Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education Vol. 26, No. 2, June 2005, pp.

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Misrepresentations of Indigenous History and Science: Public broadcasting, the Internet, and education
Judy Iseke-Barnes*
University of Toronto, Canada

This paper examines the role of history in power relations which suppress Indigenous knowledges. History is located as being about power and about how the powerful maintain their power. The paper further examines the Bering Strait theory/myth and ways that discourses in history combine with discourses in science to devalue Indigenous knowledges. The truth of science is challenged and examples of manipulation of scientific knowledge are provided, including discussions of a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation made for television production A peoples history and an Internet website provided by the American government. These production activities supported by the Canadian and American governments are considered educational activities engaged in the practice of cultural representation in which dominant discourses about Indigenous peoples are presented. The paper challenges dominant misrepresentations of discourses about Indigenous peoples in a discussion of educational practices emphasizing the need of Indigenous peoples to control education and cultural representations. The paper concludes that it is a responsibility of society to educate all students to understand that any portrayal of history comes from a particular vantage point and to understand that dominant society privileges some representations and disadvantages others. If we teach in a critical way and challenge dominant discourses we can begin to create a society in which all persons in Canada and the USA, including Indigenous peoples, have a role to play.

Histories as Contested Terrain in Education and Subjugating Indigenous Knowledges Histories are contested terrain in educational practice. Many sites of public education and schooling serve to provide information on history and represent dominant histories which subjugate Indigenous peoples. In mainstream education students are taught to believe that History is . . . about justice, that understanding history will enlighten our decisions about the future (Smith, 1999, p. 34). However, Mackey (2002) explains that history is not truth, but an interpretation of events told
*Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. Email: jisekebarnes@oise.utoronto.ca ISSN 0159-6306 (print)/ISSN 1469-3739 (online)/05/020149-17 # 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd DOI: 10.1080/01596300500143112

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from a particular point of view. McGuigan (1996) speaks of the problem of representation:
How museums signify the past and what is included and excluded are controversial. Bias is too crude a concept for analysing what is at stake, however, because it suggests a simple divergence from objectivity, which in itself is a contested idea. A more satisfactory approach is to frame the issue in terms of negotiation and struggle over representation, an approach that does not presume to know the objective truth in, say, quantitative terms. From a feminist perspective, for instance, it ceases to be a question of whether or not womens lives are represented but how they are represented, the narrative discourses and images that are deployed. (p. 131)

Smith (1999) explains that a dominant view of history is not shared by all peoples, and is particularly challenged by Indigenous peoples from around the globe:
History is mostly about power. It is the story of the powerful and how they became powerful, and then how they use their power to keep them in positions in which they can continue to dominate others. It is because of the relationship with power that we [Indigenous peoples] have been excluded, marginalized and Othered. In this sense history is not important for Indigenous peoples because a thousand accounts of the truth will not alter the fact that Indigenous peoples are still marginal and do not possess the power to transform history into justice. (p. 34)

Smith (1999) further explains the importance of understanding history in this way and the importance for Indigenous peoples of honouring alternative viewpoints:
Coming to know the past has been part of the critical pedagogy of decolonization. To hold alternative histories is to hold alternative knowledges. The pedagogical implication of this access to alternative knowledges is that they can form the basis of alternative ways of doing things. Transforming our colonized views of our own history (as written by the West), however, requires us to revisit, site by site, our history under Western eyes. This in turn requires a theory or approach which helps us to engage with, understand and then act upon history. It is this sense that the sites visited in this book begin with a critique of Western view of history. Telling our stories from the past, reclaiming the past, giving testimony to the injustices of the past are all strategies which are commonly employed by Indigenous peoples struggling for justice. On the international scene it is extremely rare and unusual when Indigenous accounts are accepted and acknowledged as valid interpretations of what has taken place. And yet, the need to tell our stories remains the powerful imperative of a powerful form of resistance. (pp. 34/35)

