Episode 4: Building Trust and Partnerships
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Jessica Sass
This is Jessica Sass and you are listening to one of four parts of a series titled: Collective History: Reconciliation, Knowledge, & Justice. Over the course of several months, semi-structured interviews were conducted with Indigenous educational partners of Facing History and Ourselves Canada, an international education organization that creates supplemental materials for teachers that “stand up to bigotry and hate.” Educators and elders shared their vision of what educational partnership looks like and how it impacts not only their classroom but generations of students who will uplift and uphold true narratives of history. In this conversation, we focus on the theme of Building Trust and Relationships. Building partnerships within education spaces are an integral part of Facing History and Ourselves Canada’s pedagogical approach to curriculum creation. The organization’s credibility is built on their partnerships with Indigenous educators and knowledge holders. We explore how these relationships were fostered and nurtured over time. We begin with Grandmother Kim Wheatley, Annishnaabe wisdom Keeper, who explains how her values align with Facing History and Ourselves.
Kim Wheatley 00:00
I want to change the world, one heart at a time so does Facing History. From a true space, not from a deliverable space, or it's always heart connected, it's always heart-centered. They speak from the heart, and everybody who gets to be an employee or work with them blooms. It's almost flawless sometimes in how it goes about doing things. Meeting them and then working with them has been a seamless, mutually gratifying experience in some ways, but, and a relationship of honor. A high level of honor, where I can see people who are like me, that are not from my nation, you know, not from my culture. And yet, it doesn't make a difference, because we get that human connection first. That's brilliant.
Jessica Sass
Elder Shirley, Anishinaabe wisdom keeper, and Jasmine, senior programs associate at Facing History, and Ourselves, share similar sentiments around how they view their partnership.
Elder Shirley 08:36
Because I work with that one that gives us the breath of life and I'm being channeled to do the work that I need to do. Facing History staff that I work with have been working with for the past six years now. I enjoy the time with the staff. We listen, we laugh. We know each other's moments that we are not feeling well in our minds and in our hearts that something has happened with our families in that we are like a big family that we can share anything we want. But the wisdom goodness and not that they will thrive no matter where they are just like I'm going to move forward, that I have planted seeds with them that they need to help them grow and that they will take those with that they are we will take with us you know.
Jasmine Wong 02:18
There is such incredible value to be had from working in partnership with individuals who think deeply, you know, connected to culture, to those particular histories. And, so I think we've taken that notion into the work that we do around residential schools. I think the emphasis on how important it is, I think, you know, learning what works with each individual person, and knowing where their goals are, and where our goals intersect, knowing where each person sort of holds space. Yeah, I think it's, you know, there's that first like relationship and meeting. And then there's we've got a goal to work together and then you strike up a conversation and you know, start to see each other as colleagues and then as friends. You share your personal family life. And then it becomes something that there's no real effort to sustain because these people are people who you want to work with, you want to talk to them. You joke about things we've shared a lot of laughs and you know. What could be more sustained than doing really important sort of mission-driven work with people who you can laugh with and grow with and who you can be completely yourself with and who can be completely themselves with you?
Jessica Sass
Leora Schaefer, executive director of Facing History and Ourselves Canada shares how the organization has evolved through the strength of relationships.
Leora Shaefer 01:08
People like Andrew and Kim. And Lori, Elder Shirley, and Chief Theodore Fountaine, all of these individuals trusted us, and the relationships that we have with them have completely informed the way we work. So they're real authentic relationships, we have relationships where someone can say to us, that's not right. And more importantly, we have relationships where we can say like, is this right? That trusted relationship and we're always thinking now about our work within the construct of sovereignty. And also within, like, really what it means to be in a reciprocal relationship.
Leora Shaefer 03:59
We are valuing everyone’s voice and role is being held up. As executive director where I can come into this role, you know, I am not interested in owning Facing History will not own this content, which is also like turning it upside down. It will be co-owned, not something that's gonna have like the Facing History logo. This is funded by this foundation. Like we're just not doing that anymore. Every writer will be honored and named with their credentials, how they want to be named, like, you don't see an author on stolen lives. It's Facing History, right? Most of our resources don't name the people that wrote it. That's not the current practice and we won't be working like that anymore.
