A Return Forward: The Need for a Self-Determined Approach to Decolonizing Education for the Haudenosaunee of Grand River

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 4:20 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Disrupting School Inequities: Leveraging Culture, Community, and Freedom Dreams (Table 5)

Abstract

Throughout this paper, I center the histories of the Haudenosaunee at Grand River, to seek distance from the framing of colonization. I center reconciliation through the lens of Haudenosaunee healing and resurgence, rather than reconciliation that aims to restore Indigenous/non-Indigenous relations. This paper aims to understand "What are the most important purposes across historically shifting and divergent modes of education within the Haudenosaunee worldview? How might this worldview inform a self-determining approach to education at Grand River?" This paper focuses on the existing body of knowledge about the modes of education embedded within Haudenosaunee culture. Through an analysis of educational literature, I examine how colonialism has impacted these traditional forms of education and explore the work of decolonial scholars.

Author

• Heather Watts, University of Toronto - OISE