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ABSTRACT. This article shares the stories of three Mi'kmaw teachers who are bringing their Aboriginal cultural practical knowledge into the school landscape through pedagogy and relationality, as they work towards the decolonization of their education system. Our notion of cultural practical knowledge relates to Connelly & Clandinin's personal practical knowledge. It is connected to the Mi'kmaw stories these teachers and their students construct and re-construct together as they work towards understanding and supporting the needs of students through applying teachers' own cultural practical knowledge.
DECOLONISATION DE L'EDUCATION MI'KMAQ PAR LA CONNAISSANCE PRATIQUE CULTURELLE
RESUME. Cet article relate l'histoire de trois professeurs mi'kmaw qui mettent a contribution leurs connaissances pratiques culturelles autochtones dans le paysage scolaire par la pedagogie et la relationalite, tandis qu'ils s'evertuent a decoloniser leur systeme d'education. Notre notion de la connaissance pratique culturelle se rapporte a la connaissance pratique personnelle de Connelly et Clandinin. Elle est line aux recits mi'kmaw que ces enseignants et leurs eleves construisent et reconstruisent ensemble afin de comprendre et de repondre aux besoins des eleves grace a l'application des connaissances pratiques culturelles des enseignants.
When we do not change the basis of the education of Native people, the process started by residential school will still continue. (J. Hookimaw-Witt, 1998, p. 160)
Euro-Canadians have been making decisions about the education of Aboriginal peoples for some considerable time. With these decisions has come an education system that is based on knowledge and values which are usually more European than Aboriginal (Ryan, 1996; Battiste, 1999). This condition is common in a range of educational situations involving racial and ethnic minorities. According to John Ogbu, European dominance of schooling means that, "explanation of the school adjustment and academic performance problems of the minorities are based on a white middle-class cultural model, not the cultural model of the minorities which influence the latter's school orientations and behaviors" (1989, p. 201). But what if the teachers of minority children were not of European descent? What if the worldview of those teaching in an Aboriginal school system was based more on Aboriginal than European ways? What would such a school environment and teacher identity look like?
The difficult journey towards decolonization of Aboriginal education
We want education to provide the...