Jessica Sass
Andrew McConnell, the Indigenous education coordinator of York School District, acknowledges Facing History’s transformation of co-collaboration. He explains how organizations typically extract information from Indigenous people and how the approach of Facing History and Ourselves is an anomaly in the world of curriculum development.
Andrew McConnell 04:59
This happens a lot with Indigenous folk, is basically you get mined for information. So somebody is making something that serves their purposes. And they come to you and they hit you up for your information. And then they say thank you very much. The end and they leave, and then you see it months later, or years later, and it's being reused in different ways in different shapes. And of course, it's earning profit for somebody, which has been pretty much the settler way, since 1492. And so at this stage now, you know, eight, nine, ten generations in, we have no time for that we're very much aware of it. So we look for those projects, if we're going to be involved, the ones that are actually working in serving the needs of the community. Whereas, Facing History really is talking about, you know, what are the practical pieces, and connections to Indigenous people, and they're never mining us for traditional knowledge, that's the other piece.
Jessica Sass
Andrew discusses the building blocks necessary for a solid relationship and partnership.
Andrew McConnell 05:54
You have to allow for time and relationship building. And sometimes I find that it is difficult for non-Indigenous people to wrap their minds around it. They don't have the patience for it. And I always remind them, it's like, you know, you've got all this time set aside for this project. If you spend the time in the beginning, creating the relationship, the rest will flow, and it will flow very quickly. Because once they trust you, they actually have everything you need already.
Jessica Sass
As Andrew said, you have to allow time for relationship building. Kim explains how much care Facing History puts in truly making her feel heard.
Kim Wheatley 19:11
A lot of people will engage with me, but they don't hear me. They already have their own ideas about what they're going to do, and they just want me to fit in a slot. And I never feel like a slot with Facing History. I feel heard. And I see responsive action based on perhaps, dialogues we've had or suggestions I've made or observations that I have held. And there's been a respect for that, where I'm not being judged, and I don't feel judged in return. And for me, it's a validation. I only do this work because there is room for it.
Jessica Sass
Grandmother Kim feels the support through both Facing History and her ancestors. Both the cultural support and accommodations she receives from Facing History ultimately let’s her “embrace a sense of wellness” both physically and emotionally within these educational spaces.
Kim Wheatley 06:23
So I like the word tethering, but I love the word grounding. Because I come I never come in alone, right? I come in with all my ancestors, whether you can see them or not, they're there. And they're, you know, they're the cheerleading squad, like, yes, tell them yes, and don't forget this and, and say it in this way. And, and I can hear them, you know, through what, what I actually say it's like, there's this transmission that happens. But having the cultural supports in place and having Facing History make the preparations to accommodate that in my invitation, because it's not just me, I'm bringing the whole community in different ways, right, seen and unseen. So that the teamwork environment is they make sure that I understand why I'm there, that they refresh me, they may do things like taking care of my body. I always have some sort of food to eat and drink without asking for it. There's such great care there, that helps me want to not, you know, get drained and get tired, but also, to be at my best, you know, to embrace a sense of wellness, in the work that I do. And Facing History puts me in a position of educating educators, which is, it's a powerful position. Sometimes I work with, you know, the educated themselves, but mostly, it's what the educators and they're the, you know, that the first line of entry into making change, in an institutionalized environment that is completely resistant to it. They don't want to change. And yet Facing History is an interface for me to be able to say, This is why you can change, this is how you can change. This is how it can feel. This is what it can sound like. This is what it can feel like in you know, tangible ways that you can carry away and you can remember and you can actually do. So there is an empowerment that happens through Facing History for me that is very meaningful.
Jessica Sass
To hear everyone’s full interviews, head over to the “people” tab and click on each individual you’d like to hear more from. You will see their biography, along with the full video, and transcription. Thank you for listening.
