Professional Readings

Below are a number of peer-reviewed articles that I have enjoyed.

Some speak of the importance of making subject content more
beneficial for Indigenous learners, as they are sometimes viewed as
exceptional learners for a variety of reason such as geographic
isolation, language barriers, etc.

Wotherspoon, T., & Schissel, B. (1998, December). Marginalizing,

Decolonizing and Voice: Prospects for Aboriginal Education in Canada.
30. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED467991

As an Aboriginal woman, I have felt the injustices of the public school

system. I never attended a band-run school and my experiences were
vastly different than that of my friend/ fellow community members. At
school, I experienced feeling othered and ostracized as I was often
the only Aboriginal person in my class. I felt the systemic racism from
my classmates and at times my teachers. I learned by reading this
article the importance of integrating culture into the classroom as to
ensure success for all my learners. This is so important to me and I
would love to incorporate a unit of Aboriginal childrens literature in my
future classroom. I believe that cultural diversity is integral for tolerant
and accepting societies and instilling this in young impressionable
children is fundamental for fostering the types of citizens we need. All
my beliefs about giving equal opportunities to all my students was
made much stronger by reading this article.

Neeganagwedgin, E., Dr. (2011, June 27). A critical review of Aboriginal

education in Canada: Eurocentric dominance impact and everyday
denial. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 17(1), 15-31.
Retrieved from

http://www.tandfonline.com.proxy.hil.unb.ca/doi/abs/10.1080/13603116
.2 011.580461
As native studies major, a lot of this information was not new to me. I
have taken courses in decolonizing education in the past that spoke of
similar issues and topics. However, what was new to me was the
statistics of failure for Aboriginal people in comparison to the other
learners in the school. It is always a little striking and bothersome to
see statistics as they really put it into perspective. I have always heard,
for many reason, that Aboriginals will not be as successful as their
White counterparts but to see it actually written out was shocking.

The research most definitely suggests that a key component to

success of Aboriginal people in the classroom is culture. We must not
disregard traditional Indigenous ways of knowing and learning because
by doing so, we are saying they are less important. I hope to integrate
culture into my classroom by allowing for their culture to be shared and
embraced. I will teach my pupils to appreciate all cultures and
hopefully, I can even manage for an Aboriginal student to teach us a
few things, if they so please.

Building a sense of family in the classroom

John Greer, Bonnie Greer, and Jeffrey M. Hawkins

I chose this article because I feel like having a sense of family in

the classroom is extremely important. I am a firm believer that some
children need that sort of affection because that is the only place they
may get things like validation and kindness.

An idea that I enjoyed from this article was the Random act of
kindness award. When I was in elementary school, our school took
part in the random acts awards. This reminded me of what my
placement school did which was the red carpet ceremony. Students
would each month receive green slips if they deserved them for
outstanding behavior and at the end of the month, students would
walk down a red carpet to show their positive praise slips. This is an
idea I would most likely incorporate in my class if I could.

Another idea I enjoyed was the bully box and the compliment
box. The anonymous entries are helpful for children to feel safe to
express themselves. Also encouraging students to speak nicely about
each other is beneficially to fostering accepting and kind citizens.

Planning and Teaching with Multiple Perspectives

Joyce H. Burstein and Lisa Hutton

I chose this article initially because the title drew me in. I wasnt
very sure what the authors meant by multiple perspectives and I
wanted to figure it out. Immediately when I began reading the article,
the authors were discussing something that hit close to home. The
article was describing a childs reaction to learning about Japanese
people during World War II. The child was able to notice that the
textbook lacked multiple perspectives, which is reading more I
discovered what they had meant by that term. This instantly conjured
up images of children and the Canadian residential schools for a few
reasons; one because it was about children being basically imprisoned
for their race and two because it was lacking the voices of the victims.

Something from the article that I really enjoyed was the idea of
including multiple perspectives in the classroom as it helps children
become more critical thinkers. I think this could be implemented in the
classroom by simple discussion during the teaching of a historical
event. This could be as simple as what do you think about that? I
also enjoyed how the authors said that this is a natural thing for
children to want to tell their side of the story which in my mind makes
for great connections which would help with memorization.

Another idea from the text that I will try to practice in my own
classroom is having a variety of texts on a given event. This makes the
possibility for multiple perspectives to be even more likely.