The "Build a Community" Exercise and Indigenous Content in Teacher Education

Abstract

As part of the Deepening Knowledge Project's efforts to create meaningful opportuni­ties for teacher candidates to learn about Indigenous histories, current communities,and pedagogies, our team facilitates a "Build a Community" exercise with studentswho are enrolled in teacher education programs at the Ontario Institute for Studies inEducation at the University of Toronto. As an embodied learning activity (Ng, 2012),"Build a Community" is one strategy we use to engage teacher candidates emotionallyto learn about topics they are often resistant to, such as settler colonialism. It is also agateway to host a dialogue on healing and reconciliation. This paper situates "Build aCommunity" in the literature to bring Indigenous content into teacher education anddetails our team's experience in developing an effective experience for both Indigenousand settler facilitators and audience members.