Telling and retelling stories (Brant, 1994; Harjo & Bird, 1997; Huggins, 1997), reclaiming the past (Adams, 1999), and providing testimony to the past (Bussidor & Bilgen-Reinart, 1997; Byrne & Fouillard, 2000) are all ways in which Indigenous peoples are engaging the process of recovering from a colonial past. These activities are celebrated in aboriginal literature (Eigenbrod & Episkenew, 2002; Gunn Allen, 1992; Monture-Angus, 1995, 1998; Ruffo, 2001), in resistance writing (Blaeser, 1996; hooks, 1988; Maracle, 1996; Smith, 1999; Vizenor, 1978), in writing expressing dissatisfaction with the appropriation of Indigenous histories and cultures (Adams, 1999; Churchill, 1998, 1999; Doxtator, 1988; Smith, C., 1994; Smith,

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L.T., 1999; Valaskaskis, 1993), in writing directly on issues of healing and recovery from colonial experiences (Deiter & Otway, 2001; Graveline, 1998; Hart, 2002), and in writing about aboriginal education (Battiste, 2000; Battiste & Barman, 1995; Cajete, 1994; Castellano, Davis, & Lahache, 2000), as well as in large-scale reports of research (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1997). These literatures, research, and activities respond to the need for Indigenous interpretations of culture and history and the importance of self-determination in all endeavours, including education. This requires that we revisit, site by site, our history under Western eyes (Smith, 1999, p. 34) with an approach or theoretical orientation which allows us to understand and take action upon history. In such acts we shift the focus from the taking up of dominant accounts of history to coming to know alternative histories and accounts of the past from the perspective of Indigenous peoples. These can form the basis on which to create alternative ways of educating. The Bering Strait Theory/Myth: Discourses in history combine with science There is considerable concern amongst Indigenous writers regarding the misrepresentation of Indigenous heritage in the dominant society (Adams, 1999; Churchill, 1998; Doxtator, 1988; Smith, G., 1994; Smith, L. T., 1999; Valaskaskis, 1993). The land bridge theory of the peopling of the new world (North America), as it is described in anthropology and archeology, is often accepted as fact. This acceptance of a scientific interpretation of history and rejection of Indigenous peoples knowledge raises the issue of conceptual frameworks and the perception of science which supposedly creates knowledge and truth for the dominant society. George Dei (1999) asks about the role of science in
transform[ing] the truth of subjugated knowledges into myth and fiction. For example, early Nordic, Anglo-Saxon and Greco-Russian stories are history, while early Mayan, Inuit or Ibo stories are pre-history; the North is said to have creation theories, the South has creation myths. The disciplines of science create their knowledges out of marginalised cultures. Subjugated history becomes dominant anthropology, subjugated medicine becomes dominant herbal remedies, subjugated ways of understanding and naming the physical world become dominant science and technology. Science may neither be the ultimate creator or destroyer of knowledge or truth, it is only able to enhance, deprecate or ignore what has gone before. (pp. 21/22)

In producing the Bering Strait myth science has deprecated the creation stories which Indigenous peoples have always known and replaced it with a myth based on contested anthropological evidence framed from the dominant societies perspective. Thus Indigenous peoples understandings of their beginnings become beliefs and stories, while the Bering Strait fiction becomes theory. However, it is possible, if Indigenous knowledges are centred, to understand the Bering Strait theory as myth.

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Vine Delorias (1995, p. 9) book Red earth, white lies on the subject of the Land Bridge theory describes most Western scientific theories regarding the origins or functioning of various phenomena as harmful in the way they frame Indigenous peoples. Despite the speculative nature of these scientific theories, alternative interpretations are not given equal weight. Explanations offered by Indigenous oral history:
. . . may well parallel or describe segments of scenarios sometimes put forward by scientists. . . . The problem with the Indian traditions is that hardly any openminded scientist has heard them, and an even lesser number know how to listen to Indian elders, catch the nuances of meaning, and be prepared to elicit the proper information from the story. (Deloria, 1995, p. 232)

Dei (1999) suggested that discourses in science are prone to claims of truth, but these claims are compounded by self-deception:
Science reaches its valid conclusions not independent of the scientists own thought processes, social desires and/or political agendas. There is no absolute or infallible object or subject exempt from critical analysis. There are no mutually exclusive subjects/objects. In daily social practices, the desire to create and then deny difference rests on a need to establish a dominant power as legitimately superior over the identified Other. Historically, the creation of knowledge about the racialised and subjugated Other has been part of the dominants strategy to meet defined needs, including the service of capital. A scientist then, develops her/ his theories within a specific historical context, and in relation to the prevailing cultural, political, economic and social discourses. (Dei, 1999, p. 21)

