SD57’s Lhulh’uts’uten: Working Together workshop.

On Friday, I was fortunate to participate in SD57’s Lhulh’uts’uten: Working Together workshop. This professional development was a great way to start of the new school year by listening to two amazing speakers talk about their personal and professional experiences that they have encountered and brought forth powerful topics from an Indigenous point of view. 

Ashley Callingbull was the keynote speaker and her words on how she wasn’t living but just trying to live really stood out to me. I think that as educators we need to make sure that we are not just letting our students “survive” school but that they are “experiencing” everything they can, and that we are giving them the best opportunities to not just live but be living every day. 

Following Ashely, I sat in on Dustin Louie on Decolonizing education and one thing that stood out to me from that whole presentation was how she stated that we as educators need to acknowledge that we are teaching from a western perspective, and while that is not wrong, we need to make that acknowledgment as we teach. It is then our duty as educators to look at different teaching perspectives and honour them as well, while still recognizing that it comes from a western teaching perspective still. To me this stands out because even though I incorporate Indigenous lessons and perspectives into me teaching, I have still grown up learned and experience life in a western view. So my teaching will come a western perspective even when teaching those First people principles of learning.