Slide 3

Canadian schools are showing goodwill towards reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, but they are not addressing the needs identified by Indigenous communities themselves. The success of Indigenous students depends on seeing themselves in their learning, improving graduation rates, and feeling safe and welcomed in schools. Schools should create a welcoming environment that honors Indigenous identity to improve conditions for Indigenous students. Teachers believe that connection with adults is important, but students want to see themselves reflected in the curriculum. The deliberate separation of Indigenous ways of knowing in public schooling still exists today, leaving future teachers unsure of how to incorporate Indigenous knowledge into the classroom. Lesson plans on integrating Indigenous knowledge into math classrooms can be helpful. Louis and Prince mentioned that despite the increasing goodwill Canadian schools have towards reconciliation, they are still not interested in addressing the self-stated needs that Indigenous peoples identified themselves. In their article, they identified three critical indicators of Indigenous student success, which includes seeing themselves in their learning, improving graduation rates, and feeling safe and welcomed in schools. Some suggestions that they mentioned are that schools should improve the conditions for Indigenous students by creating a welcoming environment where their identity is honoured. If schools improve in these ways, it will create a place where all students feel welcomed and valued. Some interesting results from Louis and Prince's research includes when they asked teachers about what factors they thought would help Indigenous students succeed in school. Teachers responded that connection with the adults in the school was the most important, yet the most common response for students was seeing themselves reflected in the curriculum. Growing up, I was never introduced to Indigenous ways of knowing with regards to mathematics. As you can see, Louis and Prince were correct when they argued that the deliberate separation of Indigenous peoples from their way of being were carried over into public schooling and still exist in the present era. It still existed when I graduated in 2019. Not being educated on Indigenous ways of knowing has left me in an awkward position where I, as a future math teacher, am unsure how to meaningfully incorporate Indigenous ways of knowing into my classroom. In the next few slides, there are some examples of lesson plans on how to meaningfully integrate FNMI ways of knowing into your math classroom. That could very well help you.