Teaching for truth: engaging with difficult knowledge to advance reconciliation

ABSTRACT

As a settler colonial state, Canada has used education to advance colonialism in an effort to erase the experiences of Indigenous peoples. Today, education has a critical role to play in advancing the truth of our shared history just as it has played a role in enacting colonial practices and violence on Indigenous peoples. This action research project considers the practices of truth and reconciliation education in Canadian high school classrooms and reveals the need for white settler teachers to engage unrelentingly with difficult knowledge as they encounter and respond to settler colonialism. The research revealed that truth and reconciliation efforts must reaffirm the presence and value of Indigenous peoples, experiences, and epistemologies through the creation of intentional learning opportunities to disrupt colonialism. Notably, this research demonstrates the need for holistic pedagogical approaches as described through the teachings of the medicine wheel and its spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental domains.

KEYWORDS:

• Reconciliation
• truth telling
• difficult knowledge
• settler colonialism
• Indigenous knowledge