Weaponization of Education
From May 2020 to June 2021, the Urban Society for Aboriginal Youth (USAY) conducted an information gathering project among 152 Indigenous adults within the City of Calgary focused on literacy. The findings from that process were presented in the Indigenous Literacy Assessment. The goal of this document is to provide understanding so that future projects can make informed decisions that improve literacy skills among Indigenous adults by better understanding their unique needs and the environments of learning that they exist in. In order to do that, we must first understand how education has long been weaponized against Indigenous people.
We reached out to LeeAnne Ireland, Executive Director of USAY, for permission to republish this excerpt from the Indigenous Literacy Assessment.
This report includes recommendations for Indigenous literacy programming, resources and support. It also reminds us that it is the responsibility of us, the reader, to become knowledgeable about the history of colonization in Canada.