Centering place in student learning

Since first attending the Indigenous Initiatives Classroom Climate sessions at UBC’s Centre for Teaching and Learning Technology (CTLT), the centrality of place and acknowledgement of the land has come to the forefront in Catherine Douglas’ consideration of disciplinary research and her approaches to teaching.

As a researcher, Douglas was interested in understanding sources of knowledge and the longer-term forces of change in the economy. She acknowledges that her course content, to that point, included very little, if anything, about First Nations and other Indigenous peoples of Canada, or elsewhere in the world. It was particularly troubling to her that it was not clear to her as an instructor, how to address what she had come to recognize as a glaring gap.

She began to think more critically about her course design and the content gaps that existed. For Douglas, “it has been through listening, learning, experimentation, and dialogue that I have been able to gradually and carefully integrate Indigenous perspectives in my courses. That intention was particularly manifested this past term through a workshop for students in one of my courses, the Wealth and Poverty of Nations (Economics 234). The workshop, Acknowledging Place, was adapted from the in/relation learning resource and co-facilitated by myself and CTLT Sr Educational Consultant, Janey Lew. We worked together to integrate content so that it was in line with specific learning goals of the course.”

Students in her course learned about the history of the Musqueam people, and the meaning of terms such as ‘traditional’, ‘ancestral’ and ‘unceded’. They also explored what ‘place’ means to them. The comments from students suggest that they gained new knowledge and understanding about the Land Acknowledgement that they hear so often at UBC.

A few quotes from students:

“My perspective of the land acknowledgement has changed because before having any knowledge of the Musqueam I just saw it as a superficial statement, but after knowing the embedded history I see beyond that, as a statement of gratitude which really recognizes that settlers are not owners of territory.”

“While land acknowledgements serve as a great way to offer respect and reconciliation I have always thought that as visitors of this land, we could do more to aid in the relationship between settlers and Indigenous communities.”

“I've often felt that the land acknowledgement is done without a further acknowledgement of what our responsibilities as settlers are. Why do we not have a clause after the acknowledgement that states what our responsibilities as guests to this land are?”

As we teach remotely, Catherine Douglas continues to look for ways that her course can centre Indigenous perspectives and how this can be done in an online environment. Douglas mentioned that she is working with Lew to adapt the same content to her summer 2020 course ECON 336 (Economic History of Canada), which will be delivered online due to COVID-19.