Featured Guests
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Kim Ondrik
Head LearnerKim has been a co-creator of several innovative and inclusive learning communities in BC over 25 years, including The Friendship Company, The Garden, The O-Zone, and Vernon Community School. She has an undergraduate degree in special education and a Master of Arts degree in curriculum and diversity.
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Cayla Brown
Smuqw'a' Clan LeaderCayla is an Indigenous educator with roots in Cree and Metis nations. The oldest of three siblings, she advocates for equitable education stemming from her sister’s blindness and works to center children in her practice. Currently, she is working with a team to co-create Qwiqwul tst tse, the new middle school of School District 79.
In the simplest of terms, decolonization means moving from a triangle to a circle. From a hierarchy to a community. In the episode, Natalie joins the Head Learner of the Mill Bay Nature School, Kim Ondrik, and the Smuqw’a’ (middle years) Clan Leader, Cayla Brown, to learn how they are building a decolonized school together through love and witnessing.
Show Notes:
- Telling the story of how Kim and Cayla taught me how to show up, even when I can’t control the outcome. (1:10)
- Kim became an educator to try to change the system, but now finds herself leading the implementation of the British Columbia competency curriculum. (9:09)
- Cayla’s journey as an educator began in Special Education, but she now finds herself having to unlearn to align her practice with her pedagogy. (14:36)
- How Mill Bay Nature School is q’shintul (community) through a process of co-creation and the invitation for everyone to show up as their whole selves. (19:20)
- What is meant by the phrase, “pedagogy from the inside out.” (25:03)
- How the educators of Mill Bay Nature School are taking up the work of decolonization. (29:22)
- What it means to “take it up.” (35:45)
- The power of gathering and doing something together in the quest for sustainable change. (38:48)
- Disrupting the “triangle” of hierarchy in the context of assessment. (54:00)
- Removing the context of competition in assessment through the process of witnessing. (1:00:45)
Significant Quotes:
“It’s parallel to Hul’qumi’num teaching of honoring who this person already is—that we’re not forming them, they’re something already.”
Kim Ondrik“When I ask a child to ‘take something up’ it means taking responsibility for that learning and growing; that you are activating and acknowledging the agency you have to go in the direction you want to go.”
Cayla Brown“Feeling that love that I can take a risk and if I miss up, he will tell me in a way that won’t diminish me or scare me. There’s a lot to be learned from a pedagogy of love.”
Kim Ondrik“The educator is the observer and it’s my job to have different lenses to see learning through.”
Cayla Brown“Is that policy or is that your practice?”
Cayla Brown