The following is how I would respond to this email had I received it:
Good Afternoon,
Treaty Education is a very difficult topic no matter the situation, but especially in the situation you are dealing with. It’s understandable to have a hard time approaching the topic, because it is a hard topic to approach. I recommend looking at the blog of Claire Kreuger, as she is a very informed individual on the matter, and has substantial experience teaching the subject. I also recommend checking out the lecture of Dwayne Donald, titled “On What Terms Can We Speak.” My final recommendation to you is to talk with an elder, as they are very knowledgable individuals on the matter and are first and foremost the keepers of Indigenous ways of knowing.
In the meantime, I can leave you with some advice that I derive from the above mentioned sources as well as from my own learning. As Claire mentions, teaching Treaty Education and First Nations, Métis, and Inuit (FNMI) content is not something you can just jump into. It’s just like a good book; you can’t just start in the middle, otherwise you won’t understand anything that’s happening. Only by starting at the beginning can you fully appreciate the content, complexities, and relationships that occur throughout the narrative, and the same goes for Treaty Education and FNMI content. Judging by what you have described, these students have never received any previous teaching on the matter, so I suggest taking Claire’s advice and starting at the beginning (take a look at the Kindergarten curriculum if you have to).
Using Dwayne’s lecture now, I would stress the importance of relationships when it comes to Treaty Education. As he explains, Treaty Education is not just simply an informational thing where the importance is in the information itself. Rather, it is the relationships made through the Treaties that matter, and those in turn make the information included in them important. Thinking about that good book again, think about how much more the story means if you understand the complexities of the relationship between the main characters. So in your next attempt at introducing this topic, stress the importance of relationships and try to make the students understand the relationships involved in the Treaties as best you can with what you have.
Always remember, the purpose of teaching these topics (Treaty Ed and FNMI content) to non-indigenous students is to make them understand that the Treaties, and therefore Indigenous ways of knowing, apply to everyone. As the saying goes, “we are all treaty people,” and that is very much true. The ancestors of the Indigenous peoples negotiated the Treaties with the settlers, and no matter which group someone belongs to, they are a member of the Treaty and bound by it.
Think back to the good book one last time, and imagine that it is still being written, the story very much continuing with each and every passing minute. That is very much the reality of the Treaties and Treaty Education, they are both always an ongoing process, so we as educators must keep up with this ongoing story.
Hope I was able to provide some of the answers you were looking for. Please feel free to email me again if you have any other questions.
All the best,
Patrick Jeffers
Patrick's Blog 