By: Jo Chrona

This resource was read for EDUC 346: Aboriginal and Indigenous Education in the first block of the teaching program. Jo Chrona provides ways to be anti-racist in schools and outlines the differences between doing nothing and actually working against racism within education. She talks about the educational discrepencies between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in BC and how to close the gap between learners.

Something I want to remember: Beginning on page 25, Chrona shares a personal story about explaining the importance of place-based teaching to educators that really made it clear why it matters so much. The excerpt ends with:

“I reminded the whole group that this (the land we now call British Columbia) is the only place in the world where the languages of the First Nations of this place exist, where the literatures of Indigneous Peoples spring from, where the knowledge systems of First Nations here are rooted in the land. If their languages cease to be spoken here, if the knowledges and perspectives are not taught and learned here, they do not exist elsewhere in the world… If the learning does not take place here, then where?” (Chrona, 2022, 26-27)