Given that this science comes from society what are the social desires and political agendas in this science of the Land Bridge theory? As these Indigenous scholars demonstrate, the intention is to deny Indigenous peoples their history in this land. By so doing the power to control this continent and to claim ownership of it rests with non-Indigenous peoples. We now turn to take up examples of these practices in public broadcasting, followed by discussion of the Internet. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Production: A peoples history On the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) television channel, which is broadcast throughout all regions of Canada, Canadians have viewed a 16 part, 32 hr, $25,000,000 (or more) television documentary series Canada: A peoples history, which was widely advertised in newspapers, in television guides throughout the country, and was talked about on CBC radio and television talk shows. The series began airing on 22 October 2000 with its first episode and has subsequently been translated into multiple languages for use in Canada and, potentially, abroad. It has aired nearly continuously in Canada since this date. The first episode, entitled When the world began, represents the Indigenous peoples of Canada prior to Canadas existence. It begins by explaining the story of supposedly the last Beothuk woman on the island in the North Atlantic which was later to become known as Newfoundland. In this short sequence Indigenous peoples of what is now known as

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North America are described as having Stumbled out of a land of ghosts, and then the question is asked How did they come to be here? In this question there is a troubling assumption that the people who are Indigenous to this land did not come from here, thus justifying the idea that all those now living on this land arrived from somewhere else and have equal rights to this land. This assumption justifies extinguishing Indigenous rights to this land and rejects Indigenous knowledges of this land extending back more than 10,000 years. It is further used to justify exploitation of Indigenous lands. In this portrayal why could Indigenous peoples of this land not always have been here? There is considerable archeological evidence that some of the oldest human remains in the northern hemisphere came from these regions. Why is this evidence not considered? Is it perhaps because this discourse of arrival justifies a belief that we are all immigrants here, which justifies no one being able to lay claim to this land and thus justifies exploitation of these lands by those who came to take it from those who already lived here? Five minutes later in the CBC series, in a segment called The crossing, there is a short account of Iroquois, Haida, and Salish creation theories, which are described as beliefs and stories rather than theories. The interpretation of the Salish account about living in another country is used to begin to tell the dominant societys Bering Strait theory. The usual story of glaciers forming and a land bridge opening up between North America and Russia is retold. We are told that grazing animals came across the bridge from Russia to North America and that hunters followed. The emphasis in this portrayal is that these hunters were not even acting of their own accord, but following animals, and that these people did not even know they had entered a different continent. These portrayals describe Indigenous peoples as very primitive. In this series, in a snippet only 8 min long, the entire history of Indigenous peoples living on this continent for millenia was explained, representing all Indigenous peoples as descending from one group of peoples who came across the land bridge. The series then moves on to first contact. The CBC, a dominant institution in Canadian broadcasting and a very conservative force in Canadian Society, has produced a series which presents the controversial Bering Strait theory, some would say myth, as fact. It was presented uncritically without discussion of the debate which is ongoing about the appropriateness of this theory/myth in the anthropology and archeology communities from which it came. The CBC production entitled A peoples history raises the question of which people get to tell and represent others in the story? Further, which people are denied a voice and a place in the telling? This dominant theory/myth is not only in predominant cultural productions by the CBC, which are now being marketed, sold, and used in schools in Canada as resources for teaching history, it is also evident in texts produced for school children (Slapin & Seale, 2003), in displays in museums (Doxtator, 1988), and, more recently, appears on the Internet. When we begin to question the dominant theory/

