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Webinar | Dialogues on Decolonization for International Education: Part One
Target Audience:
Public and private post-secondary international staff, administrators, and faculty members; public and independent K-12 schools and school districts; and language schools.
For many 2015 was a turning point for Indigenous rights and their attention in Canada with the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s (TRC) Calls to Action. This proposed three-part series focuses on supporting international offices through deep intentional engagement, self-reflection, and learning of Indigenization practices. The workshop series is an opportunity for international educators to consider the need to integrate social responsibility, accountability, and transformational partnerships to address and question the gaps and ridges of today to Indigenize their international office.
General Learning Objectives:
- Learn about Indigenous protocols prior to European contact for relating to other Nations.
- Help map a way for institutions in BC to implement the TRC’s Calls to Action in their internationalization practices.
- Find where internationalization and Indigenization intersect, identify their synergies, and consider what actions, learning resources, and types of engagement are necessary to enact generative change.
- Learn the ways in which Indigenization as a broad, action-based, lens can be applied to specific contexts towards being mindful, respectful, and aware of cultural specificities and territorial settings.
Part 1: From Past to Present: Understanding the History of Education Prior to European Settlement
In our first session, Elder Larry Grant from Musqueam First Nations will do the traditional opening for this series and share Musqueam teachings and protocols prior to contact with Europeans on relating to other Nations. We will complement Elder Larry’s presentation with an introduction of key concepts central to understanding international education after European settlement including the TRC’s Calls to Action and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Following this, participants will be broken into small breakout rooms where they will use guiding questions to reflect on what they have learned and how it relates to the work they do as international educators.
Facilitator:
Jessie Sutherland, international speaker, trainer, and consultant. Jessie works with organizations and communities to engage diversity, foster intercultural collaboration, and generate community-led change approaches that effectively address a wide range of complex social problems. She holds an M.A. in Dispute Resolution, is the founder of Intercultural Strategies, and is the innovator of the award-winning Belonging Matters dialogue and capacity-building program. Jessie is also a TEDx speaker and is the author of the best-selling book, Worldview Skills: Transforming Conflict from the Inside Out.
Speakers:
Elder Larry Grant, Musqueam Elder, was born and raised in Musqueam traditional territory by a traditional hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking Musqueam family. After four decades as a tradesman, Larry enrolled in the First Nations Languages Program, which awoke his memory of the embedded value that the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language has to self-identity, kinship, culture, territory, and history prior to European contact. He is presently assisting in revitalizing hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ in the Musqueam Language and Culture Department and co-teaching the introductory hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ course through UBC.
Larry is the Elder-in-Residence at UBC’s First Nations House of Learning. He is a Faculty Fellow at St. John’s College, and the inaugural Honorary Life Fellow for Green College.
Dr. Jeffrey J. Schiffer, of Métis and German ancestry, was born and raised in unceded Coast Salish territoryin what is today Vancouver, BC. He holds a B.A. in Anthropology from UBC, and an M.A. and PhD in Anthropology and Education from Columbia University. Dr. Schiffer has conducted community-based research and program development with Indigenous communities in Canada and Central America. Over the past 15 years Dr. Schiffer has held positions at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Family Services Society, the Justice Institute of British Columbia, and the City of Toronto. Throughout this time he has also taught alongside his mother, Shirley Turcotte, in the Aboriginal Focusing Oriented Therapy (AFOT) program, and Indigenous Tools for Living training. Dr. Schiffer is currently the Executive Director at Native Child and Family Services of Toronto.
To register for this event, please click here.
* You will be automatically registered to the three parts of this series occurring on March 3rd, March 10th, and March 24th upon filling out the registration form.
** Each event is designed as a workshop. Attendees are encouraged to participate in activities planned for group discussion and interaction with speakers.
*** Speaker presentations will be recorded, activities and breakout discussions will not.
For more information, please contact events@bccie.bc.ca.