Courageous Inquiry Project Background
Through the work that TC² does with educators and leaders across Canada, we noticed an increasing desire and willingness to engage in teaching and learning that contributes to truth and reconciliation. At the same time, we heard educators’ requests for resources that effectively guide their efforts to decolonize and focus their practice. To help educators achieve this important goal, we began work in 2021 on a resource to support teaching and learning for reconciliation.
We believe it is helpful to outline the process we undertook, as the journey itself highlights that the work of thoughtfully engaging in truth and reconciliation is inherently relational and comprises diverse stories. To engage in this effort, we undertook a multiphase process to
- take substantive direction from Indigenous thinkers and community members
- ensure that we were meaningfully considering multiple and differing perspectives
- best develop a resource that would be supportive of educator needs at this time
- build on the existing work of wise others
In the sections that follow, we share the processes, key learnings, and action steps that we involved in each phase of this journey towards Courageous Inquiry.
Phase One: Engaging Wise Others to Inform Our Thinking
We started this journey by recognizing that we could not do this work on our own. In spring 2022, we brought together an advisory group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators and community members to provide thoughtful discussion and guidance in conceptualizing the resource. We recognized that some of our previous approaches to, and conceptualizations of, resource development were not appropriate in engaging in this work with integrity. Gaining direction and insight from wise others, particularly Indigenous educators and community members, was critical to informing our thinking and ensuring that we were proceeding in a good way.
We are profoundly grateful to the members of this advisory group:
Shy-Anne Bartlett
Craig Findlay
Jackson Pind
Ellen Simmons
Victoria Freeman
Several things really stood out for us through these discussions:
- the complexity of the process of truth and reconciliation
- the necessity of starting with the self, starting with deep reflection, and then moving outward
- the importance of engaging local contexts first
- the understanding that not everyone views reconciliation the same way
We learned that the intricacies of doing this work well stem from the decisions educators are making and the support they receive as they engage in the process of truth and reconciliation. This process exists along a continuum of teaching about the issues toward the much more complex work of decolonizing classrooms. It is in this space of complexity that we recognized educators required more scaffolding and support for their decision-making.
From these advisory group discussions and our ongoing thinking about how to best respond to these intricacies, we developed a two-part resource plan:
- a collection of stories that share experiences from educators about their journeys of thoughtfully engaging in the work of truth and reconciliation—from the challenges to the successes
- guided discussion pieces supporting the stories that help readers engage authentically and respectfully in the work, including commentary and guidance from Indigenous thinkers and educators
To ensure that this resource would help to address the needs of educators in thoughtfully decolonizing their classrooms, we also identified several key questions to explore further:
- What unique contributions are we making to this work?
- How is inner work being supported?
- What resources, organizations, or groups are supporting the internal work needed?
- What resources are being used by educators? What are they reading? What perspectives and frameworks are informing this work?
- What will the resource look like? What might the materials look like?
Phase Two: Exploring Existing Resources Available to K–12 Educators
Starting in February 2023, three (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) researchers from across the country identified over 60 resources (books, articles, videos, and websites) that educators have been using to support their work on reconciliation.
Our analysis found that
- most resources primarily focused on teaching about reconciliation (e.g., teaching content) and less on teaching for reconciliation
- few resources focused on helping educators examine and reflect on their own decision-making, positionality, ways of knowing, and practice
We identified several key resources early in our process that were most supportive of helping educators engage in the more complex dimensions of decolonizing their classrooms:
- Truth and Reconciliation Through Education: Stories of Decolonizing Practices, edited by Yvonne Poitras Pratt and Sulyn Bodnaresko (Brush Education, 2023)
- Wayi Wahi! Indigenous Pedagogies: An Act for Reconciliation and Anti-Racism by Jo Chrona (Portage & Main Press, 2022)
- Pathways of Reconciliation: Indigenous and Settler Approaches to Implementing the TRC’s Calls to Action, edited by Aimée Craft and Paulette Regan (University of Manitoba Press, 2020)
- Teaching Each Other: Nehinuw Concepts and Indigenous Pedagogies by Linda M. Goulet and Keith N. Goulet (UBC Press, 2015)
- Integrating Aboriginal Perspectives Into the School Curriculum: Purposes, Possibilities, and Challenges by Yatta Kanu (University of Toronto Press, 2011)
We looked closely at these resources to ensure we were not reproducing work already done and to identify any existing gaps that our work could help address. These books provide beautiful theory, rich stories, and nuances, within both the broader education community and K–12 education. We were careful to consider how our proposed resource could reference and build on this work, applying our critical inquiry framework to the directions already laid out. These resources provided clarity on what we should draw upon and how we should frame the resource we developed. We identified a need to further support K–12 educators as they grapple with the questions they face in their practice to keep them moving forward in the ongoing work of truth and reconciliation toward complex decolonizing.
