Before entering PS1 I had no knowledge of the Teaching Quality Standard, including

Competency 5, and the importance of it in education. I knew that as a teacher there should be an

importance placed on having foundational knowledge about First Nations, Metis, and Inuit

however I did not know that this was a requirement in the TQS. Coming into this program I feel I

did have a decent foundational knowledge of the First Nations and Metis people of this area

because I grew up living between Kainai and Piikani, with my two best friends coming from

these nations. Due to where I was raised, who my friends were, and the fact that my parents own

and operate the local newspaper, Indigenous culture was a large part of my life growing up. I

attended events on the reserves such as powwows, attended reserve schools for reconciliation

events, and this has led to my interest in researching the impacts of residential schools. A lot of

the readings we have done within "Speaking Our Truth" have been review for me, especially

since I wrote an essay regarding residential schools in Canada just last year for a University class

and heavily researched the topic.

Although I had this basic knowledge of local Indigenous culture and residential schools, I

feel I still have so much to learn about other First Nations, Metis, and Inuit people and their

cultures and history, and the background of each of the treaty agreements. I feel obligated to

further my education on these people for a few reasons. As an educator, it is important to be able

to understand the different socioeconomic, historical, and cultural backgrounds that will make up

a classroom. Similarly, because of my minor in Social Studies, it is important to further my

education on these people because their history is Canada's history, and I want to be able to

provide my students with an accurate understanding of Canada's history, both good and bad. To

do that I need to understand the different Indigenous cultures and their associated history. I

believe the participation in Indigenous workshops has increased my knowledge on topics that I
had no exposure to previously. However, I still feel there is much more to learn and I want to

take advantage of further opportunities provided by the University, but also explore options

outside of what is offered at the University. From my experience at the Indigenous workshop,

one of the discussions that has stuck out to me was how the use of aboriginal is an inappropriate

term to use when describing indigenous people. Aboriginal is such a prevalent terminology used,

even within the Indigenous community, however, I feel as though it comes from the same

misconception as to the terminology "Indian." Although I can not confirm this, using the prefix

ab- may have been a colonization tactic to imply that the indigenous people were actually "away

from" original, meaning they were not original to the land.

I believe that Justice Murray Sinclair's quote "Education is what got us here, and

Education is what will get us out," is the truth. The way I interpreted this quote is that the first

reference to education referred to the residential schools that indigenous children were forced to

go to, and the second education is referring to informing students of the background in order to

promote reconciliation. As a future educator, it is my job to provide my students with

background information and give them opportunities to learn from indigenous people themselves

in order to promote reconciliation. Through the use of competency 5, incorporation of

indigenous voices, and continually building a relationship with Indigenous communities I will be

able to promote reconciliation which, as Diane Longboat said in Speaking Our Truth, "…means

coming into right relationship with one another” (page 107).