Okay, so I want to talk to you today about why aboriginal world views matter and I'm giving four reasons. There is more than four reasons, but I'm, I'm at least giving you four reasons today, just so you have a sense of, of why this matters. The first reason that I'm giving is Canada's future potential depends on aboriginal people. And for a number of demographic reasons it, it matters for all Canadians that we engage with the aboriginal population and we start now. First of all, it's because aboriginal people are the youngest and fastest growing segment of the Canadian population. More than half of the aboriginal population is under 25 years of age. And it, you know, since 1991, it has been the fastest growing segment of the Canadian population. And if you want a sense of just how much this is going to change the balance and proportion of aboriginal people. Vis-a-vis the, the rest of Canada, by 2026, it's estimated that more than a third of the population under 30 in Saskatchewan, is going to be Aboriginal people. And in Manitoba the proportion's projected to be 28%. So I mean as, as, as you travel to those regions of Canada and you already see a, a great proportion of Aboriginal people. Just now that that's growing and it's going to continue to do so. Contrast that with how many people in Canada are aging and are reaching you know, over 65, and like retirees over the next few decades are expected to double. Then, you find that there's a, a Canadian future where the potential of the well-being of, of the seniors is in proportion to and connected to aboriginal well-being. So we certainly want to engage this young population. We want to have them become a part of the workforce and, and be contributing to the care of the elder society of the non-aboriginal people. Want to develop the economies in the in the first nation's communities as well, so that they are part, participating as full members. The world, reason number two, the world is in environmental crisis and indigenous knowledge is needed now more than ever. You know, this is a notion that's expressed in a lot of ways. People just say the world is in crisis. Really, what it is, is humanity is in crisis. There's a little anecdote that I've heard, where there's a fortune teller, teller and she's looking at the future. And she says, oh, I see a future full of peace and harmony. And the person who hears the, the fortune being told says, oh, the people must be happy. And the fortune teller says, no, there's no people. So, the, the notion is the world's going to go on and can, would restore itself to a natural state of balance without people. The environmental crisis is really a human crisis. It's about our own survival and so for indigenous people and indigenous knowledge. There has developed a relationship with the natural world and with particular places that sustain over long periods of time thousands of years. And, in, in a way that sustains life, in the region at diversity of life, life and in a healthy symbiotic relationship. So learning how this was maintain sustained is important now because we see that the, the kind of consumption of resources is beyond what the world can sustain. Cajete Gregory Cajete talks about indigenous people always have had a broad knowledge of how to live sustainably on the earth. And he asserts that one of the defining characteristics of indigenous education is that it's inherently environmental. So it behooves us to, to know indigenous knowledge and education in order to live well and sustainably with our, our planet and not threaten our continued survival on that planet. Reason number three, education, and policy development are incomplete without aboriginal world views. So being in this institute for studies and education. I'm often thinking about, the kinds of things that future teachers need to know to be able to do their teaching work well. What it is that I think Canadian citizens, the young Canadian citizens need to know, the students of those schools. And, I, I think about the subject areas, the way that schooling is divided, is divided into different disciplines and subjects. And how, to have a complete understanding, you need to include all the perspectives of the peoples who are in those classrooms. So if the population is growing like, like a, like those slides I shared, the demographics, the realities of how many aboriginal people are going to be in these classrooms. We have to make sure that there is both a mirror and a window in those classrooms. A mirror for those students to see themselves, and what they're learning, and what they're being taught, but also a window out onto the world for everyone in that classroom. A window on, on to Aboriginal realities and knowledge, a window for Aboriginal people to see through other, other realities and knowledge and be exposed to the, the great wealth of knowledge that exists. So, just as a couple of examples, geography. Can we really say we have a complete understanding of geography if we don't have Aboriginal perspectives and origin stories of the lands that we're on? There's been a long, like I said, a long-term relationship in particular places and lands that get encoded in these stories. And the stories tell about a map, but they also tell us about you know, who has been there, how have they been there, how do they use the resources of those lands how do they relate to them? It's hard to even use these language, the, the language that we have, because it's, it's somewhat incomplete. So accessing indigenous language for discussing these things is going to become of greater importance. Understanding history is definitely an incomplete process without our first voice, first stories and original perspectives on key moments. Just this past year, I'm sure we were all inundated with knowledge about the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. Well, there was definitely an Aboriginal contribution, an, an Aboriginal stake in the events of 1812 that hasn't always been present in the textbooks that were, that I've surveyed. It's changing now, but it's through a lot of struggle to get aboriginal perspectives included in the history. Before, it always seemed like Aboriginal people were treated as kind of, pawns or subjects. What matter were English motivations, French motivations, American motivations. What Aboriginal people were talking about in counsel with their own about what alliances they would form was often left out of the teaching of history. What are Aboriginal perspectives and contributions on the world wars? You know, the, the constitutional changes that happened in 1982, and the great changes to Canada's history as a result of, of that are all something that we need to engage with to have a greater, a more complete picture of, of Canada's history. Also, understanding environmental science, we should include indigenous perspectives on ecosystems, lives, and relationship. This is all part of what, you know the Tewa educator Greg [unknown] was talking about when he mentioned that it's inherently environmental. So we gotta look at indigenous knowledge to get another understanding of how the environment works. So yeah, the teaching is incomplete if we don't consider our original perspectives, but also our original pedagogies and some of the work that I've been doing at OIC with future teachers is sharing. Some different methods of working with classroom environment, creating harmonious relationships with students to, to more resemble those restorative practices that occur when there's conflict. Or, how to setup the, the community so that everyone is contributing with roles and responsibilities. There's things that we can learn from indigenous ways of teaching and learning that can have great value to our, our teaching. So our Aboriginal teacher's toolkit would, would be more complete if we engage with those Aboriginal methods. Also you know for, I know in a lot of people in the graduate studies at OIC are involved in different ways with policy development or making changes to education policy at, at higher education levels, not always about elementary and secondary education. So if we develop policy legislation that has this kind of impact on lands or people and we're not consulting or, or accommodating aboriginal perspectives. Again, that's an incomplete picture, our research hasn't really fully been done. We haven't developed that policy to the, to it's best possible application.