Episode 3: Introspection: Change in Mindset and Practice
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Jessica Sass
This is Jessica Sass and you are listening to one of four parts of a series titled: Collective History: Reconciliation, Knowledge, & Justice. Over the course of several months, semi-structured interviews were conducted with Indigenous educational partners of Facing History and Ourselves Canada, an international education organization that creates supplemental materials for teachers that “stand up to bigotry and hate.” Educators and elders shared their vision of what educational partnership looks like and how it impacts not only their classroom but generations of students who will uplift and uphold true narratives of history. In this conversation, we focus on ideas around Introspection: change in mindset and/or mindset. Facing History and Ourselves summarizes its pedagogical approach as one of “scope and sequence.” They explain that sequences are circular with no particular starting or endpoint. In order to be able to teach history, one has to understand themselves, and their position within society. In learning and teaching history education, we have to understand our past in order to understand our present and how it impacts our future. The following voices are committed to the practice of self-actualization and healing. Jasmine Wong, Programs associate director of Facing History Canada shares how self-actualization comes from learning with others.
Jasmine Wong 01:10
The more I learn from other people, in some ways, the better I understand myself. The better I am able to understand the world around me, the more I can give an offer authentically to other teachers who I work with. I think, you know, you often don't know what you don't know.
Jessica Sass
The process of introspection makes me think about a quote by Bell Hooks that I hold dear -- In All About Love, she says, “rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion” (1981, p.215). In order to heal others, you have to heal yourself, however, this practice is not an individual endeavor, but rather one that can be done in partnership. Leora Schaefer, executive director of Facing History and Ourselves goes into more depth about how the learning environment at work creates opportunities for reflection with her colleagues, including Jasmine Wong – and the opportunity to grapple with hard truths about history and identity.
Leora Shaefer 01:40
We're a team who are constantly checking, keeping check asking questions. It is always about asking questions. Always asking, like, Is this our place? Is this what we should be applying for when it comes to funding? Is this the right place for us to be working? Who has invited us in? That's a really important question, are we being asked for help? Are we being told please just move out of the way?
Jessica Sass
Leora finds some of the answers to her questions in the reflections of her colleague Jasmine.
Leora Shaefer 00:00
And Jasmine said, you know, I don't want to work like that. Let's bring on the partners with a blank slate like just ask the partners, what do they need? How do they want to be involved? Who should be part of this program? How do we build it and she started co-creating since we started working and delving into Canadian history and partnering and building relationships with Indigenous people who are now friends and colleagues, which has built on who I am, impacted how I see myself. Thinking about my role as a settler here in Canada. How do I take teachings that Indigenous elders have shared with me? And those are not just professional learning? Those are personal learning? How am I committed to issues differently because of the relationships that I have built because of people who I now know?
Jessica Sass
Jasmine explains how she approaches her organizations’ role in the education of educators so that students can see their own stories in their classroom teachings.
Jasmine Wong 02:13
What role does Facing History have? We shouldn't assume that we have this role as an organization that knows everything. And has sort of like our way of doing things. I think we need to be asking, is our role to be a platform, right? And to like to share our network. When the children's remains were recovered in Kamloops. I remember seeing a huge jump in the number of downloads that we had for our resource. A lot more educators were requesting professional learning and not just history, social science, secondary educators. But now we are starting to see people in business, people in student services and administration, we start to see a lot more private schools because it was such a moment of real reckoning. But, I think since the summer, what we've seen is this, this broader swath of teachers who are saying, Wow, what do I need to know? Not just because I need to teach it, but what do I need to know? How do we inform educators so that they have a posture of understanding for non-Indigenous teachers to say like, when is it that I need to step back and make space and for Indigenous teachers and students to say, like, I see my voice, I hear my voice I see belonging, I know I matter.
Jessica Sass
While Jasmine questions her positionality and the organizations’ as non-Indigenous educators, Andrew McConnell --Andrew McConnell has been the coordinator of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit education at the York Region District School Board talks about the structural failures of Canadian academia and the ways in which education misrepresented history. Change in mindset and practice can only occur if structural harms of institutions are acknowledged.
