B3. Cultural Awareness Skills and Strategies
Specific Expectations
B3.1
identify some cultural awareness skills and strategies (e.g., remaining open to different world views when comparing how current issues related to Indigenous communities are expressed in Indigenous and mainstream media; demonstrating respect for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities by exploring their histories and current aspirations prior to visiting cultural and/or historical sites located within their territories; identifying ways to respectfully confer with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit individuals to ensure that their beliefs, values, and aspirations are included in a new school or community-based initiative; seeking mentoring relationships with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit individuals to build understanding and knowledge), and apply them when exploring First Nations, Métis, and Inuit ways of knowing, world views, and contributions to society
- How can you ensure that you are being respectful to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit community partners as you work on an initiative to make the realities faced by those communities more visible in your school or in a volunteer or work setting?
- What are some ways to stay up to date about current issues affecting a local Indigenous community? How might you use your knowledge to support the inclusion of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit voices in school projects?
- Before you visit a cultural site on the territory of a local First Nation community, how should you prepare?
- How might you demonstrate respectful listening during a group discussion in which group members have diverse world views?
B3.2
analyse some First Nations, Métis, and Inuit cultural works in terms of what they communicate about cultural identity and/or cross-cultural interaction (e.g., explain how Annie Pootoogook’s art challenges viewers’ expectations about daily life in the Arctic; evaluate a poem or a short film by a First Nation, Métis, or Inuk writer/director as a response to cultural stereotyping; interpret the message about identity communicated by a clothing design that incorporates Indigenous cultural symbols)
- What does this spoken-word performance by a First Nation youth communicate about the impact of racism? What do you think the performer wants you to understand?
- After selecting and viewing a short film from the Wapikoni Mobile catalogue, how do you think the work challenged some cultural stereotypes of First Nations identity? What message about cross-cultural interactions do you think the Indigenous youth who directed the film wanted to communicate?
B3.3
explain how some policies regulating public institutions in Canada have challenged and continue to challenge Indigenous cultural practices (e.g., fire codes may prohibit smudging in public facilities; workplace policy governing employees’ appearance may prevent Indigenous workers from wearing their hair long for cultural and spiritual reasons; the school calendar does not always accommodate seasonally specific cultural practices, such as hunting), and suggest a few strategies to ensure that these institutions are inclusive (e.g., developing smudging protocols and guidelines; creating more flexible/creative workplace guidelines; presenting invited guests with gifts or offerings; adjusting the school calendar in some communities to permit students to participate in community hunts)
- What policies outlined in this workplace manual might affect the cultural identities of Indigenous employees? What practical strategy might you use to make this workplace more inclusive?
- How have some traditional Indigenous roles and responsibilities been affected by regulations governing public facilities? How might such regulations be revised to accommodate these roles safely and appropriately?
B3.4
design an initiative to build awareness of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit cultures and realities within the school community (e.g., a student group to share ideas and perspectives on raising cross-cultural awareness within the school community; hosting a guest from a local Indigenous community to speak to the class or the whole school about the voices and perspectives of the community; a film festival or other arts event to increase awareness of the history, contemporary reality, and/or cultural protocols of a First Nation, Métis, or Inuit community)
- What aspects of this community’s history and current reality do you want your exhibition to highlight?
- What aspects of using cultural protocols and developing cultural awareness do you want to address in your initiative?
- What could you do to encourage members of the school community to acknowledge the First Nations territory on which they live?
- How might you work with your teacher, principal, or the school community to incorporate Indigenous histories and current realities into school events such as Remembrance Day and Treaties Recognition Week?
