Pedagogy Of The Oppressed Essay

As these prejudices are uncovered, we can begin to see that Aboriginal traditions offer a store of knowledge from which we can learn to “rebuild, heal, recover, and restore healthy” relationships (Batiste 1998). As future teachers, we cannot continue to allow Aboriginal students to be given a fragmented and broken existence in a curriculum that does not reflect them, nor should they be denied understanding the historical context that has created this disconnection, no matter the age and severity of the content at hand. A postcolonial framework cannot be constructed without Indigenous people’s renewing and reconstructing the principles underlying their knowledge (Batiste 1986). Paulo Freire describes this in “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”: “One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by

In practical terms, this means that Aboriginal peoples must be involved at all stages and in all phases of our planning as future teachers, from lesson planning to personalized daily practices. This can offer teachers an opportunity to commit themselves to protecting humanity, to doing their part in helping mend the damage and losses of Indigenous peoples of their language and culture, and enabling Indigenous communities to sustain their knowledge in future generations through helping bridge Aboriginal students to Aboriginal knowledge in school systems (Batiste 1986). I would argue that for non-Indigenous teachers we have the task of becoming familiar and learning Indigenous languages and worldviews. As outsiders, and future teachers we can help bridge our students to Aboriginal knowledge, but we must remember that to speak for them is to deny them their own voice. Further, it may not be clear what authentic and equal education means for all peoples, but it is clear, as Minnick