Pentimento

• Joining our group were Cree Elder Phillip Campiou, a cultural knowledge keeper, and members of the Riverdale Community League Truth and Reconciliation Committee.
• The gathering was an event called “Knowing Where You Are.” We conceived and planned this experiential learning activity as instructors of foundational courses in the bachelor of education program at Concordia University of Edmonton.

Importance of place

• We chose this activity at this place because of the layered history of the bridge site, which has significance as a meeting place among First Nations, Métis and settler people.
• Riverdale is situated on Métis river lots 18 and 20 in what is now central Edmonton.

Education for reconciliation in Alberta schools

• We and other educators have been responding to four of the 94 Calls to Action released by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2015.
• The intent of education for reconciliation is to include opportunities for students in kindergarten to Grade 12 to learn about the histories, experiences, knowledges and contributions of Indigenous Peoples to Canada.
• They provide guidance to practising or aspiring teachers, as well as those who supervise and evaluate them.

Decolonial approaches to education

• For us, knowing where you are is both an expression of our willingness to fulfil a mandate defined by the Teaching Quality Standard and of our commitment to a decolonial approach to teacher education.
• We strive to de-centre the physical university as the necessary site of learning, and to take an Indigenous teaching and learning approach that is a meaningful step toward decolonized teacher education.

Where do you stand?

• As a decolonial approach to education for reconciliation, “knowing where you are” has been inspired by different methods of investigation, each crucially determined by local history, knowledge, conditions and purposes.
• One of these methods for examining local history begins with the metaphor of digging where you stand, named and inspired by the work of Swedish author Sven Lindqvist.
• Another that has guided us is Cree scholar Dwayne Donald’s adaptation of a phenomenon known as “pentimento.” Pentimento refers to the re-emergence of earlier layers or layers of paint on a canvas, which Donald explores in his 2004 article, “Edmonton Pentimento: Re-Reading History in the Case of the Papaschase Cree.” Inspired by the work of historian Patricia Seed, Donald proposes “‘pentimento re-reading’ as a way to recover stories and memories that have been ‘painted over.’” This involves “the acknowledgement that each layer mixes with the other and renders irreversible influences on our perceptions of it.” The tendency to separate the stories of Indigenous and settler Canadians is one symptom of the legacies of colonialism and paternalism that have characterized Canadian society.

Continuous presence of the past

• Nêhiyaw (Cree) and Saulteaux scholar Margaret Kovach writes that “we know what we know from where we stand” in her discussion of Indigenous research methodology.
• To us, it implies that teacher education informed by Indigenous approaches to teaching and learning ought to be pursued in a way that is aware of the continued presence and relevance of the past.

People who have made commitments

• They visited the tipi (lodge) erected every summer on a prominent hilltop in a community park by Elder Phillip Campiou, and learned from him.
• Finally, students visited with members of the Riverdale Truth and Reconciliation Committee, who spoke of the personal and collective commitments they have made in support of truth and reconciliation.

A model for learning

• We were encouraged by how engaged the students were on the day of the activity, as well as by evidence of learning revealed in work submitted later in the term.
• We are optimistic that such activities matter, though we know translating specific insights, experiences and understanding into deep learning requires ongoing commitments.