Coming Full Circle: White, Euro-Canadian Teachers’ Positioning, Understanding, Doing, Honouring, and Knowing in School-Based Aboriginal Education

Abstract

This narrative study contributes to the field of school-based Indigenous education by exploring the central research question: What are the decolonizing processes of practicing teachers involved in a provincially funded initiative to improve schooling for urban Aboriginal students? Excerpts from teachers’ narratives are organized using the Anishinaabe medicine wheel, anchoring the exploration of the following five directions and associated decolonizing processes: teachings from the centre/positioning, teachings from the east/honouring, teachings from the south/understanding, teachings from the west/doing, and teachings from the north/knowing. This paper concludes with a discussion of how White, Euro-Canadian teachers’ decolonization informs the fields of Indigenous education, teacher education, and narrative inquiry.