丁香园AV

The program builds faculty independence and agency around disrupting colonialism through teaching through the development of a critical perspective on colonial culture, systems, structures and assumptions. Some faculty may be looking for set strategies or techniques to 鈥淚ndigenize鈥� or 鈥渄ecolonize鈥� their teaching. However, as with many aspects of academic life (Becher & Trowler, 2001), the impact of colonization and the ways in which it can be counteracted will vary significantly by discipline. The wide-range of disciplines explored within the university makes the creation of cookbook style lessons related to disrupting colonialism through teaching nearly impossible. Nor is it possible for a single facilitator to address the impact of colonialism across all disciplines. The program鈥檚 approach to this fundamental problem provides faculty with sufficient historical and theoretical knowledge to develop critical perspectives on colonial assumptions, practices and ways of knowing. With that perspective and their own deep knowledge of their discipline, they can craft anti-colonial teaching practices that may ameliorate the impact of coloniality (Quijano, 2000).  

During the seminars, the participants grapple deeply with disruptive topics related to settler policies and practices and their implications for Indigenous peoples and Canadian society at large. Story telling forms the core pedagogy of the seminars. Texts in a variety of formats (academic, essay, literature, poetry, video, audio, etc.) are selected for their ability to enable bi-directional interpretation of stories with respect to history, theory, and the current social and political climate. Many of the authors are Indigenous (e.g. Armstrong; 1991; Episkenew, 2009; King, 2003; Smith, Tuck & Yang, 2019) and an exploration of the nature of Indigenous storytelling threads through the seminars. Participants are asked to connect the texts to current events in order to shed light on how colonial processes and institutions continue to structure the activities, relationships, opportunities and lives of settler and Indigenous people today. The Episkenew Fellow chooses the texts both thematically and in response to current events as well as participant interest and growth. The participants use the texts to inform inquiry projects in their courses in which they make changes to teaching and learning practices based on what they have learned. And they share stories of those efforts. Through this experience they develop their capacity for anti-colonial teaching.

After participating in several of the discussions and observing the facilitation of them, participants brainstorm key features of strong facilitation. In subsequent seminars they take turns facilitating discussions and providing one another feedback. From these discussions they each add techniques and perspectives to their facilitation repertoire.

To make the participants鈥� learning concrete, each crafts a plan to enact anti-colonial changes in one of the courses they teach based upon what they have learned. They begin their project proposals at the end of the first semester of the program. Many will be able to carry out their projects during the subsequent two semesters and share their experiences and insights with their fellow participants along the way. These projects ensure that participants鈥� learning is not inert, but rather becomes reified in action.

Each project proposal includes a plan for the collection and analysis of data to capture the impact of the changes made on the students within the course. This inquiry provides a structured way for participants to reflect on the experience, consolidate their learning and make choices about how they might revise their courses in the future to improve the learning experience for students (Hutchings & Shulman, 1999).