Education as a healing process

• Main Author: Taieb, Belkacem.
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: McGill University 2007
• Subjects: Critical pedagogy; Indigenous peoples > Education; Multicultural education; Decolonization; Canada; First Nations
• Online Access: http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=112519

This master's thesis is written by an indigenous person who sees education as a healing process. In the tradition of narrative inquiry (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000) I interweave autobiographical texts with reflections on colonialism, indigeneity and multiculturalism. I am Amazigh (Kabyle) from the country now called Algeria, where my people have lived for some 5,000 years. I was raised in France, where I experienced a racism which I became conscious of when I arrived in Canada. I draw on the Medicine Wheel teachings given by First Nations Elders in Canada as the philosophical framework of my text, a framework based on the balance of spiritual/emotional/physical and mental dimensions of experience. I provide the context for my story, explain my methodology, and offer narratives that I then reflect on as part of my life-journey through societies, cultures, belief systems and educational contexts.