2 UDL and Indigenous Approaches to Education
UDL has an important relationship with Indigenous and decolonizing approaches to education. These connections include values, approaches, and practices within Indigenous approaches that dovetail with the UDL model. Educators who take progressive and inclusive approaches within colonial educational institutions today have often been inspired by their exposure to Indigenous pedagogies and ways of thinking and knowing. This inspiration, however, may sometimes go unacknowledged or even unrecognized – but the spirit that animates a UDL approach has long been central within the ways that many Indigenous societies approach teaching and learning.
Indigenous communities are heir to millennia of collective knowledge and experience with creating approaches to education that are accessible, meaningful and sustainable. All post-secondary faculty today can benefit from open-minded consideration of Indigenous pedagogical knowledges and practices. In doing so, we also help to actualize the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action concerning education by helping to shape our teaching and learning practices into ones that support the development of “intercultural understanding, empathy and mutual respect.” (Call to Action #63)
While institutional efforts at decolonizing education often emphasize Indigenous symbols and practices, the potential for transforming how we teach and learn really lies in the worldview, values and principles that have long shaped Indigenous ways of living, learning and knowing. The benefits of this knowledge go far beyond simply better meeting the learning needs of our Indigenous students. Rather, they prompt us to reconsider the limitations of a monocultural model designed with a limited group of learners in mind, and to think about how learning can be made more accessible and more meaningful for students of diverse backgrounds, with unique skill sets and goals.
We will return to reflect on the connections between Indigenous education and UDL approaches later in the module.
