Teaching Philosophy
My teaching pedagogy is always going to incorporate Indigenous and Holistic Education. It is what has inspired me to want to pursue teaching. When I was searching for articles, journals, and publications about Indigenous Education, I came across a book by Dr. Gregory Cajete, an Indigenous educator from New Mexico. The reason I chose this quote from his book is because I have very similar beliefs about how I want to instill Education. Cajete talks about the challenges of “new” education which is Western Education and compares it to our holistic Indigenous Education. If I could change some of the words in his quote and throughout his book, I would substitute the word Tribal, Native American and American Indians and replace it with the word Indigenous, so that it speaks to all Indigenous peoples from everywhere in the world. I feel like that old language is even westernized and it doesn’t come off as strong as Indigenous and it only pertains to certain groups of people of North America. I will implement holistic education into my teaching philosophy. Much like the First Peoples Principles of learning that we have in the new BC Curriculum, teaching involves, patience, time, understanding, holistic, history, story, and knowledge. I have always had these teaching principles. I was fortune enough to have a strong cultural and traditional upbringing, where many of these First Peoples principles were embedded into my education. I know how important it is to teach these principles for one’s self-identity. I plan to implement holistic Indigenous education in all curriculum I teach. I strongly feel that we can Indigenize all subjects, a little at a time will go a long way. I would like to invite local elders into my classroom to help create a warm and welcoming atmosphere, many Indigenous children are raised by their grandparents, so I feel this would help with creating a safe and comfortable space for all learners. Elders are out most precious knowledge keepers, storytelling, singing, and crafts would support the connectiveness from student – teacher – elder and so on.