Andrew McConnell 03:53
And the academy is Eurocentric and based and it supports and maintains Eurocentric points of views and values, even though it says it's pushing them. It's, it's still the same thing, right? With that saying, you know, right-wing, left-wing, it's still the same bird. So it's along those lines, whereas when they're doing it with the community and actually sitting with people who've lived it, walked it, talked to, and seeing that is expertise because it is. You know, just because you studied somebody who's experienced doesn't make you more expert in their experience than them. But the academy allows for that mindset, right? It's like, if I've studied it, I, therefore, become an expert in it. It's like keeping that person lived in there, the actual expert, you know, you're secondary to them. Now, you might have had conversations with multiple people, which means you have a different perspective, because you have multiple perspectives, but how could you possibly be more expert in their experience than them? It's not possible. It's a ridiculous idea. And so you don't see that right with Facing History. They're very open to that and therefore they reach out to multiple people from multiple perspectives, bring it in, and really do good work. Right like if there's one thing I would say about the workaround residential schools as they really have captured that residential school is not an indigenous thing. It's a settler thing. Right? It's Canadian history is not Indigenous history. If you don't have Canada, you don't have residential schools. But you do have indigenous people. That's sort of your litmus test. Right. So they get that, and I think that that's part of where their mission and their understanding comes from is that, you know, it is directly attributable to residential schools directly attributable to the economic wealth, and well-being of non-Indigenous Canadians.
Jessica Sass
We have to acknowledge the legacy and harm of Eurocentric education in order to fully understand Indigenous history and the impact it has on those who teach it. Andrew speaks about how oftentimes in academia people who “studied” a place or culture or people are deemed as experts, Kim Wheatley, an Indigenous Elder, education consultant – etc – explains her intrinsically personal connection to the work that she does - something that is often overlooked by educators that she works with. When understanding ourselves, we need to be aware of how our teachers carry trauma or pain. And how we can both honor them with space, time, and care.
Kim Wheatley 05:41
There are individual stories here. And, and so some of the difficulties I have are commonly not being triggered myself and being asked to share my story in relation to what we're exploring. I mean, I have many relatives who went to residential school, and I have many relatives who, you know, suffered enormous harms almost unspeakable in that they can't speak them, you know. And I have that intergenerational trauma. I have that blood memory. I have the challenge of using a language that doesn't adequately word what you're trying to say. And sometimes, you know, standing in front of a group of teachers, I don't have that moment, to kind of be human. I have an expectation to accomplish dissemination but I can't do it without emotion. I can't do it without, you know, feeling away sometimes. So some of the difficulties of experiences, you know, feeling like I'm on the verge of tears, but not, you know, not letting that spill or sometimes having it spill and feeling a way about that. It's a very vulnerable state to be in.
Jessica Sass
Kim goes on to explain how delicate it can be in teaching what is the story of her life and truth.
Kim Wheatley 07:07
But our truth is so raw, and so emotionally grounded, we're exploring, ever-evolving truths. And it's really difficult like it's just, it's such a heavyweight to carry a weight, you know, and then try and work through, because there's no distance between the truth and my life. It's still like, there's a currency about it. That is challenging. Like, did I use the right words? Did I cover enough? Did I express it the best way possible? Did I diminish the people because I told the truth, there's a great sense of responsibility for how things are shared.
Jessica Sass
I really appreciate Kim for sharing her heart with me and being so vulnerable. Hopefully, the educators out there listening will have more empathy and a better understanding of the emotional labor that Indigenous wisdom keepers have to go through each time they lead a workshop. Kim feels the way she does because her past has shaped who she is in the present - within those spaces. I remember Jasmine Wong said that “We can think about how history applies to every moment today, and it can change the way that we see and interact with the world.” This is really powerful. How do we wrestle with intergenerational trauma and how has history shaped where we are at this very moment? As you may have listened to in the other segments, Elder Shirley has gone through healing through her own life journey. She speaks as a holder of wisdom and explains the importance of taking care of ourselves - in what we can control in our lives and what we can not. Elder Shirley begins her dialogue with me by tracing her hand resembling a lifeline.