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myth, we need to ask who benefits from production of this myth? Who is denied a voice in these discourses? American National Parks on the Internet There is considerable concern about the Internet and participation of the dominant society in misrepresentations of Indigenous peoples on the Internet (Centre for Aboriginal Media, 2001; Iseke-Barnes, 2002; Iseke-Barnes & Sakai, 2003; Martin, 1994; Trahant, 1996). We might ask who would most benefit from supporting discourses of science which deny Indigenous knowledges? Let us consider a website produced by the American National Parks Service (http://www.nps.gov/bela/). This is a large site with numerous links and connections, but it is clearly intended to be used by educators; one of its four main links from the home page relates to interpretation and education and has subsections specifically designed for teachers and students. Early in this section the text reads If you are a teacher searching for classroom materials, a student doing research, or a person looking for a place to spend some time, have some fun and learn in the process, LearnNPS is for you. The text continues: Here youll find curriculum, fun and games, a guide to park Junior Ranger programs and a host of other fun and educational media created by the National Park Service and our partners. The site suggests that the user Come on in and experience your America in a new way. Your America? Whose America is this referring to? Are Indigenous peoples considered in this? A subsection of the website, labeled ParkWise indicates that it
. . . has been developed by the Alaska region of the National Park Service to teach school children around the country about the National Park Service and the valuable cultural and natural resources preserved . . . in Alaska. ParkWise is an evolving educational resource providing educational materials to teachers and homework help to students.

Clearly the website has education as its intention. This site provides information about the hundreds of national parks in the USA, including information about Alaska National Parks, one of which is called the Bering Land Bridge National Park. The site asks the question What is Interpretation? and answers the word Interpretation means many things. It can mean the translation of languages, perceptions about poems or novels, how a person feels about a historic building, or thinks about a scientific theory. However, it then states the National Park Service meaning of the term: Interpretation is the process of helping each park visitor find an opportunity to personally connect with a place. Each individual may connect to the place in a different way . . . some may not connect immediately, but everyone should have an opportunity to explore how a park is meaningful to them. It is important that interpretation is assumed here to be a personal activity undertaken on the part of a visitor to the park. The park does not state its important role in making interpretations nor in directing visitors in making their interpretations.

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It is important to note that no connection to cultural or historic reference is made at this point. The site further discusses interpretation and its mission as
strategic and inspirational. It is a combination of science, history, and art that aims to create memorable and meaningful experiences for visitors. Archeologists who interpret provide opportunities for people to explore ideas and meanings in natural and cultural resources and to arrive at their own conclusions about them.

Here interpretations made by archeologists are acknowledged but not critiqued, nor are the cultural motivations of archeology and the conflicts within the field acknowledged, nor are the disagreements over archeology recognized. It is also suggested that people can draw their own conclusions (any kind of interpretation) without regard to culture or history. The site further explains sometimes interpreters know theyve hit the mark when visitors experience a transformative [sic] aha! moment, then show an increased interest and a deeper level of care for the resources. So here the intention of interpretation is indeed to encourage visitors to change the way they think. But then this intention is clarified in the website statement that Interpretation helps archeologists get the word out that archeology is important and worthy of notice. So this website really is privileging archeological interpretation. In a section entitled Misconceptions about interpretation the text indicates:
People may have misconceptions about what interpretation is and what interpreters do that keep them from trying it. Sometimes these misconceptions are based in different ways of approaching new information. Other times they come from a lack of dialogue about what interpreters aim to accomplish. Unfortunately, misconceptions about interpretation can keep archeologists from using it to explore the various ways of presenting their work and the significance of their park to the public.

Here misconceptions are solely the work of the uninformed public, not cultural bias on the part of archeology. The site does note that interpretation is important to archeologists, thus acknowledging that archeology is not fact but interpretation of information. This idea of interpretation is undercut when they add because it tells people why our work is important to them, thus ensuring that again it is the authoritative role of archeology to explain to visitors. The site acknowledges that decisions about how to interpret a site or an object influences exhibit presentations, public programs, cultural resources preservation, natural resources conservation, and more. Thus it is clear that perception and point of view impact on how information is interpreted, presented, and understood. Further, the site acknowledges that frequently, parks change as the interpretation of their themes evolves, thus acknowledging that interpretation and archeology are not fixed practices but indeed must change when new information is put forward. However, then the emphasis is on why changes occur; again not because misinterpretations occurred in the first place but instead in response to public needs and interests. Interpretation, as a concept and as a practice, truly serves park management. Thus it appears that it is not

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changing theories within archeology that change park interpretation, but some response to the needs of park management. In a discussion of Why does the NPS [National Parks Service] interpret archeology? they state:
The stewardship of Americas archeological heritage is a well-established policy and function of the federal government. Interagency cooperation and partnerships are fundamental to this mission. Archeological resources*/sites, collections, and records*/are unique and fragile. We must use them wisely and protect them for future generations. NPS archeologists also interpret their work so that it gets out of academic or professional circles and into a larger public debate about the meaning of the past.

