 Okay, so you want to introduce yourself? Sure, my name is Jody Najwan and I am a high school teacher with the Rainbow District School Board. So tell me about your program. I teach a variety of Native Studies courses that are all based on the Ministry of Education Native Studies curriculum. So I teach grade 10 Native History. I teach Canadian Native History. I teach a grade 11. Current issues would be the best description I guess. And again current Canadian issues. And I also teach a grade 12 university level course that is global Indigenous issues. So it covers Canadian issues but expands to compare and contrast with Indigenous issues from around the world. So would you say that these programs are an example of excellence in Indigenous education? I think they can be. I think their Ministry curriculum allows for a lot of variety. And that if the teacher has the knowledge base for it that they are absolutely providing an excellent basis for understanding history in this country. As well as looking at Indigenous people around the world if you go on to take the grade 12 course. So what would you say the aim of the programs are? The aim of the program definitely is understanding these programs. These courses are directed largely to non-Indigenous students to provide a background, a historical background, a little bit of a cultural background and then some contemporary issues so that they can understand what's going on in the news today in Canada. So the aim of the program is definitely to enhance, build, give the knowledge base to non-Indigenous Canadians. So how do you measure the success of your program? I guess traditional measure is the number of kids that pass your course. But for me I can tell the buy-in by class participation and discussions. I can tell the buy-in if I did a good job in grade 10 then there's coming back for grade 11 because they want to know more. And then again coming back for grade 12. So for me that's a good measure. If I start seeing the same students signing up on purpose beyond grade 10 then to me that is a success. That means that they're interested in the content and they want to know more about it. None of them are mandatory credits or courses. So to have them sign up at all shows that they want to know these things. They're not being forced to know them. They want to learn these things. So I feel that grade 10 is probably the most important. You have to do a really good job in grade 10 so that you can ensure that they're going to want to continue learning about this subject matter. So do you notice a difference with your students at the end of your program? I do. More so than just marks or finishing assignments. We try to get involved in some cultural events in the community if there's anything being offered. And I'm actually impressed the longer I teach at high school. I've been doing it for 20 years now. I'm impressed with how open-minded the youth, the non-indigenous youth that I'm teaching are to these ideas and these issues and how willing they are. To talk about these things and learn them. They're very open. So for me that's a success is that they're engaged, they're interested and they want to keep taking the courses even though they're not mandatory. So would you say that the enrollment is high at your school? For my school, personally, we're a small high school and we have a very small Indigenous population. And yet we're at our particular high school, we're running at least three, if not four, Native studies courses per semester, which is really impressive. So we also, I don't teach it, but we have a Native art in grade nine and we also have a grade 11 Native English. And all well, they run all of the time, which means that kids are choosing to take them because none of them, again, they're not a mandatory credit. So kids are making the choice to be part of those programs. So if you have some form of evaluation for the program, what feedback do you receive? Nothing. I don't think formal, there's not really a formal evaluation other than myself evaluating the students. And then I guess just our school in general being able to keep some stats on how many courses we offer per year. Feedback would be more in the form of, you know, individual students saying, you know, Miss, I really enjoyed this class. You know, I'm going to take grade 11 or I'm going to take grade 12 or, you know, I took Miss Briscoe's grade 11 Native English and, you know, I can't wait to take another one. So a lot of informal feedback from students, but I think the only real formal evaluation we would have of the success of the Ministry of Education programs would be the number of courses that are filling up at our school year after year. How would you define the word Indigenous? Oh, Indigenous. This is good. We just started talking about this in my course. So a definition of Indigenous or Indigenous education? Both. Do both? Do Indigenous education first? Indigenous, my goodness, lots of definitions. So I talk about one from an author named Stephen Curry. And so he's kind of a foremost researcher in global Indigenous issues. And it's the inhabitants of a place before another came and changed the way of life in that area. So the original inhabitants. Yeah, I guess that would be my Indigenous term. I think if I was defining it in grade 10, just introducing my students to Canada's Indigenous people, it might be a little bit different. I'd be localizing it to the Canadian experience. But in the grade 12 course, it's those that were here before interference from another culture that forced their ways on through them. Is the term Indigenous one that you would normally use? More recently, yes. And again, I debate this in all three of my classes. The term Indigenous versus Aboriginal versus Native versus being more specific to like Anishinaabek or Kree or whatever it might be. I do find in the last couple of years, just keeping up with learning myself, that I probably use Indigenous more than any other term now. So how would you define education? Education. That's a big one. I'm not a huge fan of traditional mainstream education. I like more of an alternative education where I'm helping facilitate my students explore things that they're interested in. I do understand that I have to bring a lot of the knowledge to the table in the beginning. And then after that, I like to see them sort of explore on their own. So I feel my role as an educator is just to present them with ideas and facts and opportunities to learn more on their own. So how would you define education from an Indigenous perspective? Well, I think it's difficult because I've worked in different settings other than a mainstream high school setting. And my experiences with Indigenous education sort of in the community or from an elder or at a ceremony or anything like that are much different than a