Untying a Dreamcatcher: Coming to Understand Possibilities for Teaching Students of Aboriginal Inheritance

Increasing the number of Aboriginal students graduating from university is a goal of many Canadian universities. Realizing this goal may present challenges to the orientation and methodology of university curricula that have been developed without consideration of the traditional epistemologies of Aboriginal peoples. In this article, three scholars in the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria take up this issue by dialoguing with each other about the possibilities of incorporating Aboriginal perspectives into their courses. These conversations are woven together into the narrative form of a four-act play in which the authors caricature their personalities to highlight their initial resistances and eventual reconsiderations. As non-Aboriginal instructors from different cultural backgrounds, the authors confront issues of respect, responsibility, and (mis)representation as they struggle with the dilemmas involved in cross-cultural understanding. Through this journey they come to imagine a world where cultural differences, including the traditional epistemologies of Aboriginal peoples, present possibilities for greater understanding of each other and more authentic expressions of our humanity.