Cultural Inclusion in Education: Empowering Indigenous Knowledge

1. YFN Education SummitWhitehorse 2016 Aboriginal Knowledge Is the Elder Of the World

2. Two Major Conference Themes • Cultural Inclusion Standards in Yukon Public Schools • YFN Engagement Protocols Concerning Education • Emotional Competency in the Framework of Cultural Inclusion Standards – How to assess our schools based on teachings, learnings and student performance in emotional competency • An ideal of cultural inclusion is cultural survival

3. What is a Human Being • How we view a human being determines how we educate our children • What is our cultural view of humanness • Holistic • Intelligent, Loving , Cooperative, Full of Energy

4. We Must End Marginalization • Indigenous space • Indigenous voice • Indigenous knowledge

5. The Creation of Teachability • Teachability is created when the teacher: • Validates the past (culture) of the student accumulated in their present • Validates the future of the student as infinite possibility • Importance of validation • Schools should be no put down zones • In Fact Schools should be Positive Validation Zones

6. The Education of the Self • What kind of citizens do we want in our Nations • Every school has a curriculum of the self: How will that curriculum develop and prepare our children • Some are by chance and some are by design

7. A Cultural Curriculum that creates a Healthy Self should include: • A Holistic framework based on • Culturally acceptable Values • That move students toward the realization of Virtues • That establish a strong and healthy Identity • Based on culturally sustainable Ideals • Understood through three major Symbol systems • That achieve Competencies organized around learning outcomes • That move our youth toward a Sense of Vision for self, family, community and beyond

8. Self-Concept Curriculum of The Self Mental Values Volitional Values Spiritual Values Body Awareness Physical Values Self-Image Self-Det. Emotional Values Learning Identity Self-Esteem

9. Value Harmony A school has cultural inclusion when: The values of the ancestors As they exist in the community And the homes of the students Are present in the curriculum Understood, promoted and reinforced by teachers With the support of the educational administration Toward the creation of teachability

10. Cooperation Relationship Generosity Respect Harmony Sharing Peacefulness Spirituality Pragmatism Modesty Learning through Observation Caring Time Patience Discipline Tolerance Non-interference Silence

11. Learning Ideals Learning Competencies Mental Comp Ideals of Becoming Spiritual Ideals Physical Ideals Perceptual Comp Psycho-Motor Comp Volitional Comp Emotional Comp Sense of Vision Emotional Ideals

12. Emotional Competency in the Framework of Cultural Inclusion Standards – How to assess our schools based on teachings, learnings and student performance in emotional competency

13. Emotional Competencies Are developed when Children Learn to: • Receive the Emotional healing and support necessary to remove multi-generational Blocks to Learning • Identify emotions • Communicate Emotions • Understand Emotional Feedback • Understand the Role of Emotions and Values in Identity • Develop Emotional Skills

14. Emotional Competencies Can Include: • Empathy • Emotional Regulation • Emotional Choice • Facilitation • Emotional Communication Techniques

15. Emotional Competencies Can also Include: • Kindness • Forgiveness • Gratitude • Peacefulness • Emotional Mechanics

16. Healthy Cultural Education Creates: • Balance • Harmony • Connection • Alignment • Within an • Emotionally Healthy • Student

17. Learning How to Learn • Three Symbol systems • Interact with • Four environments: • Physical, Human, Spiritual and Self • Cyber Space: presents incredible opportunities for cultural inclusion

18. Principles of Cultural Inclusion • Must be Holistic • Must contribute to health of student, family and community • Must include knowledge of intergenerational roles and responsibilities • Must respect role of Indigenous knowledge • Must be embedded in history and story

19. Principles of Cultural Inclusion • Must create a strong identity • Must recognize the sacredness of Proprietary Aboriginal knowledge that can only be shared with permission and protocol

20. Cultural Inclusion Must Recognize • Indigenous Voice • Indigenous Language • Indigenous Mathematics • Indigenous History • Indigenous Diversity • Indigenous Protocols • Relationship with Land (land based learning)

21. Practical Considerations • Racism affects educational outcomes • Native programs should not be marginalized • Indigenous knowledge should be fully validated and respected in the core curriculum • Difficult to maintain cultural inclusion

22. Culture is an Infinite Horizon • Race is a finite box that limit potential • A cultural definition of self provides our children with Infinite Potential and learning opportunity • Race limits our children to the prison of a falsely defined self.

23. Closing Comment We must educate the hearts as well as the minds of our future generations through an ongoing investigation of physical and spiritual reality that educates their whole self. For it is in the heart that the root of all learning thrives and it is this root that gives life and energy to each student’s being and enables expression of the beauty, accomplishments and advancement of human civilization though the process of education and the acquisition of learning

24. All My Relations