Aboriginal Worldviews and Perspectives in the Classroom

We need to teach accurately and teach pre-contact and pre-fur trade history. Often, it feels like I need to
correct the facts...about “discovery” how Vancouver was renamed, etc. Let’s get the facts right first and
then we can incorporate worldviews and perspectives. Eurocentric dominance does not do justice to any
of the history that exists. In curriculum, it feels like we don’t exist...that we are invisible.
participant, West Kelowna
All students need to understand the history of the local people
(in SD 23 the Okanagan people) — the move from hereditary
chieftainship to elected chiefs, the fur trade, the leaders of
the people in the past. This means creating resources that go
beyond the single stereotypical portrayal and that represent
the regional reality, but that also deal with the continent-wide
prejudices and oppressions that dominated the colonial history.
Content needs to written by Aboriginal authors (e.g., Okanagan
authors). The knowledge keepers who understand the protocols
need to be the ones writing, leading, defining the curriculum to
be learned: “Nothing about us, without us.”
participant, West Kelowna
Consider making it
a requirement for
all students to take
BCFNS12. The two key
foundational aspects are
building relationship and
developing awareness
and understanding.
participant, West Kelowna
Aboriginal Worldviews and Perspectives in the Classroom: Moving Forward
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