CJ3 – The Reproduction of “Wilderness”

In class, we have been discussing and deconstructing the idea of wilderness. Growing up I would have described wilderness as a place with no humans, where wild animals live, and outside of the city. This class has now opened my eyes to why that view of empty of land (wilderness) is problematic. 

CJ3 – Outdoor Education

For my creative visual I wanted to illustrate the conflicting views I was taught in school regarding outdoor education. My visual piece is a set of glasses looking at a chalkboard with the heading “OUTDOOR EDUCATION”. In one lens you see a very commonsense photo of what wilderness is and the other lens is a city skyline. I wanted to represent how schools teach us to put the economy before anything else and how nature/wilderness is treated as only an escape or place of recreation. This way of teaching is problematic because it reproduces the binaries: civil vs. wild and culture vs. nature. 

In an assigned reading “Canoe Pedagogy and Colonial History: Exploring Contested Spaces of Outdoor Environmental Education” by Liz Newberry, Newberry further explains why outdoor education plays a role in reproducing and enforcing colonialism. In one line she explains that “[i]n dominant and colonial images of wilderness, Aboriginal presence is either erased or Aboriginal people are themselves recast as nature.” Thinking of my own outdoor education experiences growing up I do not remember learning about any First Nation, Metis, or Inuit people. This is a problem because it made me believe that there are empty lands and lands that have no other context than what I was seeing. Going through the education program and going to treaty education camps I have fortunately gotten to unlearn many colonial views. I look forward to continuing and sharing my education. 

Treaty Education // We Are All Treaty People

Pretext: For our blog this week we were asked to think about a response to a teacher that is having difficulty implementing Treaty Education in their classroom because of resistance from their students and their colleagues lack appreciation for Treaty Education

Firstly I would remind this intern that they are doing everything right by persisting with Treaty Education especially in a school where it is a seemingly inferior topic. I would also tell them that Treaty Education is relatively new to the education system and people’s resistance is unfortunately expected. Since their colleague does not see the importance in teaching Treaty Education and will likely not be easily convinced of its value, I would suggest that they remind that colleague that it is mandatory as it is a part of the Saskatchewan curriculum; as Claire said in class “back everything you do with the curriculum.” In addition, I tell this teacher to use the resources out there to try to educate their colleagues on why Treaty Education is needed in schools and what it means to be a treaty person.

In regards to their students, this teacher’s lesson is probably one of the first and few times they have been asked to think about First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples’ worldviews. The purpose of Treaty Education in to teach people about the history of the land we get to live on. It is to inform people that because of European settlement some people have been privileged to have great success and other people to be forcefully marginalized or assimilated into a new culture. Treaty Education is about informing people that peaceful promises were made between nations so that everyone could share this land and cultures could thrive together. So it is important that this teacher’s students learn these things and maybe a lesson on privilege to introduce the topic would be beneficial. Unfortunately, it can be very hard to get through to people when they have grown up hearing and learning from others who share racist or ignorant views of the Indigenous people in Canada. Hopefully, these students will eventually come to the realization that they are treaty people. They are on this land because of promises of many things such education, agricultural assistance, money, and much more; many of these promises were not kept.

I hope that my response and these points would help the teacher to persist in her mission of teaching treaty education. I know that I will likely see the same resistance in my career but I understand the purpose of treaty education and I know that I want it to be a part of my classroom regardless of others view of treaty education.