Elder Shirley 08:06
It's like, I always say the lifeline. We have a lifeline. Okay. This is the lifeline. From the beginning of time, when you're in your mom's womb, you will be here for every five-ten fifteen-twenty twenty-five, all the way up to 100 years old. Every five years, you go into your lifeline and find out what has happened to me. There are good things that happen. And there are not so good things that haven't happened. Sometimes those are more prominent in the lifeline 5, 10, 15, 20. But you find that as time goes on, all the good things will come your way. When you look after yourself, you got to find that balance for this person, for yourself. And only you can do that. Only we can do that for ourselves. And as much as that person over there will talk to me talk to him, tell him everything that I need to know about healing. The bottom line is me. How much you might want to take, how much am I going to give them, are they going to break me or what, you know?
Jessica Sass
To hear everyone’s full interviews, head over to the “people” tab and click on each individual you’d like to hear more from. You will see their biography, along with the full video, and transcription. Thank you for listening.
Episode 2: Honoring Legacy and Indigenous Futurities
Confronting histories of inequities and harm while also centering healing and resilience. Imagining a positive (potentially sovereign) future for Indigenous people.
Elder Shirley 00:08
I sing the song today. The songs we sing are usually in four directions. Grandmother sitting in the east, I feel you lookin' at me I pray to you, pray for you, you are sacred, I feel you lookin' at me.
Elder Shirley 00:43
So with that song you go in four directions with that. And all the grandmothers and all the mothers and all women sitting in those directions to live in Amen, we will be blessed in a good way. That's what that song is about.
This is Jessica Sass and you are listening to one of four parts of a series titled: Collective History: Reconciliation, Knowledge, & Justice. Over the course of several months, semi-structured interviews were conducted with Indigenous educational partners of Facing History and Ourselves Canada, an international education organization that creates supplemental materials for teachers that “stand up to bigotry and hate.” Invested Educators and elders shared their vision of what educational partnership looks like and how it impacts not only their classroom but generations of students who will uplift and uphold true narratives of history. In this conversation, we focus on Honoring Legacies and Indigenous Futurities. Leora Schaefer, the executive director of Facing History and Ourselves, begins by discussing the limitations of centering trauma within historical narratives and suggests we elevate stories of resilience.
Leora Shaefer 06:44
We want our students can to not only study trauma, and also not to begin from a place of trauma and this, we're not saying that like, well, the history ends, you know, okay, the last school closed, this is where, you know, there's the end, or oh, TRC came out with a report. That's the end, now we move on next. We understand that there are lived legacies like these, these moments are lived in an ongoing way in an intergenerational way from generation to generation. And that is not always like, yes, part of that conversation is around intergenerational trauma, and lived experiences and how that is passed on. But it is also about resiliency. And it's about Indigenous people today. And it's about, you know, we're not looking at any of this through like behind a bush. Right, like a museum experience of a people that once lived. This is an ongoing lived experience.
This is indeed an ongoing lived experience as we hear from Elder Shirley John, Aanishnaabe wisdom keeper, who shares her path of healing as a survivor of residential schools. She is a first-person source for this period of history.
Elder Shirley 03:17
Hearing from a survivor changes the mind, changes your way of thinking, instead of reading from a book all the time. One survivor can have been mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, sexually abused from the time they're a little girl or from the time they're a little boy to the time that they're maybe still in the school at grade ten level. There's abuse in all that system. And it takes a long time for them to, some of them never heal from that. I've been on a healing and spiritual journey for many years, and to have that acceptance for myself. Because I went to residential school for one year, they think that they should not talk to me, they put this roadblock in front of them. They're afraid they're going to hurt me. Nobody hurt anymore. I've gone past that I've gone to my own healing. I've went through my own healing, mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. All of that. I've had to work with that. I've had to find guidance. I've had to talk to people I've had to cry my eyes out. I am at a place where my spiritual journey began forty years ago, maybe longer than that. I've been on my spiritual journey for a long time. So when I talk about the residential school, for me, it's a piece of cake. The icing on the cake, you're not gonna break me.
Jessica
Elder Shirley discusses the point in time where she feels it is important to move past the narrative of trauma.
