Decolonizing Education: Nourishing the Learning Spirit

Abstract

As an emerging Indigenous scholar completing a mainstream doctoral program, I was immediately drawn to the work of Marie Battiste. Her work inspires my commitment to approach my degree as a decolonizing journey that nourishes my own learning spirit. Battiste (1998) captures the paradox of mainstream education as it is experienced by Aboriginal students. As she pointed out while Aboriginal students are looking to liberate themselves and their communities through education, they are faced with a strenuous curriculum that does not “mirror” them. As a result, students experience a “fragmented existence” (p. 24). This has indeed been my experience. Her recent book, Decolonizing Education: Nourishing the Learning Spirit expresses the tensions Indigenous learners face in all levels of mainstream education. These are the very tensions I personally experienced throughout the entirety of my educational experience as I have attempted to secure my own space and sense of place as a student and now aspiring professor.

Lessons from Our Sweetgrass Baskets: A Wholistic Vision of Academic Success for Indigenous Women in Higher Education

“…For example, many of the participants kept returning to lessons gleaned from the book and several discussed the importance of their own sweetgrass baskets. Although the content documented disheartening realities, it centred a strength-based lens and connected cultural teaching that nourished the learning spirit (Battiste, 2013). As Sabrina shared, "I'm noticing that being a student is very nurturing to me.…”

“…As the participants document, their prior educational experiences were characterized by colonial curricula. The Indigenous women-centred curriculum, however, offered an Indigenizing space that centres Indigenous worldviews, knowledges, and connections to land, place, and territory (Battiste, 2013;Smith, 2021).…”

“…Colonial violence is structurally threaded throughout education and Indigenous students experience this through ongoing encounters of racism and micro-aggressions (Brant, 2017;Ragoonaden & Mueller, 2017). Despite this messy history, many Indigenous peoples view education as a contemporary mode of survival, critical to supporting well-being and building strong communities (Battiste, 2013;Lavell-Harvard, 2011;Stonechild, 2006). Stonechild's (2006) work draws attention to ongoing problems associated with the assertion of Western values that de-legitimize Indigenous knowledges.…”

Public perspectives on curriculum reform for truth and reconciliation in Canada

“…Inherent to settler colonialism is a constant tension as the nation‐state and its dominant practices co‐exist with the First Peoples whose territorial and cultural displacement is an essential part of the nation‐building process (Veracini, 2014). Taken to its limits, if the nation‐to‐nation relationship is understood broadly, processes of reconciliation open pathways to decolonization marked by the replacement of these dominant institutional frameworks by alternative structures and practices made possible through the full realization of Indigenous rights (Battiste, 2013; Tuck & Yang, 2012).…”

“…Critical race theory, in common with critical Indigenous and settler colonial analysis, situates the school curriculum as an important mechanism through which dominant cultural interests are given expression while minority and Indigenous epistemologies are flattened, marginalized, or suppressed (Battiste, 2013; Ladson‐Billings, 2000). Settler colonialism depends on the maintenance of a historical narrative that minimizes or isolates, in time and space, the nature of colonial violence oriented to the obliteration of Indigenous spaces and identities.…”