Fostering Resistance in the Classroom: A Land-Centered Approach to Education

• In Event: Mana ’Ulu: Indigenous Action—Feeding Our Communities, Feeding Families

Abstract

This paper focuses on the ways our Land-centred approach to education necessitated a divergence from and resistance to mainstream academic approaches by providing examples of how that was expressed within the classroom context. We draw upon several courses taught within an Aboriginal Bed program, providing an overview of course development and design processes and exploring the ways students responded to the Land-centred approach. Our analysis included themes such as: Land; resistance; Indigenous ways of knowing; Traditional knowledge; Western knowledge; power; privilege; awakening. We discuss how providing a decolonizing approach that grounds, privileges and positions Indigenous knowledge, provides opportunities for educators and Aboriginal teacher candidates to resist mainstream explore various ways of knowing.

Authors

• Dawn Michelle Zinga, Brock University

• Sandra Styres, York University