Learning How To Teach Indigenous History And Culture

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Learning how to teach Indigenous history and culture

By M. Bruce King, Laura M. Lang, Claire S. Bjork, Rachel Byington and Cheryl Bauer-Armstrong

Categories: Coaching, Collaboration, Continuous improvement, Equity, Implementation, International perspectives, Outcomes, Research, Resources

December 2022

Several days before facilitating a professional learning session on making curriculum and instruction more inclusive of Indigenous cultures, we sensed the need to confer. We had read a lesson plan that one of the participating teachers would share at the session, and it raised some serious concerns. The presenting teacher had developed this lesson with good intentions after she identified a need for more representation of Indigenous peoples in her school’s curriculum. However, the lesson about the first Thanksgiving included inaccurate historical content. As facilitators, we (Rachel, Laura, and Claire) discussed how to remedy the problems while still fostering a space of encouragement and support for the presenting teacher. She had taken initiative to attempt course correction to a history of schools’ minimal inclusion of

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