ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author discusses her love of learning and engaging with history and she brushed off her enthusiasm with the simple statement: “They call it Canadian history but that’s not her history.” She believes that for non-Aboriginal students, teachers, administrators, teacher educators and researchers to ignore racism as a present condition and pressing concern for Mi’kmaw students contributes to the fear of and resistance to talking about and interrogating race. Students’ perceptions and understandings of the pedagogical decisions made by the teachers contributed to the participants’ understanding of the curriculum and their spiritual connectedness to their Mi’kmaw culture. Knowing from a Mi’kmaw perspective that the story of Columbus’s discovery of North America is filled with errors, teachers required participants to engage with or build a counter-narrative to reflect their prior knowledge. Centralization is another historical account in the social studies curriculum that required students to develop a counter-narrative in order to connect with their prior knowledge.
