Category: Free Inquiry (Page 1 of 2)

I can’t believe the semester is already coming to a close! I feel like I have gotten a lot out of my free inquiry project and yet there is so much that I didn’t get to. The researching and understand the local Indigenous communities here has already been really helpful and important in some of the lessons and units I’ve been building.

Some areas I hope to explore more over the break:

1. Chinatown and Asian history in Victoria
2. Black history in Victoria
3. Visiting the Victoria Archives
4. Taking a Walking Tour of Victoria
5. Visiting the Royal BC Museum again

This project helped me see just how much I don’t know about this place I call home. I hope to continue being curious and adventurous with exploring and understanding different parts of this Land and its history.

Last week, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to interact with students at Claremont secondary. For my “booth”, I wanted to utilize some principles of place-based education that I had been researching, and help the students collaborate and contribute.

I ended up creating a giant map of Victoria and Saanich and prompting students to consider:

1. Where is a place you feel at home?
2. What is something you love about your community and want to preserve?
3. What is something you want to improve or transform?

Students then used colours to indicate their choices and wrote a few words on a sticky note explaining their choices. It was really cool to see places that were special to them – some I had never even heard of! Guess I have some more exploring to do over the break.

As a teenager, I went to Oak Bay High, and every day I would walk through Bowker Creek on my way to school. I learned that since living away, there has been a massive effort to restore the creek. There is hope to one day see salmon return to the creek, as they once did. To me this is such a great example of community action and investment to help undo some of the damage that we have done over the past few centuries.

I took a walk around Bowker Creek this week and got to look at the changes. I’ve found that the Royal BC Museum has a learning portal playlist devoted to this topic of salmon at Bowker Creek (access it here).

I think it’s important as educators that we’re aware of stories of success and victories to share with our students. In a world where things can often feel helpless, examples of people coming together for the common good can empower us through hope. I hope to find and share more stories like this in the future.

For this week’s inquiry I wanted to learn more about what sort of food is grown locally in Victoria, and where I can buy it. It’s a goal of mine to buy more locally produced food to help support local farmers and cut down on carbon emissions from transporting food.

I found a great Victoria-specific website that I wanted to share with everyone. I tried screencastify for the first time and made a video of me walking through it – hope you enjoy!

I’ve been thinking a lot about land acknowledgements over the last few weeks as most of my classes begin with a slide acknowledging the land. My first post on here was about understanding UVIC’s land acknowledgement, so I thought I would bring this full circle and research and interrogate the idea of land acknowledgements a bit further.

In the Lekwungen Tung’exw: Learning from the Land webinar by SD61, they note that we do land acknowledgements for the following reasons:

• Opportunity to recognize our connections and responsibilities to one another
• Provides the foundation to rebuild trusting relationships
• Welcomes are meant to greet visitors with a good mind, heart and feeling

I think these are great reasons, and am impressed with how widespread land acknowledgements are these days, compared to when I was in school. In Toronto, where I was last living, each day began with a land acknowledgement in all of the public schools over the PA system. At the same time, I am wary of how easy it has become to not think about the words that we’re saying or hearing in a land acknowledgement. So often it can feel like a box to tick, another housekeeping item following “the bathrooms are behind you on the left.” Worse still, it can feel as though land acknowledgements aren’t exactly accomplishing all that much. At best they’re a reminder of something we should already know. At worst, they’re making us feel as though we’ve done something when we really haven’t done anything at all.

There is a fantastic article on the New Yorker entitled “Canada’s Impossible Land Acknowledgement.” In it, the author writes:

“The hypocrisy of the country can be so startling exactly because we repeat our good intentions so insistently. We say, over and over, that we want desperately to atone for a crime while we’re still in the middle of committing it.”

This is the challenge with being a settler and reading a standard land acknowledgement; without action it can feel like hypocrisy. I am grateful to have been in circles before where people are strongly encouraged to take land acknowledgements a step further, and it was fantastic to experience that.