In other words, the federal government is in the business of producing an interpretation of the past and ensuring that the public is aware of this governmentsponsored interpretation. It is blatantly clear here that what this site is about is public education about government interpretations of the past. This government-sponsored site is intended to promote a particular orientation and interpretation ensuring opportunities for audiences to learn about archeological interpretations and how they are made, and to ascribe their own meanings to archeological resources. This helps increase public understanding of government interpretations. Further to this, the intention of this site and interpretation is to
. . . ensure that the archeological heritage in national park units is accessible and available to all people. A wide variety of interpretive tools and techniques exist to educate the public about park archeological resources. Tours, exhibits, excavations, publications, web sites, and lectures are some of the most frequent types of educational programs used in parks. These programs create opportunities for audiences to ascribe meanings to archeological resources, leading to concern for protection of the resources.

They also lead to particular interpretations, as put forward by government-sponsored archeologists. There are clearly considerable resources, support, and sponsorship being put into these educational activities on the part of government. Finally, the site states that Americas archeological resources embody a rich heritage of human experiences and cultural identities. Whose experiences and cultural identities are reflected here? Through what interpretive lens? The site further suggests They tell us about people from the past and establish important connections to the present. But what do they tell us about the past? The site explains that Interpretation guides the public to realizing the personal relevance of archeological resources. In other words, the site encourages public understanding of government-promoted discourses. Further, the site encourages archeologists to examine and share their work with the public, but also to integrate archeological perspectives into the interpretive management of their parks and programs. The site draws upon the authority of anthropology to state the Bering Strait myth: Most archaeologists agree that it was across the Bering Land Bridge that humans first passed from Asia to populate the Americas. This site outlines how the distance was small and potentially crossable over land at some times and by watercraft at other

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times. This site primarily provides maps and physical features of the region but also provides a link to a government site for the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, an advertising website for a national park which has a heading at the top experience YOUR AMERICA. This government site includes links for potential tourists, including travel basics, camping, lodging, activities, facilities, and fees/permits. It also provides information on archeology and links this to ideas of interpretation. They also reiterate the tale that it was across this Bering Land Bridge, also called Beringia, that humans first passed from Asia to populate the Americas. That Indigenous peoples have always lived on this land is denied. That a migration may have moved in the other direction, to Asia from North America, is not mentioned. In this example the Internet is used by government to retell the Bering Strait Myth. Why would either government benefit from retelling this myth?
The dominant culture entrenches its power and preserves its hegemony when wellfunded, highly publicized cultural productions consistently depict a narrow range of images of racial minorities. Uncritical audiences accept these misrepresentations and leave the theatre or art exhibition with certain perceptions toward a minority group more deeply entrenched. These distorted perceptions make their way into the day-to-day practices of social and cultural institutions largely because they go unchallenged. (Tator, Henry, & Mattis, 1998, p. 216)

Challenging the Bering Strait Myth There is considerable disagreement within archaeology about the Bering Strait theory/myth, also called the Land Bridge Theory, which has been widely accepted since the 1930s (Bonnichsen & Schneider, 2000; Bryan, 1969; Genovez, 1967; Giddings, 1960; Greenburg, Turner & Zegura, 1986; Irving, 1985; Jacobs, 2001; Kintigh, 1999; Meaghan, n.d.; Whitley & Dorn, 1993; Wilmsen, 1965; see also Web references). The theory describes a culture of big game hunters, known as the Clovis culture because of remains found near Clovis, New Mexico, who were thought to have crossed the Bering Strait about 12,000 years ago, reaching the southern tip of South America 11,000 years ago. Ocean levels being 200 feet lower than today during this period supposedly enabled this crossing. There is an assumption in this theory/myth that human life did not exist in the Americas prior to this period. However, archeologists have found evidence of pre-Clovis occupation of these lands, which challenges the Bering Strait theory/myth. The timespan to populate the entire continent of about 1000 years also does not seem reasonable given the patterns of movement and growth of populations. Another challenge has come from inspection of the Monte Verde site in Chile, which radiocarbon dated evidence suggests was 1000 years prior to Clovis (Adovasio & Pedler, 1997; Dillehay, 1989). Coastal migration models of migration have also been suggested by archaeologists, but the coastlines that might have been used are under 60 m of water so it is difficult to find evidence in archeology for such theories (Bonnichsen, 1994, 1999; Carlisle, 1988; Dixon, 1992; Kehoe, 1998). In a recent American television production by Nova, the

