Indigenous land-based education has implications for science, culture, politics, language, environmental stewardship, land rights, reconciliation - and the future of this planet.
For anyone who seeks an understanding of what Indigenous land-based education is, it may be instructive to begin by grasping what it is not. If your mind went straight to “taking the classroom outside” or “outdoor education,” bingo: that’s what it’s not. Or at least, that’s not all it is—not by far. A multi-faceted concept, Indigenous land-based education doesn’t lend itself to simple one-sentence definitions, and does mean different things to different people. It brings together layered concepts like the importance of language and the geography of stories, cosmologies and world views, land protections and rights, relationality and accountability, a connection to reconciliation, and much more.
It can offer significant benefits to Indigenous people by providing culturally relevant education, promoting opportunities for inter-generational knowledge transfer, and creating safe spaces for healing and learning. And by changing the relationship that many non-Indigenous people have with the land, it has the potential to lead to a healthier Earth for all.
Dr. Amy Parent, Noxs Ts'aawit, is Nisga’a from the Nass Valley of northwestern British Columbia and describes herself as an uninvited guest to the territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam peoples. She is also an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia. Indigenous land-based education, she says, is a process that centres respect, reciprocity, reverence, humility and responsibility as values connected to the land through Indigenous knowledges—a very different view from the Eurocentric mindset, which has long understood land as a resource and object to serve human uses, much to the detriment of our living world. By its very nature, Indigenous land-based education has the capacity to create transformational opportunities for all Canadians to learn about the many ways in which our education, economic, social and political systems reinforce colonialism.
Or to put it more simply, says Parent, it teaches us that land is not a resource. Rather, “she is a dearly beloved, revered relative who is in crisis right now.”
To read more of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (unesco) Canadian Commission for UNESCO's article, please click here.
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