Shana Dion, the Associate Dean of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit Students at the UofA notes that  land acknowledgements are “…not meant to be set language. It’s built to be fluid enough so it resonates within yourself when your saying it, so that its not just words you’re reading from a script, but that it comes more from the heart.”

This is what I believe is the next step of land acknowledgements. They have successfully made their way at the beginning of most gatherings, but now it’s time to find ways to push the envelope. In classrooms, I don’t imagine it’s realistic to do an in-depth land acknowledgement every class, but it is something that I imagine you can integrate regularly. Perhaps weekly, and on particular occasions, such as Orange Shirt Day / Week.

So how might we “level up” our land acknowledgements as educators with our students? The below information has been pulled from what I learned from a good friend and Metis artist and activist Talitha Tolles, as well as from an Anti-Oppression workshop I did with Rania El Mugammar, as well a some of my own research and thinking since.

THE FIVE STEPS

Step 1: Reflection

The first step before doing a land acknowledgement that is so often skipped is reflection. Ask yourself why you’re doing it? What is the context? What is the history of the land you’re on and you’re territory?

Step 2: Acknowledgement

Once you’ve done the thinking you need to, your land acknowledgement may include something similar to the traditional acknowledgement that you’ve seen (e.g. “we’re on the traditional territory of the Lekwungen speaking peoples.”) But rather than the last step, this is merely a component.

Step 3: Self-Location / Relationship

Land Acknowledgements should be personalized. How do you come to this land? What is your history / background? For instance I may identify myself as a settler who was unaware of the Indigenous history of the place I grew up, and the Indigenous people that lived on it. Doing this not only forces you to reflect and locate yourself in relation to the issues you’re about to speak to, but it encourages your students to do the same. 

Step 4: Context / Connection to Today’s Issues

Acknowledging a historical relationship to the land, and perhaps a historical wrong-doing can numb the feeling that anything needs to happen today. There are tons of Indigenous movements, struggles, and things to celebrate, so take this opportunity to highlight them to contextualize the land acknowledgement, and highlight the present day realities.

Step 5: Call to Action

Perhaps the most challenging, but maybe the most meaningful, is rooting our land acknowledgements in a call to action. What is something that your students can do (either now, or later), to advance reconciliation in their community? So often people feel paralyzed or unclear about how to actually advance reconciliation, so why not support them in this? By pointing people to solutions, a land acknowledgement can move beyond the theoretical or symbolic, and help people feel that they are taking tangible steps in the right direction. This could look a thousand ways including:

1. Pointing them to a petition to sign or an upcoming protest or march
2. Facilitating the learning of a word in a local Indigenous language
3. Teaching them something about Indigenous history, culture, or issues that they may not have known before
4. Facilitating their own critical reflection to the Land and Indigenous nations
5. Watch a video or listen to a podcast clip of an Indigenous person to center Indigenous voices

That might seem like a whole lot of work compared to the more traditional land acknowledgement, and in many ways it is. At the same time, the final product still might not be more than 4 or 5 sentences, and the steps can of course be tailored, combined, and reimagined to best suit your context.

SOME EXAMPLES / OTHER IDEAS

One of my favourite land acknowledgements was at my wedding. My good friend Holly, who was officiating, called upon people to close their eyes, and use their senses to connect to the Land around them and the people who had cared for that land throughout history. It didn’t have all of the above 5 steps, but it did have most of them, and many people were talking about the impact it had on them afterwards.

In a class I had at UofT, Professor Hilary Inwood would take the first 10 minutes to do a land acknowledgement by centering an Indigenous person’s voice and facilitating a reflection or discussion. For instance, we saw a land acknowledgement done by an Indigenous person, a poem, and an interview with a young Indigenous water activist Autumn Peltier.