Phase Three: Surveying Educators for Direction and Input
To gain more insight into the kind of resource educators would find most helpful and to better understand their needs and the kind of scaffolding and support that would be most beneficial, in July and August 2023 we surveyed 48 educators from across the country. Respondents were asked open-ended questions, such as:
- What do you find most challenging about teaching and learning for meaningful truth and reconciliation?
- What would make this resource most helpful to your practice? What would not be helpful?
- What questions would you like to see answered in this resource?
Our analysis of the survey data found that educators needed greater support in navigating and working through “stuck” places that can emerge in doing this work. We noted their desire to engage deeply and, as a result, the trepidation they felt about the best steps to take. They needed safe and brave spaces, inclusive of relevant narratives and informed guidance, to enable them to think about and grapple with the questions they have. This need was consistent with our analysis of existing resources supporting the process of truth and reconciliation. The educator sample we surveyed were keen to engage, had participated in learning about issues, and now needed more support to continue their efforts with integrity and thoughtfulness.
The survey data enabled us to identify four key areas where educators felt apprehension about how to engage in the ongoing process of truth and reconciliation in K–12 education systems:
- reproducing harm unintentionally
- finding, honouring, and integrating credible and authentic voices
- building confidence in their ability to do the work with care and insight
- navigating systemic tensions
Bringing together the guidance we had received from Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members and educators, as well as our review of existing resources, led us to the conclusion that collecting educator stories on their experiences in engaging in truth and reconciliation through education would be both helpful and respectful. Our clarified goal was to collect stories centred around the four key areas of concerns identified by educators and provide direct guidance, scaffolding, and support to move through these concerns with critical thought and wisdom at the centre.
Phase Four: Collecting Educator Stories
Our next step was to delve deeper into some of the concerns and questions that emerged through the survey using a series of interviews with educators across the country. We wanted them to tell us about their experiences of contending with some of these issues, both what they did (outer work) and how they felt (inner work), which we recognize as being deeply interconnected. We wanted these stories to support educators in reflecting deeply, thinking about their process, and including their own inner approach to this work. At the same time, we wanted to provide educators with helpful advice, supporting resources, and practical ideas for how they could deepen their approaches to truth and reconciliation through education.
From January to June 2024, 34 interviews were completed with Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators from British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. This included elementary, intermediate, and secondary educators as well as those in leadership and other roles. Six participants (17%) identified as Indigenous, three participants identified as being non-White (9%), and the remaining twenty-five educators identified as White (74%). None of the participating educators who came forward and answered our invitation to be part of this resource identified as Black. The demographic data in our sample is, in itself, part of the multifaceted stories of historical inequities that play themselves out through education systems and the structural barriers that are reinforced without committed, explicit disruption and redress. We know we have much to learn from the stories of educators not yet reflected here. Our hope is that ongoing commitments to systemic justice are further manifested in future data collected and stories shared.
An analysis of the interviews revealed a range of themes that emerged, including:
- Non-Indigenous educators who have formed authentic relationships with members of distinct Indigenous nations and communities demonstrate the deepest commitment to this work; they articulate an embodied sense of accountability and responsibility to restoring historical and ongoing harms. These are the educators who find ways around policy when it does not serve justice or their learners, who go above and beyond and make this a lived commitment independent of a mandate from above or as a checkbox.
- On the whole, educators still require a deeper engagement with historical and ongoing harms and the ongoing realities of colonization. The “truth” of truth and reconciliation requires a multidimensional reflexivity that is not yet consistently centred in this work; there is still discomfort and trepidation here.
- Educators engage in complex decision-making around these issues and are most supported when there are wise and knowledgeable Indigenous leaders and community members who can hold them to account while also welcoming them into the process.
- Access to vetted resources, or to questions that can guide the selection of resources, can be a huge support for educators.
- Engaging the heart, centring wisdom, and having more opportunities to engage in Land-based learning are transformational for some educators.
- Indigenous educators and other educators racialized as non-White have to navigate white supremacy and its harms in their educational contexts; policy and leadership help create culture change.
- Educators are balancing difficult knowledge (e.g., residential schools, lack of access to clean water, ongoing injustices) with a celebration of culture, knowledge systems, achievements, and histories of resistance.
We identified excerpts from the interviews that highlighted the themes and spoke to what the educators were feeling, thinking, or doing. These educator stories were then curated into thematic groupings within the four key areas of concern. These stories became the heart of Courageous Inquiry, supported with helpful frameworks and tools to move through implementation challenges (at both inner and outer levels), and Indigenous guidance on what is needed to continue on this pathway with love and integrity.