This presentation was delivered by Starleigh Grass on October 25th, 2012, at the University of British Columbia Okanagan hosted by the Equity Office. To learn more about Starleigh's work you can visit twinkleshappyplace.blogspot.com

1. Bitterroot as a metaphor for
decolonizing education
Starleigh Grass
October 25th, 2012
University of British Columbia Okanagan

2. Recognition of territory
• We are on unceded Okanagan territory
• Thank you to the Okanagan Nation for their
ongoing hospitality
• Limlempt to Carmella Alexis, Dr. Jeanette
Armstrong, Dr. Bill Cohen, Marlow Sam, Dr.
Brent Peacock for their ongoing leadership in
academia and for being inspirations in my own
life

3. Properly introducing myself
• Tsilhqot’in – gold
• Tletinqox-t’in, Yunesit’in, Tsi Del Del
• E-li Jeff – knowledge and land justice
• Nita Grass – education as empowerment
• Mother/aunt – education as an obligation to
the future

4. Resistance as an inheritance
• Hardline • Insolence
• Unreasonable • Menaces
• Religious • Troublesome and
fundamentalist disorderly
extremist
• Glavin, T. (1992). Nemiah: The Unconquered Country.
Vancouver, BC: New Star Books.

5. Professionally introducing myself
• Aboriginal Strategic Plan Implementation Committee
• FNESC – EFP10/11, EFP12
• Educational Advisor for McGraw Hill
• Professional development facilitator
• K-12 humanities teacher in communities with high
percentage of Aboriginal students
• Literacy coach – Lillooet Tribal Council
• Curriculum development
• TA Leyton Schnellert
• BCTELA – journal co-editor Pamela Richardson
• GAA Jeanette Armstrong, Bill Cohen
• Twinkle’s Happy Place

6. Why bitterroot?

7. What are we doing here?

8. 5 stages of decolonization
Laenui, P. (2000). Process of decolonization. In M. Baptiste (Ed.) Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press. Pp. 150-
160
1) Rediscovery and recovery
2) Mourning
3) Dreaming
4) Commitment
5) Action

9. Medicine wheel
Baptiste, M. (2000). Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
• Mapping colonialism (West)
• Diagnosing colonialism (North)
• Healing colonized indigenous peoples (East)
• Indigenous renaissance (South)

10. 25 Indigenous Projects
Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. New York, New York: Zen Publications.
• Reframing
• Envisioning

11. Non-linear transformative praxis
Smith, G. H. (2003). Kau Papa Maori:Theorizing Indigenous transformation of education and schooling.
http://www.aare.edu.au/03pap/pih03342.pdf p.13
Resistance
Transformative
Conscientization
Action

12. Awareness is not enough
• In anti-racist education, being aware of racism
and different perspectives is not enough. One
can be aware, and yet continue to perpetuate
oppression.
• Gorski, P. C. (2009). Good intentions are not enough: A decolonizing intercultural education. Intercultural Education 19(6).
P515-525. Retrieved fromhttp://www.everettcc.edu/uploadedFiles/Faculty_Staff/TLC/Diversity_Teaching_Lab/intercultural-
education.pdf

13. What are we doing here?

14. Reframing the roots of inequity
in education

15. PSE growing
Grade 12
gap
50%
Inequitable
distribution
of public
resources
Achievement discrepancy
Association of Colleges and Universities Canada. (2010). National working summit on Aboriginal post-
secondary education. Ottawa, Ontario: Association of Colleges and Universities Canada in association
with the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation. http://www.aucc.ca/wp-
content/uploads/2011/07/aboriginal-report- summit-aboriginal-pse-2010-12-15-e.pdf

16. Locating responsibility
Kuokkanen, R. (2007). Reshaping the University: Responsibility, Indigenous Epistemes, and the Logic of Gift. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
Student
Community Institution
Outside factors

17. Invisibility
• Academia presents Indigenous thought as
inferior to Eurocentric thought
• Strips Aboriginal students of their heritage
and identity
• Succumb to eurocentric thought,
• Youngblood Henderson, J. (2000b). Postcolonial ghost dancing: Diagnosing European colonialism. In M. Battiste (Ed.), Reclaiming
Indigenous Voice and Vision (57-76). Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
• or else?

