Collaboration, Community-building & Haudenosaunee Foundations - Engaging with Indigenous Knowledge
Channel: eCampusOntario
Date: 30/10/2020

In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) asked all Canadians to enact reconciliation. Co-Chair, Murray Sinclair stated, “reconciliation requires that a new vision, based on a commitment of mutual respect, be developed…Reconciliation is not an Aboriginal problem; it is a Canadian one.” One of the calls to action tasked all post-secondary institutions with increasing Indigenous content in the classroom and engaging students in the difficult conversations around Canada’s treatment of Indigenous peoples. This presentation will illustrate how Haudenosaunee culture and philosophy build a community of practice in the production, use and teaching of Indigenous knowledge in the classroom through the presentation of the Collaborative Indigenous Learning Bundles Project at Carleton University. This project makes Indigenous knowledge relevant to all disciplines through the use of online learning modules, called bundles, in over 100 classes. A bundle consists of a forty-minute lecture, an Indigenous Knowledge Keeper Interview, readings and activities. The use of the bundles across the university has helped to humanize student learning about Indigenous cultures, histories and issues that work towards empathetically engaging Indigenous and non-Indigenous learners in the difficult conversations relevant to reconciliatory practice.