In a workshop I did over the course of many weekends, the facilitators built on previous land acknowledgements each time. For instance we wrote a poem interrogating our own positionality in week one, which we would return to and use as a launching point in future weeks. In the final week, we were challenged to commit to and share a tangible action that we would take in our lives. In this way, we were able to grapple with the complexities of the topic in more depth,  which I think could work fantastically in a classroom setting.

If you’re looking to experience a few more ideas, there’s a few ones where you can actually hear the facilitator, Nadia Chaney give the acknowledgement here. Her examples include a Meditation on Land, a history of colonization as a lived reality, and a group poem. Nadia is a fantastic facilitator who uses the creative arts to help enrich reflection and facilitate empowerment.

Having spent the last four weeks investigating the Indigenous sides of Victoria that I knew very little about, I decided to spend this week reflecting and researching more intentionally on how to incorporate these learnings into the classroom.

To start, I watched a webinar put on by SD61 entitled Lekwungen Tung’exw: Learning from the Land. In it, I learned more about land acknowledgements, Land-based learning, and the importance of centering these perspectives in the classroom. Land-based learning is an Indigenous principle of education that holds that learning should happen on the Land. More than that though, it brings attention to the ways we can learn from the land (note that Land here refers to the entire natural world). The idea that we can learn from the land reflects the humility of traditional Indigenous value systems, and points to a way forward in which we understand ourselves as part of a complex whole, rather than as separate. I hope to incorporate this idea of humility and Land-based learning in my classroom by getting my students out of the classroom, observing the world around them, and reflecting on their relationships to what is around them. I think modeling humility and curiosity is a critical first step, so it is something I know I must commit to in my life; you can’t just step into the classroom and think you can fake it.

I also think an important aspect of decolonization and reconciliation in education is reframing the widely told victim narrative around Indigenous issues. There’s a tension here of course; we should acknowledge the past and current injustices that are occurring, yet we must also center and incorporate Indigenous resilience and strength. Taking this approach helps to acknowledge the agency and actions that Indigenous nations like the Lekwungen and WSANEC have been taking for centuries against colonial encroachment. For this, I will draw on some of the examples in my last post of Indigenous resurgence, as well as look for historical examples of resistance. For instance, I know that many Indigenous families resisted sending their children to residential schools, and continued to practice Potlaches even after they were banned.

Another part of this is centering Indigenous culture, values, and communities in the classroom. It was powerful for me to begin to understand the ways Indigenous values such as collectivity, humility, and relationship to the land, reframes world views and provide an alternative to the extractive western models that much of our world operates on. By introducing students to alternative ways of thinking, we can advance more sustainable and compassionate practices. In a previous University class on Indigenous Knowledge for instance, my teacher, Professor Wemwigwans would devote time at the beginning of the class for each of us to share how we were doing; this action helped affirm our value as whole people and not just learners, and developed a shared empathy and responsibility in that class. A challenging component of this for me as a settler however, is to not romanticize or stereotype Indigenous cultures; the differences with Western worldviews may be noticeable on the whole, but there is of course plenty of diversity, especially in today’s world. I wouldn’t want to alienate any Indigenous students who didn’t feel that they related to these ideas I was sharing.

A final tension I have been grappling with is the idea of grouping all Indigenous cultures together under a single umbrella to highlight the similarities vs. focusing specifically on individual nations to acknowledge the diversities and differences. In my previous posts, I was specific about the Lekwungen and WSANEC nations that I was researching, because I wanted to better understand the place-specific culture and history of Victoria and Saanich. At the same time, there may be times when it is appropriate to use the umbrella term “Indigenous” in the classroom. This is something I would like to research and reflect on more.

If anyone wants resources for integrating Indigenous principles of learning in the classroom, first check out the “First Peoples Principles of Learning” document from the FNESC. Then I’d recommend reading htrough this great resources called “Weaving Ways of Knowing,” that provides more details and examples for how this could actually look in the classroom. They even have some example videos for inspiration, like the one below.

