Indigenous learners in the Manitoba Teacher, 1919–2019

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper analyses The Manitoba Teacher, the principal publication of the Manitoba Teachers’ Society, since its first publication in 1919. The analysis focuses on what has changed and what has remained the same in terms of how Indigenous learners have been perceived by settler educators over a century. This paper argues that over the century Indigenous people in Manitoba have been prohibited from the conception, design, and management of their own education. Coupled with this, there has always existed an intense desire on the part of settlers to provide a system of education with a variety of aims stemming from eradication, integration, and good intentions. The tension between the prohibition and intent to provide a colonial education has also been shadowed by moments and movements of resistance, resurgence, and reclamation. Indigenous communities began to counter the cultural erasure in The Manitoba Teacher by the 1970s. There are hints and glimpses of Indigenous communities and allies trying to wake teachers up and advocating for Indigenous control of education in the name of the inclusion of land, language, and culture in schools.