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Land Bridge theory was modified into a continuing migration theory to suggest that Indigenous peoples migrated to the Americas 20,000 years ago by water craft, not 12,000 years ago by a land bridge. That Indigenous peoples always lived here is not considered. Theories/myths put forth by science appear to be suppositions and, therefore, may be considerably influenced by the cultural orientations of scientists. It is important, then, in considering these theories/myths that we ask who would benefit from the retelling of these myths? In addition, we must ask why would either of the governments of Canada or the USA benefit from retelling the myth? Aboriginal Control of Aboriginal Education All of these institutional texts, cultural productions, written texts, Internet resources, and museum descriptions would make some claim to be being engaged in education in a broad sense. But when we examine the kinds of education engaged in through discourses producing the Bering Strait myth and those engaged in the CBC production and the government websites we must ask what is it that education is teaching our children and our society? Further, as the technologies of television and the Internet enter our classrooms we need to ask what they are teaching and the purpose of these productions (Iseke-Barnes & Sakai, 2003). Smith (1999) tells us that
In education . . . there is a very rich history of research which attempts to legitimate views about Indigenous peoples which have been antagonistic and dehumanizing. Discussions around the concept of intelligence, on discipline, or on factors that contribute to achievement depend heavily on notions about the Other. The organization of school knowledge, the hidden curriculum and the representation of difference in texts and school practices all contain discourses which have serious implications for Indigenous students as well as for other minority ethnic groups. (p. 11)

Battiste and Henderson (2000) described the function of schooling as organized knowledge to maintain and promote the dominant science and suppress Indigenous knowledges and peoples:
Eurocentric public schooling for Indigenous peoples has not been benign (Memmi, 1963; Freire, 1973; G. Smith, 1997; Milloy, 1999). It has been used as a means to perpetuate damaging myths about Indigenous knowledge and heritage, languages, beliefs, and ways of life. It has also established Eurocentric science as the dominant mode of thought, a mode of thought that distrusts diversity and jeopardizes us all as we move into the next century. After nearly a century of public schooling for Indigenous peoples in Canada, for example, the most serious problem with the current system of education lies not in its failure to liberate the human potential among Indigenous peoples but rather in its quest to limit their thought to cognitive imperialistic practices. This quest denies Indigenous people access to and participation in the formulation of educational policy, constrains the use and development of Indigenous knowledge and heritage in schools, and confines education to a narrow positivistic scientific view of the world that threatens the global future. (Battiste & Henderson, 2000, p. 86)