Elder Shirley 05:03
Everything is passed on passed on from generation to generation. And we don't want this for our children. So somewhere along the way, this person has to cut that, sever the cord, so that my daughter and her children will not be that way. That they will have a good life and not think about the past. And what's happened to my aunties, what's happened to my uncles, what happened to my grandmas and grandpas when they went to residential, we kind of put a stop to that. That's my thoughts.
Grandmother Kim Wheatley, Anishinaabe wisdom holder speaks to the perception that Indigenous peoples are vanishing as a race.
Kim Wheatley 01:03
We're not going anywhere, there's this still in-school continued perception that we're a disappearing race. And the government will throw stats every once in a while, I think the latest by 2050, there'll be no more status Indians in this country like somehow we're gonna, we're going to be eradicated or assimilated into the whole. And you know, we're the only race of people that are measured by blood quantum. If you are a settler, you come here from whatever country you identify, you don't have to prove it. They just accept it. And all your children get to claim that identity and you're done with it. And see right there, like how broken this system is?
Grandmother Kim Wheatley discusses the ramifications of newly discovered graves of hundreds of children at Kamloops residential school and how that news was received by the general Canadian population.
Kim Wheatley 32:14
With the first 215 Children that were discovered or unearthed at Kamloops residential school. Some Canadians were genuinely shocked. They drink the Kool-Aid and believe that this is, you know, the safe, honest place that only has the best intentions. And then there was outrage, you know, which you can only sustain for so long. And for me, I believe that divisiveness and war and anger don't change anything. It just inflames more of that kind of negative discourse and negative response and it peters out over time. Or it heads in very, and fuels very negative outcomes that do not benefit the greater good. I feel education and seeing each other as human beings is very unifying and very important. And, and blame and shame do not serve us or do not serve the greater good. Accepting responsibility for actions is very important.
Jasmine Wong, Associate Programs Director at Facing History and Ourselves continues to ask questions about how we remember and reconcile with histories of harm and injustice, and how we can imagine a future for Indigenous youth to thrive.
Jasmine Wong 01:44
How do we learn from ways in which society has sought to remember and to remind so that we can think about what that means for us today? In education, what we hope to do is to raise critical consciousness. So we talk about the Indian Act, and we talk about how the Indian Act was present in the past, the harms that it created, but also how it is present today. And what does it look like? We have to ask the question, what does it look like for, for us to redress harms around, you know, environmental degradation, you know, stolen lands, laws that have and ideas, the stories that we've told ourselves that have made particular people vulnerable. I'm thinking about women, girls, Indigenous women, and girls, in particular two-spirited people. There's a whole language that has harmed and marginalized people and so it's about asking ourselves, How do we get back to a place of understanding what human rights, what living in the community and respect looks like? And what kind of vision does that paint for us for restoration and of healing and rebuilding, the next generation of young Indigenous kids will be empowered to take their future, in the direction that they want to take it.
While Jasmine talks about rebuilding, Andrew McConnell, coordinator of First Nations, Métis and Inuit education at the York Region District School Board, explains how his people have survived and flourished.
Andrew McConnell 05:35
We hold knowledge collectively, which means that no single individual has at all.
Andrew McConnell 05:40
What you see is what’s left of our civilizations made it because it works. And that's why we are so forceful in holding on to it. It is a source of survival. And it is the source of our future. All of the tools that we have, that are ours that came from us will guarantee that we remain us as we step into the world picking up the new tools that have been provided to us by other cultures and civilizations from around the world. For us, we're starting to see our ways of being acknowledged and being respected. And it's opening up avenues for serious discussion about, you know, how could things be in the future. Which kind of excites me because, you know, when I was growing up, no one ever talks about Indigenous people in the future, they were just shocked that they're actually people in the present. So that's kind of cool to have that discussion with non-Indigenous people, because of course, Indigenous folk, we always know we're going to be in the future.
During my conversation with Grandmother Kim, I asked what she wants for her grandchildren and for generations to come. She aims big.
Kim Wheatley 07:59
I want you to think big. I want us to think big. I want the collective to be big, and not just isolated, little silo pockets of engagement. Have a voice to be visible in a safe space and place always, in all ways. To have true freedom of speech, and to have true leadership. I would love to see that. I'd love to witness that. I'd love to still be walking the earth when that comes into play. Through those avenues, we will restore harmony and balance with all things that comprise the life of the earth herself. She's our mother, she sustains us.
