Six

Educators demonstrate a broad knowledge base and an understanding of areas they teach.

This standard calls to mind the First People’s Principles seven, six and five.

Learning Principle 7: Learning involves patience and time.

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For me, principle seven is behind this standard because of the time and patience taken to acquire and disseminate the broad knowledge and understanding that educators have. In fact, in my discussion of standard one, I talked about the respect that is often expected from students towards educators. This respect, I posited, is expected as a standard, from juniors towards their seniors because we assume that learning always happens with time.

Learning takes time, but time doesn’t always make learning. Plus, even when time brings learning, not all people learn the same things. This is why knowledge keepers are often specialists, like secondary teachers, though generalist knowledge keepers are also out there. Hello, to our elementary school teachers, whose knowledge is more dispersed than focused. In my opinion, it is neither the educator’s time spent learning, nor the expected learning from that time, that warrants student respect for educators. Rather, I think that respect comes from relationship.

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I understand educators as having the responsibility of building a relationship with students far beyond that of strangers and before that of friends. I also see respecting a stranger as different from respecting a friend–if only because you know more about your friend. I’m not saying that it should be different, but that it is because knowing your friend provides a different power for you towards your friend. There’s more to it than that too, but I’m not quite able to articulate it yet. Hopefully more thought, experience and exchanges with others will bring more!

Anyway, I would say that, conversely, a teacher’s respect for students also lies outside the knowledge acquisition over time. Instead, I would say teacher’s respect their students as you would anyone, at first. Then, over time, as they get to know their students, they come to know a deeper respect for their students for each learner’s unique characteristics. That’s why the relationship is so important.

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In closing, relationships also take time, and teachers need to know that however long it took them to learn all they know, it will also take time for their students. This leads me to discussing principle six, since a teacher’s understanding of the areas they teach are always growing! Things are always being learned and unlearned, with the knowledge base shifting, because, the story is still being written! Thus, a professional educator’s learning is never done.

Learning Principle 6: Learning is embedded in memory, history and story.

On top of that, not only is the learning never done, but the remembering is always changing (according to psychology in the two-thousand twenties). Moreover, discoveries in technology, as well as renewed or varied explorations of history also find new narratives. These are good arguments for supporting the saying that “teaching is never boring”.

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And now, I am about to discuss something that is neither boring nor abhorring, but that I am reluctant and anxious to discuss. I am going to talk about how I understand Indigenous knowledge to extend beyond the knowledge held by the groups we typically think of as Indigenous, such as the Inuit, Maori, Ainu, Sami, American Indians, and others.

Learning Principle 5: Learning recognizes the role of Indigenous knowledge.

While I discuss principle five, please know that I am not in a place of confident knowing. Rather, I am in a place of engaging with and exploring ideas to gain more understanding.

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On one hand, I see the meaning of principle five applying strictly to knowledge belonging to groups, Indigenous to areas, that were colonized in the last 500 years or so. In this case, principle five is about recognizing, in light of historical and present day attempts to erase Indigenous knowledge, people and culture, that these things have value, outside of but also specific to learning.

Yet, I think a further meaning can be taken. Consider that, prior to the 1500s, different peoples overtook others people who also had knowledge that was land and place specific. Most of this knowledge has been lost, or hidden, and then found again, and practised occasionally, or totally, and where it was adopted, it has changed throughout the years. One such example would be the practices of people that we today call Pagans. Paganism is an overgeneralized term to talk about many pre-Christian, polytheist European cultures. What we know about these practices is that they were often very area specific. For example, consider the herbal remedies of native European plants and fungi, that grew in particular areas. Or, consider the cultural knowledge about the land, such as stories and histories about places in nature. Even today, Neo-Paganism has at its core, nature worship, and connecting to nature.

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Despite the resemblance between Neo-Paganism and Paganism though, there are crucial differences that suggest that Neo-Paganism could not be called Indigenous. Namely, Neo-Paganism is not specific to any land and place. Perhaps land-place specific knowledge was lost as the practices became more universally available, or maybe today’s Pagans just don’t have the same relationship to land because of the techno-industrial age we are living in. Either way, it seems to me that the knowledge that early Pagans held, was an Indigenous knowledge. Of course, this interpretation hinges on what makes knowledge “Indigenous”.

The straightforward answer that I’ve taken is that Indigenous knowledge, by the definition of Indigenous, would be any knowledge originating from and specific to a particular place. My argument rests on this assumption. Yet, most things in culture, and history, and in general most things human, are not so straightforward. Just think of all the controversies and conundrums that come up when we try to define what makes a person Indigenous. So, I think some problems that might arise from the argument I’ve made is the minimizing of the problem of modern day cultural genocide. It is a legitimate point to make that people over 500 years or so ago, are not facing cultural genocide today, and don’t need explicit attention drawn to their ways of knowing and being. So, when FPPL 5 is used, we don’t refer to those kinds of Indigenous groups.

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However, I think that there is something in common between those Indigenous groups of old, and those of today, and that for settler-colonials, this can be a path to better truth and reconciliation. Let’s say FPPL 5 does refer to all groups, who, in a time and place, had land-based knowledges, then principle five could also argue that the Indigenous knowledges of early Europeans peoples, what I have previously referred to as knowledge related to Paganism, is equally important to learning. What would this mean?

It might mean that the discrimination that Indigenous peoples and modern day Pagans both faced might be related, or not. It might suggest some similarities, though it would also underline key differences. Ultimately, I think it might provide a framework for non-Indigenous colonial settlers, to better understand Indigenous knowledges, by allowing them to explore their own lost or transformed pasts, as well as present-day discrimination. Think about how out of place Paganism can seem today. Is this perhaps because we are trying to revitalize a land-based belief system and culture that is largely lost, and needs to be recontextualized in its land, but we largely live disconnected from land? What would this mean for Indigenous revitalization? Or, perhaps, opening the window for non-Indigenous settler-colonials to explore the Indigenous knowledges of their past, will provide an opportunity for them to connect with land through their culture. They could do so without appropriating Indigenous culture, and more easily move into learning about and connecting with Indigenous cultures respectfully. Still, there would be drawbacks too. What if folks claim that Indigenous knowledges are European if they find similar practices in both, and then claim that Europeans did them first?

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Either way, I think that considering FPPL 5 in a greater context could be useful. However, I would not want to do so without consulting those who contributed to their making, because, even though it is no problem for me to interpret a work my way, it is a problem for me to present my views without honouring the original intention if I can help it–which I can.

In conclusion, one of the ways educators could broaden their knowledge is learning Indigenous cultures, and exploring what that means! I look forward to broadening mine.