Untying a Dreamcatcher: Coming to Understand Possibilities for Teaching Students of Aboriginal Inheritance

Abstract

Increasing the number of Aboriginal students graduating from university is a goal of many Canadian universities. Realizing this goal may present challenges to the orientation and methodology of university curricula that have been developed without consideration of the traditional epistemologies of Aboriginal peoples. In this article, three scholars in the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria take up this issue by dialoguing with each other about the possibilities of incorporating Aboriginal perspectives into their courses. These conversations are woven together into the narrative form of a four-act play in which the authors caricature their personalities to highlight their initial resistances and eventual reconsiderations. As non-Aboriginal instructors from different cultural backgrounds, the authors confront issues of respect, responsibility, and (mis)representation as they struggle with the dilemmas involved in cross-cultural understanding. Through this journey they come to imagine a world where cultural differences, including the traditional epistemologies of Aboriginal peoples, present possibilities for greater understanding of each other and more authentic expressions of our humanity.

Notes

Notes

1. In this article we use the word “Aboriginal” as an inclusive term to refer to First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples

2. For further discussion on the concept of multiversality, see Maturana (1988).

3. A culture's map identifies what forms of knowledge, actions, and identities its members will and will not perceive as important by rooting such features within the culture's temporal, spatial, spoken, written, and symbolic language. Through the metaphorical nature of language (e.g., “linear” time or “objectified” knowledge) these cultural distinctions then shape how one experiences and, thus, understands the world. See Bateson (1972) and Bowers (1997).

4. If representation of people, places, events, objects, and so on exists only in language—that is, through verbal, spatial, temporal, written, and symbolic forms of communication—then that which is represented and the act of representation itself cannot be taken to be static and neutral but rather must be understood to be ever-changing and nonneutral. The meaning(s) attributed and manner in which some thing or some phenomenon is being represented are necessarily contingent on the particular agents, culture, and cultural language that is mediating the representation and bringing it forth.

5. Friere (1989) makes this point in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed, where he notes that in most classrooms, “knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing” (58). He also says that in this assumption of ignorance, the teacher “justifies his [or her] own existence” (59), an act that is essentially oppressive because it locates cultural capital only in the hands of the teacher.

6. Battiste (2003) presents an excellent overview of the issues surrounding this point.

7. The concept of multiple enactments is discussed in Daniels (1975).

8. The idea of “border crossing” is the belief in a bicultural approach to the education of Aboriginal peoples based on enabling Aboriginal youth to learn both their traditional culture and how to negotiate the Euro-centric dominant culture they encounter (see Aikenhead 2006). In our play, we adopt a distinctly different, polymorphous concept to understanding education and cultural difference.

9. The concept of “space in between” is articulated in the work of curriculum theorist Ted Aoki. He considers this space between as generative. For further insights, see Aoki (2003).

10. Maturana (1997a, 1997b) discusses at length the notion of living in relation as a dynamic of constant change through shared understandings.