To hear participants’ full interviews, head over to the “people” tab and click on each individual you’d like to explore more. You will see their biography, along with the full video, and transcription. Thank you for listening.
Episode 1: (In)Justice
The voices you will listen to share personal testimonies of what justice means to them within the context of education, and more broadly within society
Jessica Sass 00:00
This is Jessica Sass and you are listening to one of four parts of a series titled: Collective History: Reconciliation, Knowledge, & Justice. Over the course of several months, semi-structured interviews were conducted with employees and Indigenous educational partners of Facing History and Ourselves Canada, an international; education organization that creates supplemental materials for teachers that “stand up to bigotry and hate.” Invested educators and elders shared their vision of what educational partnership looks like and how it impacts not only their classroom but generations of students who will uplift and uphold true narratives of history. The educational partners’ insights enable non-Indigenous educators in Canada to work in a respectful manner, apart from colonial influence. In this conversation, we focus on thoughts about justice and injustice in the space of curriculum development and within the broader contexts of history. The voices you will listen to share personal testimonies of what justice means to them within the context of education, and more broadly within society. We begin the discussion with Elder Shirley John, Aanishnaabe wisdom keeper, who explains how the grandfather teachings correlate to understanding justice.
Elder Shirley John 01:20
This is one of our seven grandfather teachings, we have to have respect for ourselves first so that we can spread respect to other people in all the work that we do. If you don't know what love is, you better learn what love is, because love is unconditional in many ways. And to know that, so you can have a love for every man, woman, and child that you meet. You have to know what love is. So you can spread the love and watch it grow. At first, you got to love yourself.
Jessica Sass 02:00
The theme of self-love and self-reflection is carried by Jasmine Wong, Senior Programs Director with Facing History and Ourselves Canada which grounds us in the “here and now” while at the same time reflecting on the past. She prompts us to think about how educators situate themselves to teach about justice in a way that is comprehensive and ongoing. And she asks herself, and the listener in turn, what are the responsibilities we carry to bear witness to the histories we learn?
Jasmine Wong 02:34
I think when we think about justice, we have to recognize histories of injustice, we have to know that it is not just how we approach a particular moment. And, here and now, I think in the context of justice and education, we're thinking about the debts that are owed from the past. We're thinking about injustices that were made in the past, not just directly to the individual sitting in front of you, but what are the injustices that sit at policy or at organizational or institutional levels. And so justice for me is about not just that person who's in front of the room, who absolutely matters. But, it's also about how we can address those longer institutional injustices what has changed through the course of learning?
Jasmine Wong 03:41
How do you hear the words of survivors and bear witness and continue to bear witness because this is now your responsibility to bear witness? And how do you impress on students to bear witness? What kinds of symbols, what kind of memorials, what kinds of monuments? What kinds of reminders? Do you set yourself so that this is something that you are aware of all the time?
Jessica Sass 04:14
Jasmine reflects on the types of questions we should be asking ourselves and our students in order to create a continuum of historical truths. Grandmother Kim Wheatley, an Aanishnaabe Cultural Consultant, and wisdom keeper, shares how injustice in education directly affects her and future generations of her people. Educator, Andrew McConnell, Coordinator of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit education at the York Region District School Board, agrees with Grandmother Kim and speaks to the blind spots in our education systems.
Kim Wheatley 04:56
So when I think about all the years that experienced injustice in education, and then I watched my children and my grandchildren experience the same thing like this is three living generations going through the same nonsense in a so-called education system. That has not been challenged until most recently but has not taken responsibility for, you know, for its very blatant absences and historic amnesia.
