Learning ultimately supports the well-being of self, family, community, the land, and ancestors

“And all my ancestors.”

It is a statement sometimes made by the Elders in this community at the closing of a story or to thank a speaker for their wisdom or story. It is a statement that profoundly illustrates the difference between how Indigenous people see their role in the world and the Non-Indigenous world. Indigenous people see themselves as a part of a web of interconnected parts that cannot exist without all the other components being healthy and strong. Not only is the current web of relationships important to them, but also their relationship to the past and the people who preceded them.

Many European people would be hard pressed to define their relationship to the community and ancestors, but in short, it is a way of acknowledging the history of the family and community when meeting or speaking with someone you respect. While European people tend to see things in the individual, Indigenous cultures tend to see things collectively. When speaking, learning, and making decisions, the impacts on the individual, family, community, land, and ancestors are always considered. It is a fundamental difference in world view which is so embedded in the sense of identity culture and place.

One of the key initiatives we undertook was a community consultation with the Indigenous learners of our community. When we invited them to consultations that were for the broader community very few attended so we felt we needed to host a consultation of their own.

When we approached Elders to be involved in the process we asked how they would approach it. We wanted to identify barriers to learning and strategies to overcome them. One of the Elders we spoke to asked us why we were holding a consultation to identify barriers we likely already knew: transportation, childcare, educational trauma, literacy, etc. Another pointed out that we may have better results if we approached this consultation from a strengths-based position.

We hired an Elder, Dennis Whitford, who led a process called Appreciative Inquiry. One of the exercises we engaged in was an Aboriginal Community Learner Review. It was a community consultation we called Finding our Strengths, where we invited members of the Aboriginal Community to discuss their learning successes and asked what things had worked. Our goals were:

1. To have the opportunity to connect with the community.

2. Let the community know our mandate and services.

3. Help learners identify some of their positive learning experiences.

4. Identify their own strength-based strategies in learning.

5. Create some first steps in building strategies.

When the Elder we were working with proposed Appreciative Inquiry we were very excited. He suggested that we needed each of our learners to identify what learning successes they had, what strategies they could identify and how to replicate that in our learning environment.

Appreciative Inquiry

The Principles of Appreciative Inquiry are:

1. The constructionist principle proposes that what we believe to be true determines what we do, how we think and act.

We asked learners to identify positive learning experiences they had and why they worked.

2. The principle of simultaneity proposes that as we inquire into human systems we change them, and this changes the things people think and talk about. What questions we ask determines what we change in our environment.

We asked participants to evaluate their own learning environments, what worked, and what priorities we should focus on.

3. The poetic principle proposes that organizational life is expressed in the stories people tell each other every day, and the story of the organization is constantly being co-authored.

This is particularly applicable in the Indigenous framework: the importance of story as well as the sharing circle.
We asked learners to form groups and illustrate the strategies and priorities they felt meant the most to them.

4. The anticipatory principle posits that what we do today is guided by our image of the future. Appreciative inquiry uses artful creation of positive imagery on a collective basis to refashion anticipatory reality.

We created a mission statement that created a positive intention for learning in the Manning area.

5. The positive principle proposes that momentum and sustainable change requires positive affect and social bonding. Sentiments like hope, excitement, inspiration, camaraderie and joy increase creativity, openness to new ideas and people, and cognitive flexibility.

We asked our learners to identify ways in which they could participate in the learning environment in the community and an Indigenous Advisory Council was formed from this initiative.

Reflections Worksheet: Family and Community

Strategies to Build Community into Learning

Host a community consultation inviting Indigenous learners, families, and community members.
Use strength-based approaches when asking questions. Reframe your perspective to build on what they already know, what works.
Build a relationship. Host open houses, free lunches, have conversations.
Provide child care and child friendly learning spaces.
Invite community members and family to celebrate achievements.
Create assignments that allow students to discuss their community, family, and perspective.
Do genealogy and family trees for assignments.
Incorporate journaling and the sharing of stories.