So much of higher education has just become left-wing political jargon. It’s ridiculous.
The College Fix reports:
Concordia U. workshop offers ‘strategies on decolonizing, Indigenizing’ curriculum and teachingThe Concordia University Centre for Teaching and Learning is hosting a workshop this coming Wednesday on how to “decolonize” curriculum and pedagogy.According to the event description, the seminar will “introduce faculty” to methods by which they not only can decolonize, but “Indigenize,” their various curricula.Among other things, decolonization challenges “the belief that European writers, artists, or ideas are better and more important than ones from countries that were colonized (controlled) by Europe.”Indigenization is “a process of naturalizing Indigenous knowledge systems and making them evident to transform spaces, places, and hearts.” In this case, Concordia faculty will be shown how to “realign” their curricula “in ways that respectfully integrate Indigenous theories and pedagogical practices across academic disciplines.”Workshop speaker Donna Kahérakwas Goodleaf (pictured) is the Indigenous Curriculum and Pedagogical Advisor for Concordia’s Centre for Teaching and Learning.According to her faculty page, Goodleaf is a “Turtle Clan” and citizen of the Mohawk Nation, part of the Iroquois Confederacy (which, according to the New York State history curriculum, played a big part in the development of the United States government during the founding era).Goodleaf’s “primary role” at Concordia is to create trainings that “re-center the advancement and integration of Indigenous peoples’ diverse humanities — intellectual, scientific and cultural knowledge systems, worldviews, epistemologies, histories, research and pedagogies across all academic units.”Although details are sparse on the workshop’s event page, the Centre for Teaching and Learning has an entire page on its website devoted to the topic. Some of the strategies include:
- “interrogating and reconceptualizing your curriculum in ways that restore and renew and re-center Indigenous histories, epistemologies, knowledge systems in respectful and meaningful ways”
- “acknowledg[ing] and giv[ing] recognition to cultural protocols of place” — this essentially means giving a land acknowledgment and noting “what it it means” to be a “settler” (unless you’re Native American, of course).
- asking yourself “How do I authentically, ethically and respectfully design my course syllabus in ways that reflect the voices and lived experiences of Indigenous peoples from multiple lenses?”
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