Andrew McConnell 05:26
You could see it with Black Lives Matter during all those protests, right? Like, people just couldn't understand. But all lives matter. Yeah, but only one set of lives right now is being impacted by policing. So yeah, we got to call it out and say this particular set of lives matter. I come from one of the most oppressed groups, right, like hell, we've been pushed off our own lands and shoved into small little containers. And every time we put our hand up and step out, people go, Wow, we forgot you were here. Right? Like, and yet, I think Black lives matter. And I don't need it to turn into Indigenous lives matter. I need people to see Black lives matter because they do. And that's the right cause for black folk. And then for me, as Indigenous people, we need something different. Right? In the end, social justice is about people. It's a sense of equity versus equality, right? Equality, everybody gets the same thing. Equity, everybody gets what they need. And I think that is really where we need to move our minds and remind us, and that's why it belongs in schools.
Jessica Sass 06:32
Andrew continues to share his personal experiences within the education system as an Indigenous student. He speaks to the doors open to him because of his appearance, and those opportunities denied him as an Ojibway living on Ojibway lands.
Andrew McConnell 06:48
So justice in education is to allow all possibilities for all people. And, to really undo the stereotypes that exist. And that limit people's right, I'm an Indigenous person. And when people see me, they see a white guy, and therefore, they, they, they don't offer me limits in my economic success. But, they try to force me into limits based on my cultural availability. You know, they deny me access to things like my language, right? You couldn't take the Ojibwe language when I was a kid in school, otherwise would have taken it. I am an Ojibwe person living in Ojibwe territories, I should be able to learn and use my own language here. The school board didn't see it as important. That's a denial that's unjust.
Jessica Sass 07:22
Leora Schaefer, the executive director of Facing History and Ourselves Canada, discusses the limitations of education leadership that Grandmother Kim and Andrew have raised. She says that in order for justice to flourish, it has to begin in the schools, which leads to the questions of what schools and schooling should look like and who should be leading the work to bring about change.
Leora Shaefer 07:50
if we're really going to be thinking about what justice looks like, we really need to be sort of turning our thinking about what schools and schooling looks like, on its head and taking the lead from lots of different people, including Indigenous people in this country who should be leading that work, so that we're not just replicating a system and just taking it for granted. Like, this is what defines a school. This is what schooling looks like. This is what education looks like. This is what success looks like. Right? These things have not really changed for generations. Ultimately, that's what justice will look like if we really start thinking about education in a completely completely different way.
Jessica Sass 08:42
Jasmine shares similar sentiments to Leora. She reminds us that Indigenous children’s education has always been at the hands of non-Indigenous educators, even though we know that is not what is needed. She thinks the moment is now to make substantive changes.
Jasmine Wong 09:04
The education of Indigenous children was not led by Indigenous people. And yet, that has always been the call. We know that that is part of what is really good and necessary for young Indigenous kids. But we also know that it's also what's really good for non-Indigenous kids, a more just society when we hear each other's voices when we give power over to people to make choices over what and how young people are learning and what they're taught. You know, that question of justice is absolutely about here. And now. And it's absolutely about the future. And I think that there is a lot that can happen when we equip educators to see it's like we have to be able to understand.
Jasmine Wong 09:32
I mean, teachers have a professional responsibility to teach students. And when we empower teachers to do the work that they do so beautifully. I think it's really rewarding, to do the brilliant work that they do so that students can grow fully to be themselves and to feel like they can be more empathetic and more compassionate, and more aware of the impact of their choices.
Jessica Sass 10:03
Jasmine and Grandmother Kim both believe in the future of our students and that it is our collective responsibility to be on this quest for justice and to ultimately maintain a strong sense of hope.
Kim Wheatley 10:18
I want to maintain hope. I believe in the humaneness of my fellow human beings, who live in a home that has always been ours, to stand up and not fight, but find beautiful loving ways to demand change. Youth are the reason why we do what we do. They're the ones who are going to learn from and then, you know, expand as a result of and, and if we limit their expansion by limiting their truth, true, justful education then we have not served well. They want more, they want different, and they understand justice from a completely different perspective than we old relics do. I try to stay as in the loop as possible, but I learned something from youth every time I engage with them. I get to see through a different lens that makes me richer for the experience and I feel like that's an under-tapped aspect of the educational environment as a whole.
Jessica Sass 11:18
To hear the full interviews, click on the “people” tab and subsequently, click on each individual’s name. You will see their biographies, along with the full video and transcription. Thank you for listening.