Learning from The Land: Why Indigenous Land-Based Pedagogy Matters – GDI

Indigenous people across Canada are familiar with colonization and its lingering impact on our social and economic well-being. As Matthew Wildcat and others (2014) remind us, “if colonization is fundamentally about dispossessing Indigenous peoples from land, decolonization must involve forms of education that reconnect Indigenous peoples to land and the social relations, knowledges and languages that arise from the land.”

Observing our world in realer than real environmental distress is no joke. We are part of a universal web of existence; we are not greater than the land. Yet the devastating effects of our modern lifestyles are causing great destruction and divide in our world today. My Nookum always tells us “We need Mother Earth, she doesn’t need us. Who knows when she will lift her skirts and shake us off?”

As a SUNTEP graduate, educator, mother and a concerned human, I believe a direct relationship with the land gives us a true understanding of our place and purpose on Mother Earth.

Read More: https://gdins.org/learning-from-the-land-why-indigenous-land-based-pedagogy-matters/