Personal Reflections on Indigeneity and Culturally Inclusive Education: Katerihwayénhstha (I am Learning), an Educational Journey

Abstract

In the post-war period in Canada, urban Euro-Canadians’ main source of information regarding Indigenous peoples was mainstream media, and this time period remains understudied. The ways in which the Canadian state promoted Indigenous policy to the general Canadian population via the medium of documentary film produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) remains understudied. Federal policies towards Indigenous peoples included citizenship, integration into the dominant society, education and training, urbanization and economic development as part of the larger ideology of settler colonialism. These policies were yet another attempt by the Canadian Government to solve the so-called ‘Indian problem’ of poverty, dependence and poor health. Yet, there was never a full understanding on the part of government officials or of non-governmental organizations that this was a result of racist government policy choices. As the author grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, the author’s teachers had been informed by these mid-20th century NFB films, which continued the bio-racism of the settler population, and this bias, conscious or not, had an impact on the author’s educational experience. Thus, this chapter will examine the author’s educational experiences and how the films the author and their teachers were exposed to influenced self-perception and others’ perception. It is important to keep in mind that this is a highly personal and localized experience that examines a lack of global competencies in education.