, this article reinforces the need to create learning environments that honour multiple ways of learning, whether through land-based experiences, storywork or critical reflection. I am inspired to seek out new opportunities to learn from Indigenous educators and communities and to support students in developing deep relationships with place, people, and themselves.

My question is how non-Indigenous educators can respectfully engage in Indigenous education without simply imposing knowledge? Is it better to have guest speakers come in to help teach and share their experiences?