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What does this tell us about dominant institutional portrayals of Indigenous histories, whether they be in public broadcasting, on the Internet, or in common educational practices? By treating Eurocentric science as fact, education limits the possibilities for Indigenous peoples and teaches dangerous misperceptions to youth who learn that it is acceptable to dominate, hate, and control Indigenous peoples, and confines all students to view history from only a narrow scientific perspective. What does this recognition mean in the pursuit of empowering learners through the teaching of Indigenous history? Indigenous students must be taught to critique these dominant stories about themselves and other Indigenous peoples so that they are in a position to challenge what is presented. The spirit of Indigenous control of Indigenous education is strongly supported in the words of the National Indian Brotherhood (precursor to the Assembly of First Nations) policy paper Indian control of Indian education (National Indian Brotherhood, 1972) which called for the establishment of parallel and alternative schools designed to serve the needs of Canadian Indigenous students inserting ideals of local control and parental involvement into a movement for Indigenous autonomy. An Assembly of First Nations (1988) document, Tradition and education: Towards a vision of our future, recommended that all levels of government recognize the right of First Nations to re-establish control affecting First Nations students in federal, bandoperated, and public schools; it also recommended the development of education policy and programmes for students living off reserves and the autonomy to exercise complete control over all aspects of financial management and to negotiate new fiscal arrangements in education with the federal government. This needs to be expanded to include not only First Nations but all Indigenous peoples. The Ontario Royal Commission on Learning (1995) report For the love of learning concluded that the curriculum does not reflect the traditions and history of Indigenous peoples. The 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recommended stakeholder participation in creating meaningful dialogue between Indigenous peoples and government. The report outlined a need for more Indigenous teachers and Indigenous inclusive schooling and emphasized that Indigenous students have an inherent and legal right to their own education and First Nations people have the right to self-determination and self-government. What are the implications for mainstream schools? As Dei, James, Karumanchery, James-Wilson, and Zine (2000) suggested, mainstream schools are strongly tied to colonial relations of power and difference that see knowledge emerging only from the site of power and privilege rather than from Indigenous peoples. They emphasized that to disrupt this emphasis must be a goal of education. However, given a colonial past in which Indigenous knowledges were appropriated (Doxtator, 1988; Smith, L. T., 1999) it is a complicated task to consider incorporating Indigenous knowledges into the classroom. Dei et al. (2000) contended that it is important for Indigenous knowledges to be incorporated into mainstream education because Western education does not make space for these knowledges in classrooms. Indigenous students who encounter these knowledges may find emotional and spiritual sustenance in Indigenous knowledges.

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Non-Indigenous students can encounter these knowledges as challenges to reconsider Western knowledge not as truths, but as only one way of knowing a world. They can begin to understand that this Western knowledge has come to dominate but that these cannons can be questioned. This kind of teaching is very complex. As Dei et al. (2000, p. 46) asserted, To appropriately teach Indigenous knowledges, educators must deal with questions of credibility, accountability, practice, relevance, sustainability, appropriation, validation and legitimation. This list demonstrates the complexity of pedagogic decisionmaking with regard to cultural discussions in education. Sumarizing Dei et al., we see education as credible for students and communities when they can recognize and trust it to reflect their social reality. Education must be accountable to students, educators, parents and community workers . . . in the search for, and sharing of knowledge (p. 46). Through educational practices, knowledge must be both experiential and address pressing social problems.
Indigenous knowledges are dynamic, and in their ability to adapt to new challenges and new environments, they have stood the test of time. One central reason for its sustainability is that local people view and employ them collectively to work towards personal and communally beneficial ends. In this communal perspective, there is an open directive against the appropriation of knowledge for narrow individualistic interests. (Dei et al., 2000, p. 47)

In integrating Indigenous knowledges in educational practices there is a pressing need to guard against appropriation and misappropriation (Dei et al., 2000, p. 47). Educators are challenged in this process to engage Indigenous knowledges without appropriating or misrepresenting it. This is a very real challenge for educators (IsekeBarnes & Sakai, 2003).
The process of validating Indigenous knowledges must not lead to Indigenous peoples losing control and ownership of knowledge. In other words, it must be recognized that these knowledges are valid in their own right and that the process of bringing them into the academy should not itself constitute the measure of validation. Closely tied to the question of validation is the issue of legitimation. The legitimacy of Indigenous knowledges is based on the right of peoples to define and articulate their own accounts of what is happening to them and how they intend to deal with pressing problems. In other words, an acknowledgement of the varied ways, options and strategies through which people continually make sense of their world and act within it. (Dei et al., 2000, p. 47)

Pedagogic decision-making is complex in regard to Indigenous knowledges. Many challenges face the teacher attempting to undertake discussions of Indigenous knowledges in their classrooms. Teachers are faced with the challenge of teaching Indigenous knowledges in the classroom due to a mandated curriculum, but have few resources beyond the dominant societal portrayals of Indigenous peoples. These may be in the form of government-approved textbooks, the Internet, television programmes aimed at general audiences, or trips to local museums. While all of these sources may appear to support the educational goal of incorporating Indigenous knowledges into the curriculum, it is imperative that these resources

