On September 18 My cohort attended a talk by Dr. Niigaan Sinclair titled Building a Fire: Envisioning Indigenous Achievement. I was intrigued by Dr. Sinclair’s stories about how he had tried to teach unfamiliar cultures in his classroom and by interacting with his community he was able to do so in a meaningful and respectful way. Dr. Sinclair talked about the reality that classrooms in Canada contain a large population of indigenous students and discussed how we as educators envision their achievement. Dr. Sinclair pointed out that as educators we can encourage indigeneity and help build cultural identity. Sinclair provided four grounding questions Who am I, Why am I here, Who can help me, and Where am I going? These questions ask about identity, surroundings or worldview, relationships, and goals. Dr. Sinclair stressed that if we keep these things as a focus in our classrooms with respect, relevance, relationship and responsibility then we can create success for our students along with a strong sense of self and community. I really appreciated what Dr. Sinclair had to say and it reminded me of some of the shortfalls of traditional classrooms where identity is not a goal as much as skill acquisition and information. Classrooms now have access to tons of information and while developing skills is still important it is equally important to develop identity and community in the classroom and to do so in a respectful way with relationships, relevance and to teach responsibility to the community. I think Dr. Sinclair’s story of teaching culture in a respectful way by engaging with the community was really inspiring. I also liked how he showed that by engaging with the community the culture, people, and places became important and significant to him as well. This reflected my desire to build community and to engage with culture in a respectful way even if I am not part of that culture.
