First People’s Principles of Learning

The First People’s Principles of Learning (FPPL) are a generalized set of nine common learning elements collected by the First Nation’s Education Steering Committee (FNESC) in 2007-2008. The principles were sought out to fill a need for an authentic and informed Indigenous perspective on learning with the advent of the English First Peoples course in 2007.

_{For more on English First Peoples, please visit the FNESC webpage for an introduction to the course. There, you can also access the} _{2018 FNESC/FNSA English First Peoples 10-12 Teacher Resource Guide.
See also the online course breakdown, with resources, provided by Comox Valley Schools: Nalaatsi for English First Peoples 12. Photo from FNESC website.}

The FPPL serve to guide teaching, as well as curriculum development, and were articulated by indigenous elders from a variety of First Nations. Thus, they do not represent any First Nations, nor do they capture the richness or fullness of any Nation’s approach to learning. They are nonetheless a useful tool for shifting perspectives of learning to incorporate Indigenous ways of knowing and being, providing educators with a lens to view and review their pedagogy. Learn more about FNESC here, or on their website.

If you want to hear more from me on the FPPL, you can see this website’s pages on the BCTF’s Standards of Learning, one through nine, for a consideration of each of the Professional Standards of the BC Teacher’s Council in relation to the Principles. You may also visit Teaching Standards & Learning Principles for an introduction to my considerations of the two together.

For more on how to interpret and incorporate the First People’s Learning Principles, see Jo Chrona’s website First Peoples Principles of Learning.

Jo created the website “to help educators in British Columbia understand how they might incorporate the First Peoples Principles of Learning (FPPL) into their classrooms and schools” and includes a conversational fleshing out of each of the principles.

^{Photo by Jo Chrona, taken from her website. 2015.}

Jo Chrona is “an educator with over 20 years experience teaching in both the K-12 and post-secondary systems in British Columbia, working as a Policy Analyst, an Advisor to the BC Ministry of Education, and serving as a Faculty Associate in a BC Teacher Education Program.”

Works Cited