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be examined and critiqued to ensure they are indeed respectful of Indigenous knowledges. When considering selecting educational resources it is important to remember that stereotypes, considered either positive or negative, are common in materials about Indigenous peoples (Doxtator, 1988) and reduce Indigenous peoples to a few characteristics which are generalized to an entire population (Hall, 1997). Slapin and Seale (2003) raise many issues about images of Indigenous peoples in books. They question books which oversimplify and generalize all Indigenous peoples into one or only a few types or one colour and the use of insulting overtones or racist language. They question ways that discovery, victory, conquest, and massacre are used to manipulate images of colonial conquest, reducing its destructive impacts as inevitable results of a civilizing agent. They challenge images of governments as only trying to help and suggested self-determination and sovereignty from which to challenge colonialism. Stereotypes of Indigenous peoples are challenged through incorporating images and portrayals of Indigenous peoples who belong and contribute to sophisticated and complex societies. Slapin and Seale suggested that images of Indigenous adults as mature and hard-working, making sacrifices to take care of their families, and working for the well-being of the community are all important ways to challenge stereotypes. Further, they suggest that images of Indigenous Elders as loved and respected custodians of Indigenous peoples histories, cultures, and life ways can contradict stereotypic reductions of Elders which occur in some texts. Finally, Slapin and Seale asked us to pose the question of whether there would be anything in a story or text which would embarrass or hurt an Indigenous child and whether a text provides positive role models with whom a child could identify. They suggest discarding texts which would potentially harm a child to make room in the curriculum and libraries for texts with positive and supportive Indigenous characters. So when we consider the use of the CBC production or the American Government website we need to seriously question their use as appropriate and valid resources in our classrooms. These resources misrepresent Indigenous histories and contribute to suppression of Indigenous knowledges. This process would hurt an Indigenous child and his or her ability to see himself or herself as a member of a complex society with a complete and complex history. To not challenge what is in texts is to allow destructive materials into the classroom. Recently I noted a book in my daughters classroom which was being used to support her black classmates building of self-esteem. The book showed a black female child playing imagination games in which she imagined herself in many different roles and lives. While it may have been a positive book for the black children in the classroom, the book portrayed this black child dressing up as an indian in headdress and war paint on one of its pages. My daughter was upset at this portrayal. It did not support the development of her positive self-esteem and taught her classmates to disregard Indigenous people as human beings. I spoke to her teacher and asked that this book be removed from the classroom.

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The destructive practices used in portraying Indigenous peoples in texts reduces the likelihood that Indigenous peoples, particularly children, can reach their full potential. My daughter has found it difficult in the schoolyard when her classmates make negative and stereotypic statements about her Indigenous heritage. Books like the inappropriate one in her classroom and other cultural representations maintain the power in the hands of those who create the misrepresentations. As Slapin and Seale (2003) suggest, Indigenous children can be hurt by misrepresentations. NonIndigenous children are also hurt because they are misinformed and learn demeaning and disrespectful practices from texts. Conclusions It is complicated to engage in education to challenge mainstream practices of cultural exclusion by societal and cultural practices in which dominant discourses prevail. It is complicated to challenge dominant history and the assumptions of truth in these portrayals. It is complicated to challenge dominant portrayals in mainstream documentaries or government-produced materials. Students in educational settings need to become aware of this complexity so that they can take up images, exhibits, or cultural artifacts, listen to radio, read literature, and watch television, theatrical performances or movies in critical ways. Students need to come to realize that these productions have been produced in processes and through beliefs and views of knowledge rooted in social and political conditions which shape both the production and how it is commonly perceived. As educators, historians, museologists, website producers, governments, and private citizens we are challenged to critique dominant portrayals of Indigenous peoples and to aid students in challenging these dominant perceptions. We are challenged to (re)consider Indigenous epistemologies and to consider them as valid in our classrooms, our homes, our institutions, our workplaces, and our society. It is a responsibility of society to educate all students to understand that any portrayal of history comes from a particular vantage point. We must ensure that the assumptions in a portrayal are made evident to students so they do not remain invisible because these portrayals include dominant portrayals which are potentially very harmful. Students must understand that dominant society privileges some representations and disadvantages others. If we teach in a critical way and challenge dominant discourses we can begin to create a society in which all persons have a role to play. This is the case in Canada and the USA from which these examples are drawn or in any place in the world where there are Indigenous peoples. Is this not the entire world? Acknowledgements The research reported in this paper was supported in part by an Ontario: MET Transfer Grant and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada in a large-scale research program.

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