Educating Qallunaat/Kablunaat about Inuit - Marika Morris

This presentation describes challenges encountered while developing an Inuit-specific history curriculum covering 3,000 BCE to the present aimed primarily at non-Inuit students in Ontario schools. Although an Inuit organization spearheaded the process, Ontario Ministry of Education parameters had to be followed, and Inuit history squeezed into ways of learning that Inuit did not develop. Challenges included: approaching history by time period when Inuit history does not fit easily into this, contradictory source materials, discovery learning methods that draw on colonial approaches, Inuit dialect issues, and the tendency toward cultural appropriation, e.g. non-Inuit teachers making inuksuit (“inukshuks”) in class.