Werklund researchers develop new website to incorporate Indigenous perspectives in K-12 classrooms
By Kimberly Taylor, August 15 2024—
Werklund School of Education has established a website — Combatting Racism towards Indigenous Peoples through the Inclusion of Indigenous Perspectives in the Classroom — offering lesson plans and podcast episodes for teachers in K-12 schools as well as showcasing their research on the implementation of anti-Indigenous racism curricula in the classroom.
One of the lead researchers, Dr. Patricia Danyluk — associate professor at the Werklund School of Education — spoke to the Gauntlet about the research and the development of the website.
Danyluk explained that in 2018 a new teaching quality standard (TQS) – 5) Applying Foundational Knowledge about First Nations, Metis, and Inuit -— was introduced to K-12 schools in Alberta. Researchers from the Werklund School of Education wanted to investigate the implementation of this new TQS in both schools and within teacher education programs.
Danyluk highlighted that many teachers, faculty and students were worried about making a mistake when it came to including Indigenous perspectives into their classrooms.
“The teachers that we partner our student teachers with and our own instructors were that they weren’t 100 [per cent] sure if they were doing this right or and they were very concerned about offending someone, or doing the wrong thing,” said Danyluk.
Danyluk shared that the researchers wanted to investigate this situation as well as provide resources to teachers — and both are available on the website.
“We’re trying to actually do something with our research, publishing articles and doing conferences and all those things, but creating something that teachers can actually participate in and be part of and use in their classrooms,” said Danyluk.
Danyluk highlighted that podcasts and entire lesson plans are available on the website, and they are currently working on translating more resources into French as well as gathering more resources from teachers.
“We have a series of podcasts here on [the] website where we talk to Alberta teachers about why they think it’s important to integrate Indigenous knowledge into their classroom and how they do it,” said Danyluk. “We also ask them, ‘could you share with us a time when you were successful in doing this and some of the shared lesson plans?’ We [also] collaborated with them to create these lesson plans that you find on the website. We are continuing to do podcasts and collect lesson plans.”
One finding from the research Danyluk highlighted was the positive impact of having an Indigenous team lead teachers available for teachers to consult with as they developed their lesson plans.
“These [Indigenous team lead teachers] are the people that are the experts, so when teachers wanted to weave Indigenous knowledges into their classroom they could go to one of these teachers to double check if they were doing it right and that increased their efficacy and their willingness to try,” Danyluk said.
Danyluk also highlighted the development of a model showing how including Indigenous perspectives in the classroom contributes to decreasing anti-Indigenous racism more generally.
“Weaving Indigenous knowledge into the classroom helps to encourage teacher decolonization. They go on this journey of learning more and they do a lot of self-directed learning and they share that in the classroom, which enhances students’ appreciation. Then the students share it at home with the parents — sometimes parents want to learn about this but sometimes they also push back on it and so that can happen too — but over time we think it helps to impact societal thinking and helps to combat racism,” Danyluk said.
Danyluk explained that integrating Indigenous perspectives into the classroom is an ongoing journey and that she hopes the website inspires those who visit.
“Teachers are working really hard and school districts are working really hard to support them. But there’s still a lot of learning that has to occur. Of course, this is an ongoing journey for all of us. Learning a little bit at a time and continuing to decolonize,” Danyluk said. “I would hope it inspires some hope in teachers and I would hope that they use these resources in their classrooms and continue on their learning journey.”
More information can be found on the Combatting Racism towards Indigenous Peoples through the Inclusion of Indigenous Perspectives in the Classroom website.