Nicole Nikonetz

001173377

EDUC 3505 – O

October 5, 2017

Teaching Philosophy: Impacts of the FNMI Workshop

Growing up in rural Saskatchewan, I feel I was not exposed to very impactful education

of FNMI issues. Sadly, even when I moved to Red Deer in grade seven, most of the FNMI

education seemed very repetitive, boring, and distant from reality. Because of this background

education, the workshop we attended last Thursday was a very informative experience for me.

The blankets activity was very interactive, and the student participation it called for would be

very engaging for many grades. I liked that it was able to give a holistic view of the struggles of

aboriginal people while still allowing a focus on each issue; every struggle was still highlighted

with poignant seriousness.

Prior to this workshop, my teaching philosophy was more focused on the role and

characteristics of teachers, my views on classroom climate and control, and my opinions on

policies such as the no-zero policy and revision opportunities. While I feel there was a strong

undercurrent of inclusion at the base of my philosophy, I had never explicitly thought about who

I should develop inclusion for, nor how. This workshop has caused me to start thinking of ways

to incorporate FNMI inclusion into my lessons, both through understanding cultural differences,

as well as conveying content with the appropriate weight in order to influence students and raise

awareness to issues that are much-too glossed over.

When the workshop leader, Dawn, expressed her satisfaction with her ability to reach

students through educating future educators, it made me think about the influence I will have on
students, and how utilizing that influence appropriately is important in alleviating cultural

prejudices that are still prevalent towards FNMI people.

As a potential ELA teacher, this expansion of my teaching philosophy would manifest

itself in the books I would choose for lessons, whether they are part of a thematic unit, and the

activities we would do around these books. There were numerous options at the book bistro that

would be extremely helpful in introducing these difficult topics to students, helping them process

the information. My goal would ultimately be to give students exposure to these issues in a way

that avoids the feeling I felt during my own education: that the material was irrelevant. I would

try to avoid this by making lessons less lecture-based and more hands-on, whether the students

are engaged creatively, kinaesthetically, or in their critical thinking skills.

Overall, I feel that this workshop was a very informative experience that expanded my

teaching philosophy, urging me to address the issue of inclusion in my classroom. It particularly

made me think about who will need to be accounted for in cultural inclusion and how I will

accomplish that. I also realized the influence that I will have as an educator and how I will want

to wield that.