And for a Victoria-specific example, check out this unit outline by a teacher for Victoria High School, Anne Tenning. Let me know if you have any recommendations that I should check out!

For this week’s research, I tried to learn more about the Lekwungen people (made up of the Songhees and Esquimalt), whose territory I am currently living on. With the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation having just passed, I found myself spending hours researching online trying to get a grasp on the Lekwungen history and culture. I’m frustrated that this was not part of my education; when I learned about Indigenous nations in Canada, it was always as though these nations no longer existed. Furthermore, there was no emphasis on the local nations. Instead they were lumped all together and I would be more likely to learn about Indigenous nations in the Prairies than in my hometown. I hope as an educator I can help make this information more accessible for my students, to help give them a better grasp of the land they’re on, and its caretakers.

Traditionally, Lekwungen people would gather berries, and seaweed, as well as catch herring and migratory ducks using nets. They would hunt deer and elk, and dig for clams. Their villages dotted the lower island, including a thriving village at what is now Willows Beach in Oak Bay.

Lekwungen, like other Indigenous nations, traditionally saw a spiritual dimension in all living things. Dance and ceremony accompanied important events such as the gathering of camas. Camas was traditionally an important food source that the Lekwungen women would cultivate. Through controlled burning, the Lekwungen women transformed densely forested areas into open meadows where the camas could thrive. This impact of this controlled burning can be seen in places such as Beacon Hill Park, and Uplands Park today. James Douglas and the British were actually attracted to settle in Victoria because of these open fields, which they mistakenly viewed as wasted land that could be cultivated; in fact, the land was currently being actively cultivated (Lutz, 2008).

Camas is still being cultivated by Lekwungen women and I found this great video about Cheryl Bryce from 2010 speaking to that. I used H5P to make the video a bit more interactive, to try to put into practice what we learned in class on Friday.

When Douglas and the British did settle in Victoria on behalf of the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1843, the Lekwungen people welcomed them openly. Hundreds of them supported with building the fort, and there was a vibrant trade relationship between them. The center of the Lekwungen’s economy was blankets, and so these were often what was given in return for labour or land. The Douglas Treaties (written about in more detail here), were signed as ways for the British to secure land, but the Lekwungen’s different understandings of property rights, ways of living,  and the need for continuing renewals meant they had a much different understanding of the agreements than the British.

As years progressed and more migrants came to Victoria, they brought with them deadly diseases as well as challenging social changes. In conjunction with oppressive and sometimes genocidal government policies, the Lekwungen population declined (Lutz, 2008). I found this interesting piece by CBC that investigates the question: “Can a city rooted in colonial history be a progressive site for reconciliation?” It examines the way Victoria sells its tourism through its colonial identity, and the tensions with the goals of reconciliation.

Of course one of the dark chapters of the colonial history were residential schools, something we’re often taught generally but not specific to our location. Chek News wrote up a 5 part series on the history of residential schools on Vancouver Island here that I would recommend reading. Much of this challenging history was the center of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. As I was in the crowd last Thursday at Centennial Square, I was moved by the elders speaking on stage about the importance of moving forward with love and compassion. The crowd in the square was huge and it gave me hope that meaningful change has begun to happen. Next week, I hope to explore some examples of resurgence and reconciliation amongst the Indigenous nations in the area.

If you’re interested in learning more about the history of the Lekwungen people, I found the most comprehensive resource for my research was University of Victoria’s History Professor John Lutz’s book “Makuk: A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations“, which has a chapter entitled “The Lekwungen.” It is available for online reading through the University of Victoria. If anyone has any other resources to share (particularly if written by a someone who identifies as Lekwungen or WSANEC), I would love to know!

To launch my inquiry project into Victoria, I knew I first had to learn more about the Indigenous peoples that lived here. I am disappointed to say that this was not a part of my education growing up. Living in Toronto as an adult, I was fortunate enough to learn about the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples and it felt weird returning to Victoria with almost zero knowledge of the traditional caretakers of this territory. I am happy to see that this discourse has changed and these conversations are being had more and more.