mainstream school setting. So from an Indigenous perspective, I feel that education is best given by someone who is an expert in that area, someone who's experienced it firsthand, not read it in a book, someone who has maybe lived it, and can, I think for my students personally, they are the most interested when I tell them stories about myself or my family or things that I've done or seen. They don't not necessarily interested in me talking to them about what's in their textbook. They love when I talk about real things that happened. And I can connect it to, you know, my grandfather, for example, who was a World War II veteran, and I tell them stories about family or my uncle who has done some amazing things as far as being an Indigenous activist. They really, really, really, you can tell the difference between, they're not engaged when they're reading a textbook story, it's not personal, but the more personal stories I tell them, the more engaged I feel that they are. So from an Indigenous education, from an Indigenous perspective, I feel whether you're educating Indigenous or non-Indigenous students, I think you have to really bring to the table some firsthand knowledge personally. So do you have a lot of freedom to, like, do that, or is there restrictions on teaching? No, there's a lot of freedom. I think I'll use sort of the curriculum from the Ministry of Ed as a jumping off point, and I'm lucky to have had enough experiences that I can add to it, but I know that there are other people who would do a much better job because they have that much more experience with some of the topics in the curriculum. I think the freedom is there. Like, I do definitely feel supported by my principal and my school board to explore beyond the ministry curriculum. So what is your vision for the future of Indigenous education? We'll start in your community. This is my favorite question. Okay, I can be here all night. Vision. First off, I would like there to be some compulsory courses for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. I feel that some non-Indigenous students feel those courses aren't targeted for them. They kind of feel like, oh, the Native studies is just for the Native kids at our school. We can't go in there. We're not welcome, or it would be weird. So I'd like to see them be mandatory instead of so kids would be put in there and then understand that this education is for Canadians, not just Indigenous Canadians, but Canadians. So I would like to see that in the ministry of a curriculum, not only just in Ontario, but across the country I think would help. And visions for future Indigenous education, oh my goodness, where do I stop? I'd like it to be more seamless part of the curriculum as well. I don't like that it's so isolated and that it's like I'm specifically going to one hour and 15 minutes of Indigenous education. I'd like to see it woven in through the rest of the curriculum. I'd like to see the mainstream school system adopt teaching circles and having experts come in and do that modeling that you would get if you were learning out in the community somewhere. I'd like to see some of the teaching practices that would be used in a traditional setting brought into the mainstream school setting. I'd like to see kids learning together at different ages instead of grade 9, grade 10, grade 12. I'd like to see a lot more members of the Indigenous community be welcomed into the school to pass on their knowledge. I'd like to just see it be more inclusive and welcoming and compulsory. It has to be something that everybody takes, not just... I don't want kids to feel they shouldn't take it or can't take it, so if it was compulsory then they would get a good foundation in it and then not be afraid to continue learning. Can you think of any types of information that if you had now it would help to achieve your vision? Definitely. I'm always as much as possible and I'm not marking. Looking for what other people are doing. I always want to go like any conference I can get to or professional development to see what other boards are doing, school boards, even other provinces, how they're bringing in some models of education that do mirror more traditional Indigenous education. I want to see how they're tackling these problems that the Ministry of Education has funding for a certain number of kids per class or they don't offer it and how they're getting things done despite the rigid rules of the mainstream school system. So access to that kind of information, other experts, elders, people who have been running programs successfully for years. I would love all that information. I mean I still have someone to talk to, I find because they're not compulsory courses not that there aren't many native studies teachers in the Rainbow District School Board because we rarely maybe once a year get a chance to sit together and talk about stuff. I'd love to see it be more of a collaborative community where you had time to sit down and talk about what you're doing that's working well, that sort of thing. And again, time of course. Everybody needs more time. More time to do these things. Aside from the programs in which you are personally involved what information do you have on other Indigenous educational programs in Canada? Sort of similar, yeah. Not as much as I'd like. I know I've over the years looked into different programs. There was one called Ravens Program running in BC. There was a really interesting model of bringing in more than just a teacher in a classroom that was more flexible. I've been involved in the alternative, alternative school system in Ontario which I think is very successful and not as well promoted or supported as it could be. So I'm a big fan of the alternative high school model. I think it's very successful for the Indigenous students that were there but also for non-Indigenous students I think the model would work equally as well. I'm familiar with federally funded on reserve high schools as well. I'd like to see the funding gap closed for those. I'd like to see it funded on par with off reserve schools. I think that's really important. Again, just to share best practices and if someone could in some way start influencing the Ministry of Ed to make some change in the rigidity of the way high school classes are offered so that we can maybe bring in, really bring in traditional practices of learning in a different way, a more traditional way. I would love to see that. Anything else you want to add in? Just that I think this program, this project is really exciting. It's kind of the more I learn about it, the more it kind of answers a lot of those questions and I feel this will be a really interesting and informative way to find out what people are doing and what best practices are. So I'm excited about that. I'm honored to be asked to be a part of it.