Working the Ideas: The Needed Practice Ground for Curricular Decolonization and Indigenization

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Eight
  In Roundtable Session: Contested Spaces: Political and Curricular Implications for Indigenous Education (Table 11)

Abstract

Hesitancy, fear, and unfamiliarity concerning the lived terms of decolonizing curricular efforts, shapes the kinds of questions educators bring to a co-curricular-making project seeking Indigenous connections to land, culture, and the relational self. Many are not only confronted by lack of Indigenous content knowledge but also a lack of practice in negotiating the complexities of reconciling conversations with their students, colleagues, and extended communities. This paper offers insights for teacher education and professional development with greater access to a language of practice, embodying the needed habits and ways of being, and bringing decolonization and curricular Indigenization to life. Such professional knowledge entails recursive concrete practice by educators navigating the lived terms to realize the transformative potential that education holds.

Authors

• Margaret A. Macintyre Latta, University of British Columbia - Okanagan
  Presenting Author

• Billy A. Cohen, University of British Columbia - Okanagan
  Presenting Author