I believe it is part of my role as a settler educator to do a lot of research so that we can respectfully include local Indigenous perspectives, stories, and learning principles in the classroom. Indeed, not speaking to these issues, is itself perpetuating the long history of colonialism. But it can be hard given the new pronunciations, different worldviews, and the fact that colonists attempted to erase so much of the history.

I realized upon my research that I didn’t even understand the very basics about this region.

We acknowledge and respect the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples on whose traditional territory the university stands and the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day. (source here).

This is the UVIC Territory Acknowledgement and I was unclear the details of who they were referring to: who are the Songhees, the Esquimalt, the W̱SÁNEĆ , and the lək̓ʷəŋən , and how do they relate to each other? How do they relate to the Coast Salish? I found these seemingly simple question took a while for me to get straight. Below I’ve laid out what I’ve found as a way to cement my learning (and please let me know if I’ve made an error so I can correct it!)

The lək̓ʷəŋən 

Songhees and Esquimalt are nations that make up the lək̓ʷəŋən (pronounced lay-kwung-gen and often seen written as ‘Lekwungen’) peoples, which is a language group. The word lək̓ʷəŋən means ‘Place to Smoke Herring’, since herring was a critical aspect of the nations’ economy and culture. The herring used to run in the Gorge Waterway and helped supply the Lekwungen peoples with food and goods to trade with other nations. 

A speaker in this video (published by Victoria SD 61) breaks down the some of the historical roots of the words:

I found the following quote particularly helpful: “from my understanding as ‘place to smoke herring people’, Lekwungen was our original name for this area, and Songhees and Esquimalt became acquired names through contact and negotiation. The meaning, as it’s been taught to me, our word ‘lekwung’, which means smoked herring, and lək̓ʷəŋən, means ‘place to smoke herring’, and then, Lekwungen often refers to the language of this land.”

The W̱SÁNEĆ 

Conversely, the W̱SÁNEĆ (pronounced weh-say-nutch) are made up of the following Indigenous Nations:

Tsartlip (Sart-Lip), Pauquachin (Paw-Qua-Chin), Tsawout (Say-Out), Tseycum (Sigh-Come) and Malahat (Mal-a-hat) Nations (source here). The W̱SÁNEĆ share the language SENĆOŦEN.

All of these nations fall within the larger group of the Coast Salish, a group of ethnically and linguistically related Indigenous peoples along the North West Coast (source here).

Resources

If you’re interested in learning more and deepening your understanding, I would encourage you to check out some of these resources that helped me as I was researching:

First People’s Map: a new, interactive map of Indigenous culture and territories in BC created by Indigenous people.

Vancouver Island Map of First Nations: a Vancouver Island Map with the 50 First Nations on the Island and where they’re located.

Reflections on the Inquiry

I found this information surprisingly confusing and difficult to wrap my head around. It made me wish I just had someone who understood it all and could explain it to me in a few minutes, rather than the hours I spent on my own. This speaks to me about the value of having a content expert in education, and the drawbacks of the free inquiry process: it can take a long time and be frustrating.

At the same time, I learned a lot more from the act of researching, that I wouldn’t have even known to look for. For instance, I learned about different cultural practices that I now plan to follow-up on to continue my learning in this area. I always thought teachers were a good way to introduce you to things you didn’t know you didn’t know, but now see how free inquiry is also very effective at this.

Technology of course, was hugely important for my research. Almost all of it came from the internet research, and a lot was aided by videos on Youtube (a few posted by Victoria SD 61, which was great to see!) The interactive maps helped clarify some questions for me, and it’s clear that many of these nations are utilizing this technology as a way to strengthen their cultures and communities.

Would love to hear any feedback or thoughts from others on my post.