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Changing Perspectives and Decolonizing Physical Education: A Visual Essay

Alexander Basilis: 30002217

Faculty of Education, University of Calgary

EDUC 530: Indigenous Education

Dr. Poitras Pratt

October 10, 2021

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Top: A photo I took

standing in Battalion
Park facing north. On
the hill are four
geoglyphs of four
battalions that fought
in World War 1.
Bottom: This photo
was taken in the exact
same spot, just facing
south. In the
foreground is part of
the Westhills
shopping complex and
in the background is
Tsuut’ina Nation 145.
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I am guilty of sometimes taking the power of the natural land for granted. I took these

two photos in the exact same spot, but the direction in which I was facing told two different

stories.

In the top photo, I am facing north, and the dominant features are the flags of Calgary,

Great Britain, Alberta, and Canada. Just behind the flags are four geoglyphs of Canadian

battalions from World War 1. To me, this photo reinforces colonial norms by including the

British flag and omitting any flag or representation of Indigenous peoples as part of the

monument, despite the fact that a conservative estimate says around 6000 Indigenous people

fought in World War 1 for Canada, and this number does not include Metis and Non-status

Indigenous people (Sheffield, 2019). How could this impact the views of students’ learning in a

western-dominated society? Furthermore, how would this image project colonial viewpoints onto

an Indigenous student? According to Little Bear (2000), the worldviews of Indigenous people are

fragmented due to the attempts of colonizers to erase their history and culture. This picture

serves as a sort of metaphor for that attempted, yet unsuccessful robbery.

The above point transitions beautifully into the second picture. This picture serves as a

metaphor for western and Indigenous cultures. When looking at the foreground of the picture, we

can see the Westhills shopping center. It appears messy and kind of ugly, and it is pretty obvious

it has a defined boundary. In the background of the picture, we can see Tsuut’ina Nation 145.

When looking at the top half of the photo, I get feelings of joy, happiness, and calm. To me, this

picture shows how western culture has been imposed placed into this land while indigenous

culture is the land, and for that reason it will persist as long as the land exists.

Another way of interpreting the photo is using it as a metaphor for the history of this

land. Canadian history is often mistakenly begins with the arrival of Europeans (Dickason and
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McNab, 2008). Starting from where I am standing in the picture and going back, we can all see

where the “European” influence ends, and it would be silly to say that is the end of the picture.

The picture goes on, and so does the Indigenous history, which began thousands of years ago and

is contained in the stories told by the land, and in this photo, that history stretches beyond what

we can even see.

How can I use the themes represented in these photos to inform the decolonization of

education when I am a teacher? First of all, education for Indigenous peoples is “embodied in all

of the cultural lifeways of a community, including beliefs, relationships, cosmology,

communication, stories, and land” (Poitras Pratt et al., 2018, p. 4). As a physical educator, I have

a unique ability to use the land as a teacher. One activity that students could do is go for a walk

and tell a friend a story that relates to the land they are walking on. This activity provides

opportunity for students to connect with each other, with the land and its history, and even their

relationship and place within the world as a whole. Be fit for life provides many great resources

that discuss how physical education can be Indigenized. For example, a game that young

students would love is the run and scream game. This is a simple game that has roots in

Indigenous buffalo hunting. To play, students take turn taking a big breath in and running while

screaming and they mark the spot where they ran out of breath. Whereas colonial education

teaches children to be quiet, this game allows them to be as loud as they can, while building

physical endurance and acknowledging the historical activities that took and still take place on

the land they live on (Miywasin Friendship Centre and Be fit for life, n.d.). Furthermore, these

types of activities will allow me to meet the fifth competency of the Teaching Quality Standard:

applying foundational knowledge about First Nations, Metis, and Inuit (Alberta Education,

2020).
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References

Alberta Education. (2020). Teaching Quality Standard. https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/4596e0e5-

bcad-4e93-a1fb-dad8e2b800d6/resource/75e96af5-8fad-4807-b99a-

f12e26d15d9f/download/edc-alberta-education-teaching-quality-standard-2018-01-17.pdf

Dickason, O., McNab, D. (2008). Introduction. In Canada’s First Nations: A History of founding

Peoples from Earliest Times (pp. x-xvii). Oxford University Press

Little Bear, L. (2000a). Jagged Worldviews Colliding. In M. Battiste (Ed.), Reclaiming

Indigenous voice and vision, (pp.77-85). UBC Press.

https://www.learnalberta.ca/content/aswt/worldviews/documents/jagged_worldviews_colli

ding.pdf

Miywasin Friendship Centre and Be Fit for Life (n.d.). Cultural teaching and physical literacy.

http://befitforlife.ca/assets/5cfa9c63438fc359911e149d/Consolidated_file_EITIPE_Less

ons__web_.pdf

Poitras Pratt, Y., Louie, D. W., Hanson, A. J., & Ottmann, J. (2018). Indigenous education and

decolonization. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Oxford University

Press. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.240

Sheffield, R.S. (2019). Indigenous peoples and the first world war. In The Canadian

Encyclopedia. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/indigenous-peoples-and-

the-first-world-war
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