I am so thankful that I was able to attend Niigan Sinclair’s panel hosted for SD57’s Indigenous Day of Learning on September 18th. There are multiple points in which the speaker presented that I felt were especially effective, but today I will discuss the three points which drew my attention the most.

First was the topic of appropriation and the need for self-education as represented through Niigan’s story of his production of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ during his first year of teaching. The story goes that in Niigan’s first year of teaching, he was a drama teacher at a secondary school located in a prominent Jewish neighbourhood. He was tasked to organize the musical ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ for his winter production and had little to no knowledge of Judaism and Jewish culture. This lack of knowledge was especially problematic as he assumed that the 1971 film production was a trustworthy representative source of Jewish culture. It was not until his students of Jewish faith pointed out his misrepresentation of their culture did he adapted his play in a way which appropriately represented and presented Jewish culture. I enjoyed this story as it was very relatable, and represented the need for relationships with the community(s) in which you are teaching/presenting the culture to others. It is impossible to accurately depict a culture, religion or belief system with which you have no true understanding of or experience. In my opinion, this directly relates to Indigenous education in the Canadian Education system. You can practice aspects of Indigenous education, such as hands-on social learning, but you cannot teach language, culture or beliefs without a relation to the people present, or a previous understanding and experience with the topics at hand.

The second point of interest for me was the First Nations diagram of learning in which a tree and its roots are depicted. The roots were said to represent the learning we do from our homes and away from academia. Niigan discussed how many Indigenous students are removed from their roots due to government initiatives (ie. Residential schools and the Sixties Scoop, enforced religions), and how it is important now more than ever for educators to their students as much as they can to encourage their success. Subjects would include basic Indigenous language instruction, territorial acknowledgments and histories of the landscapes and clan/band systems. The branches of the tree represent those things that can be learned in school (I understood this to represent the topics of importance in Western education). I do wonder if the instruction of cultural ‘roots’ by instructors would count as branches as well or if that would relate to the tree roots in this metaphor or not. I am unclear.

The final point of interest I will reflect on is that of the “Four Means for Student Success”. Of the four means, the first means represents relationships. What relationships have been formed, and how do these relationships shape your understanding of communities and cultures? Do all participants feel comfortable and heard in the relationships? If not how can you make it so that there is clear equity between members? The second means was relevance. Relevance such as what do the communities and Indigenous peoples need and want in terms of education, laws and understanding? The third means is Respect and it refers to how safe and acknowledged Indigenous individuals and communities feel in their relationships with you. Are they able to safely thrive? Finally, the means of responsibility. Responsibility relates to what you must do to achieve community-centred success through your relationships with your students, their families and their communities. 

Overall, I learned a lot from Niigan’s presentation and am so very grateful that I was invited to attend.