The Fire Within – A Conversation about Indigenous Education

By Nea Maaty
(Nea is a journalist with the Focus Media Arts Centre)

Agencies serving the indigenous community in Toronto estimate that there are 70,000 residents living in Toronto.   Many indigenous habitants reside in the downtown, low-income neighbourhoods of Regent Park, Moss Park and St. James Town.  However, far too often Indigenous residents are invisible and only reflected in issues related to homelessness. In an effort to change this Focus Media Arts is partnering with indigenous community groups and individuals to bring you The Fire Within ~ a show committed to bringing you news and stories on Indigenous communities in the downtown east and City of Toronto.
 
In this first episode of The Fire Within we bring you a conversation about Indigenous Education with Sonia B-Inkster.
On September 30th, 2021, Canada marked the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is now a federal statutory holiday that recognizes and commemorates the intergenerational harm that residential schools have caused to Indigenous families and communities. It’s a day that also honors the children who had died while attending the residential schools and the survivors and families that are still affected by the legacy of the residential school system.

The grave discoveries of indigenous children were shocking and disturbing. It is very sad and heartbreaking to think of all these children who were forced to attend these “ schools” but never made it back home. The tragedy is that their families were not even informed and worse still, no one was held to account.

According to Sonia B-Inkster, an indigenous educator, the government wants indigenous people to forget about the past.  Sonia reminds us that before we could have reconciliation there must be truth. The government and the Catholic institutions that ran the schools must release all the documents and records.  

On the issue of education, Sonia believes that everything we learned in the schools was from an Eurocentric colonizer perspective and has to be relearned. Here Sonia argues that indigenous education and learning does not just take place in schools surrounded by concrete walls but with elders, and in their families, and in their communities, and in their environments. Sonia explains, that the teacher Learner relationship is natural not because you went to university and got a BA, but because there is some knowledge in you that I would like to learn. Therefore, anyone can be teachers as long as they have a “knowledgeable”.