18. Teaching population
Wilful ignorance
Kuokkanen, R. (2007). Reshaping the University: Responsibility, Indigenous Epistemes, and the Logic of Gift. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
Sanctioned ignorance
Regan, P. (2010). Unsettling the Settler Within. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.

19. Liberal individual ideology
• Power blind tolerance discourses which do not
explicitly address racism only serve to blame
Aboriginal students when it is the institutions
that are failing
• There is room in the curriculum for
decolonization, but teachers aren’t making it
happen
• Orlowski, P. (2008). "That would certainly be spoiling them": Liberal discourses of Social Studies teachers and concerns
about Aboriginal students. Canadian Journal of Native Education 31 (2). p110-129.

20. Culture as a means of assimilation?
• Integration of culture into the classroom for
the sole purpose of increasing literacy and
numeracy achievement in order to better
integrate indigenous peoples into the
neoliberal market is a neocolonial version of
education for assimilation
• Kostogriz, A. (2011). Interrogating the ethics of literacy intervention in indigenous schools. English
Teaching: Practice and Critique 10 (2). P24-38.

21. If these are the roots of inequity,
what are the solutions?
And what role do I play in solutions?

22. IK
Self
determination
and
decolonization
Culture

23. Indigenous knowledges are inherently
disruptive
• Requires epistemological and pedagogical
shift that inherently undermines the
privileging of Eurocentric thought
• Experiential, student centered, place based
• Mason, R. (2008). Conflicts and Lessons in First Nations Secondary Education: An Analysis of BC First Nations Studies. Canadian Journal of
Native Education 31 (2). pp 130-153.

24. Cultural integration
• Indigenous knowledge base increases high
school completion
• Nazeem, M., Puchala, C., Janus, M. (2011). Does the EDI Equivalently Measure Facets of School Readiness for Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal children?
Social Indicators Research, 103, 299-314.
• Being culturally connected increases post
secondary completion
• Drywater-Whitekiller, V. (2010). Cultural resilience: Voices of Native American students in college retention. The Canadian Journal of Native
Studies 30 (1). p1-19.
• Communities with a cultural continuity have
lower suicide rates
• Chandler, M. J., & Lalonde, C. (1998). Cultural continuity as a hedge against suicide in Canada's First Nations.Transcultural Psychiatry
35 (2). 191-219.

25. Community connections
• Make connections to Aboriginal communities
• Learn about the histories of Aboriginal
communities
• Orlowski, P. (2008). "That would certainly be spoiling them": Liberal discourses of Social Studies teachers and concerns about Aboriginal
students. Canadian Journal of Native Education 31 (2). p110-129.

26. Self determination and decolonization
• University classroom climate is a strong
indicator of drop out rates in post-secondary
• Lindsay, W. G. (2010). Redman in the ivory tower: First Nations students and negative classroom environments in the university setting. The
Canadian Journal of Native Studies 30 (1). p 143-154.
• Shifting the purpose of education as a means
to explicitly to address ongoing injustices
shifts classroom climate and teaching
attitudes

27. It is being done
• Self governed Aboriginal post-secondary
institutions, developed with the purpose of
building capacity to meet the needs of
decolonization, have a higher success rate
than mainstream institutions
• Stonechild, B. (2006). The New Buffalo: The Struggle for Aboriginal Post-secondary Education in Canada. Winnipeg, Manitoba: University of
Manitoba Press.

28. It is mandated in this institution
• "UBC has an obligation to assure that an
accurate and developed understanding of
Aboriginal histories, cultures, and perspectives
is integrated into its existing curricula," (2008
UBC Aboriginal Strategic Plan).

29. How do we hold this institution
accountable for these changes?
And what role do I have in this
process of change?