Part 2: Indigenizing an Indigenous course
Sean Hillier, Faculty of Health
The burden of decolonizing has generally fallen on the shoulders of Indigenous Peoples alone, which can no longer be the case. This has been a difficult journey for myself as an Indigenous person and academic. How can we allow non-Indigenous people to teach about our culture, history, and pass on our knowledge systems and ways of life? Of course, there is no simple answer to this. Some of my mentors believe that we must start by educating others with the knowledge we hold, for them to then spread that knowledge further. This led me to propose a series of lunch and learns within my school to offer a judgement-free place for colleagues to engage in frank discussion and learning exercises aimed at Indigenizing their own courses.
To bring us back to the topic of the Indigeneity & Disability course I was assigned, I thought a great deal about how I could further Indigenize an already Indigenous course. I decided it was up to me to create a course that focused primarily on applying Indigenous ways of sharing and gaining knowledge. I came up with several exercises to help accomplish this goal, such as inviting Indigenous experts to campus and conducting out-of-class experiences that would immerse students in Indigenous ways of knowing. After coming up with a list of activities I believed would move us towards a more wholistic Indigenous course, I reached out to the Chair of my school and the Associate Dean, Teaching, for support in these initiatives. I received support for everything I asked, specifically, funds to conduct all the activities I’d planned through the Faculty of Health EE programming. As a class, we sought out on a journey to explore Indigenous health and disability in the five following ways:
- Indigenous Arts Based Methods: We brought in an Ojibway two-spirited artist to lead students in an art workshop. The artist had students paint an eagle feather and passed on his story of the eagle and the symbolism of the feather. He also talked about the process of art within his culture and how it has been used for generations to pass on stories and knowledge. Art is a representation of our spirits. Art is also a way to share experiences that have had deep impact on the artist. Through this exercise, we discussed how we could use arts-based methods in research and how this could be a more culturally-appropriate way to conduct research on Indigenous People, particularly when dealing with deeply traumatic experiences they may have had.
- Indigenous Elders: To truly decolonize, we must recognize who has privilege and knowledge within our society. In the Western world, we typically recognise this knowledge by conferring degrees upon people. However, we must recognize the inherently problematic nature of this when it comes to Indigenous People, who do not recognize knowledge in the same way. We can not assume an Indigenous person is not knowledgeable because they lack a degree. Therefore, placing the knowledge and wisdom of Indigenous Elders at the forefront of the course was of vital importance to me. I invited an Indigenous Elder to give the students a teaching, which will give students the ability to understand our oral histories and traditions through the process of storying. This will emphasize to students how the spirit and our connection to the creator are grounded within our oral histories.
- Medicine Person: Given the impact of healthcare on indigeneity and disability, it was important to include a contrasting view to the Western biomedical model of health in this course. The knowledge our traditional healers hold has been diminished by Western science and the process of colonization. In order to understand how Indigenous Peoples view disability, it is important to provide students with a foundation of traditional approaches to medicines and healthcare. The class will hear from a traditional medicine person, who will focus on traditional medicines used across several First Nations cultures, including the meaning and purpose behind each one. We will also be led in a smudging ceremony, giving them the opportunity to not just hear about smudging, but take part in a ceremony firsthand. Additionally, students will be given teachings to understand how to offer tobacco. We will connect these activities to the course content to further our understanding of research as a ceremony.
- Lecture in the Campus Tipi: Students will be given the opportunity to sit in a circle in the tipi on campus. We will conduct a short lecture about the significance of the teepee and its historical connection to Indigenous Peoples. The overall objective is to have students share within a circle and demonstrate how this can be used as a process in research settings.
- Sweat-lodge Ceremony: At the end of the semester, we will take part in a sweat-lodge ceremony at the sweat-lodge located on campus. The lodge will be closed, and the class will be held in total darkness as rocks and water heat the space. Students will recount the learnings they had throughout the semester, then sit in a circle to share their favourite exercises with each other, while connecting directly to the ground or Mother Earth. This immersive ceremony will be the final Indigenous teaching students are exposed to, where they can re-visit their gained knowledge, feelings, and experiences in the course together.
Through these five EE activities, students will engage in a university priority, and importantly, learn a path for decolonizing everything they do in the future. By truly Indigenizing an Indigenous course, we lift the burden of decolonizing off the shoulders of Indigenous Peoples alone and allow others to continue the process of decolonizing the institution forward.