K-12 schools are increasingly incorporating elders and knowledge keepers into their classrooms, reports the Winnipeg Free Press, as the demand for Indigenous knowledge to share with students has skyrocketed. April Waters, who oversees Indigenous academic and community support at St James-Assiniboia School Division, said that teachers’ attitudes towards truth and reconciliation has changed over the last decade with many putting thought into how they can authentically Indigenize their classrooms, increase Indigenous representation and voice, and deliver lessons. “For a long time, (my job involved) a lot of kicking-in doors — for lack of a nicer way of putting it, and trying to convince teachers that this is important,” said Waters. “Over the last 10 years, that conversation has really shifted in schools.” The demand for teachings has been so high that Seven Oaks School Division and the Manitoba Teachers’ Society partnered to publish a lesson plan that uses videos of Anishinaabe elder Mary Courchene, who has been Seven Oak’s elder-in-residence for seven years.
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Manitoba teachers increasingly focusing on authentically Indigenizing classrooms
Winnipeg Free Press
| Eassy Way