What is education, anyway?
It seems like a simple enough question until I try to answer it. Is it school? Well, yes, certainly schools are a part of it. Is it time spent on the land? For sure, this is powerful education. Is it listening carefully to Elders, to knowledge-holders, to people we admire? You bet. Is it learning from the plants themselves, the flows and eddies of rivers and how a paddle interacts with them to position a canoe, the stars and what they tell us about the seasons? I think it is. How Kirsten and I educate our own children is predicated on it being so.
What about the folks who keep the spaces where learning happens clean and safe? Is what they do also a part of education? What about answering phones, compiling report card data, taking pictures in the field, coaching and mentoring teachers, driving kids to school, making sure people get paid? Surely without these activities, education does not happen.
How about the curriculum writers? Anyone can plan a lesson for a single day, but what of the people who make sure that there is 194 full days' worth of material for a year, and that it all makes sense? And those who ensure teaching happens in an order that makes sense for the learner; that young children are not exposed to difficult concepts before they are ready or that older youth are challenged according to their ability?
What of the work of folks who specialize in different learning styles and abilities to make sure everyone fulfills their potential?
What of the transformation of curricula into Anishinaabemowin, centered on principles of Anishinaabe Aadziwin?
What of the policies that provide guidance on how education happens to meet that perfect intersection of student need, family need, and community need?
What of the work we do as an independent jurisdiction to make sure all of the above is right for Sagamok, and can adapt to Sagamok’s changing needs?
Is all of that “education?”
And, how long does education go on for? Is education something that ends when you turn 18? Or 21? How about when you finish a degree in a European-style university, when you get your first permanent job, or when you transition to your life-long career? Is it when you finally pick up a second, third, or fourth language? Is it still education when you set out to teach a lifetime’s worth of experiences, only to find that you learn just as much from the youth you are teaching?
Is all of that “education?”
If you listen to the federal government of Canada, they will tell you that education (and therefore the limits of their treaty obligations) is defined as:
• Daycare
• JK-12 education
• Post-Secondary learning, as defined by participation in accredited colleges or universities
The government’s education has a clear beginning when someone enters an institutional system; it continues in a linear fashion along a set of pre-defined grades; and it ends with a diploma or degree granting mechanism that has its roots in medieval Europe. So that is what the government funds in our community: the daycare, the school, and tuition for beyond what we can offer as long as they recognize the educational institution. They also provide a modicum of funding for facilities and special education supports. That’s it. The government has never funded us to develop curricula, to analyze salary grids, to invent our own assessment and evaluation protocols – all things that happen at the level of Boards and Ministries in provincial systems. They certainly don’t fund us to challenge their understandings or to reconfigure learning from an Anishinaabe lens. And as far as they are concerned, education ends when institutional enrollment ends.
At Sagamok, we know better. That’s why we, along with seven other visionary communities, formed the First Nations with Schools Collective. Together, we are challenging Canada to recognize that each of our communities has unique jurisdiction over first (school), second (board-like), third (ministry-like), and fourth (jurisdiction) level supports, that learning is a life-long process that runs from cradle to ancestry and need not be determined by institutional enrollment, and that treaty obligations to pay for education must include all of this.
The work of the First Nations with Schools Collective has been going on since 2017, and we have made tremendous progress. We have drafted a Jurisdiction framework and a Technical Paper that suggests how funding might look in the future; we are in the final stages of negotiating a Process Agreement with the federal government that will inform how negotiations will proceed; and our own Chief Toulouse is leading a nation-wide conversation about education jurisdiction wresting at the level of First Nations.
The 2025-26 fiscal year will be an unprecedented time for the First Nations with Schools Collective. We know that Canada will have a new Prime Minister and therefore a new legislative agenda; we know that even colonized societies are rapidly redefining their expectations around formal and informal education, with funders now considering micro-credentials as formal learning and many employers considering “equivalent experience” in lieu of a degree; and we know that geopolitical forces will alter the negotiating landscape as colonial nation-states grapple with their own concepts of sovereignty.
It could well be an exciting time for the First Nations with Schools Collective. Sagamok’s work with the Collective will continue to be a top strategic priority in the coming year. And while we continue this important collective work, Sagamok Education remains unwavering in our commitment to making our community’s shared vision of education a reality as best we can with the resources we have. We’re lucky to have the support of community Elders who help guide our team, innovative educators who are excited by the flexible teaching environment Sagamok provides, and knowledge holders who are eager to connect with our community’s children inside the classroom and out on the land.