An inviting circle to welcome everyone was the set-up of a Dawson College classroom for a Ped Days workshop led by Catherine Richardson Jan. 14.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can you be part of a community if you are looking at the backs of fellow students?\u201d Catherine asked.<\/p>\n
The workshop was entitled Decolonizing Practices in Education and was one of two workshops offered by the Faculty Hub at Ped Days to support teachers in their decolonization efforts.<\/p>\n
Get used to being uncomfortable<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cDecolonization is in the air these days,\u201d Catherine said. \u201cTalking about decolonization is a bit like doing comedy. You can bring the room together or divide it. With comedy, tension builds and then is released with laughter.<\/p>\n \u201cWith decolonization, there is no resolution. We are stuck in our discomfort. We must get used to being uncomfortable with people who are uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n At the beginning of her talk, Catherine acknowledged that she was on Kanien\u2019keh\u00e1:ka Nation territory and expressed gratitude for the day and acknowledged the ancestors. She introduced herself as M\u00e9tis with Cree, Dene and Gwichin ancestry. A therapist by training, Catherine is the Director of the First Peoples Studies Program and an Associate Professor in the School of Community and Public Affairs at Concordia University.<\/p>\n Whose land are you on?<\/strong><\/p>\n At her workshop, Catherine passed a feather around the circle and as each person held it, they had the opportunity to introduce themselves.<\/p>\n \u201cGiving space to everyone in a class to settle in and introduce themselves is a great introductory exercise,\u201d Catherine said. \u201cWe tend to deliver lectures to the mainstream. But what about the Indigenous students and others who are black or people of colour? A question you can ask the class is: \u2018whose land are you living on?\u2019\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n Quebec is home to 11 Indigenous nations and people living in Quebec are living on the territory of one of these nations.<\/p>\n Catherine taught the group that everyone, regardless of who they are, can participate in decolonization efforts. \u201cIndigenization is something that Indigenous people do and allies can create spaces for that,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n For example, we can figure out how to pay Indigenous guest speakers and elders with cash so they don\u2019t have to wait for three months to receive a cheque. \u201cThis is important to honour them and the knowledge they are bringing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Be intentional<\/strong><\/p>\n Catherine also spoke about the need to have intention. Quoting an Amazonian healer, Catherine said that if you want to cut from a plant to use it for medicine, you have to tell the plant what you want to use it for. \u201cThis is very wise. We have to have an intention. Without intention, things won\u2019t be meaningful or purposeful. When we are intentional, we are more likely to notice things and come across people who can help us.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are responsible for the people in our tribe. (If I am aware of a member of my community who is being violent or self-destructive), my job is to lean in and say \u2018how can I support you to stop doing this?\u2019 You are part of my clan, how can I help you get on track? And if you don\u2019t have a clan, invent new families and adopt people,\u201d she advised.<\/p>\n All about extracting resources <\/strong><\/p>\n Catherine then explained in brief how colonialism has made up many excuses for violence: \u201cIt\u2019s all about resources. These systems destroy communities to be able to extract resources.<\/p>\n \u201cIndigenous people are still considered wards of the state,\u201d she said. The strategy is to make them into dysfunctional adults. \u201cThis is why the trauma industry is so big. They have been traumatizing Indigenous people to remove them from their land.\u201d<\/p>\n There are many myths about Canada and there is a myth that Indigenous people are dangerous, she said. \u201cWe are more than that. People make commitments not to be violent. A community of care and support makes a person feel safe and respected. A positive social response means we are less likely to commit violence. When no one helps, one can become depressed and isolated.\u201d<\/p>\n Catherine likes to shift the perspective from what happened to a person or a nation to how they responded.<\/p>\n Resistance <\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIndigenous people were here first. There is a tradition of storytelling and we have stories that go back to the ice age.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are always people who resist oppression\u2026the people who had land and welcomed the settlers were cast aside,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Catherine noted that there are many similarities between the rhetoric around sexual violence and Indigenous peoples: \u201cSome seem to think that a person is only resisting if they fight back. Resistance is hard to describe.<\/p>\n \u201cHow do you preserve your dignity and stay safe? Even if you just say \u2018f*** you\u2019 in your mind, that is resistance. Even if they speak out inside, they are still acting. Wishing you had said something is helping you hone your analysis. We are always resisting even if others can\u2019t see it.\u201d<\/p>\n Examples of quiet resistance <\/strong><\/p>\n Catherine gave some other examples of resistance as dissociation (leaving your body to not feel pain), physical (sitting near a door to be able to leave), emotional (working through feelings).<\/p>\n Bad things also create cultures and identities, she said. \u201cWho is in power and who is not? Who is likely to be victimized and who will likely get off the hook?\u201d she asked. In this colonialized culture, there are connections between violence against women and violence against the earth.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you witness something, you must ask yourself: \u2018what is my responsibility now that I\u2019ve been called?\u2019 You wouldn\u2019t be here if you weren\u2019t called to take action.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n *Recommended by Mark Beauchamp, who is coordinating Dawson\u2019s new Certificate of Decolonization and\u00a0Indigenization\u00a0Studies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An inviting circle to welcome everyone was the set-up of a Dawson College classroom for a Ped Days workshop led by Catherine Richardson Jan. 14. \u201cHow can you be part of a community if you are looking at the backs of fellow students?\u201d Catherine asked. The workshop was entitled Decolonizing Practices in Education and was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2758,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2757"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2835,"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757\/revisions\/2835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Some decolonization ideas:<\/h2>\n
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Additional decolonization resources*:<\/h2>\n
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