My name is Anthony Skrinjar and I am a teacher, a soldier, but most importantly an ongoing learner. I have learned a lot in my life from multiple avenues, but learning through games and technology has always been my favourite method. Learning through playing video games and using 21st Century Competencies has allowed me to better understand many aspects of education that were previously inconceivable due to physical restraints.

Outside of school, I have learned a lot from my time serving in the Canadian Forces. I am currently an active-serving Infantry Soldier in the Queen's Own Rifles of Canada within Primary Reserves. My primary role is a Reconnaissance leader while also being employed as a paratrooper. This part of my life has given me a plethora of knowledge experience that has been very beneficial to my career as an educator. It has been the perfect pairing for me.

Conceptualizing knowledge, in the way that is represented as Indigenous Knowledge in Brayboy and Maughan’s (2009) essay, is truly a method that modern western educators can learn from and adopt into educational pedagogy. A learning point for western educators from this reading is understood when the authors write, “Indigenous Knowledge Systems value contextualized knowledge that is local and particular to the setting,” and follows this statement by adding, “that all knowledge cannot necessarily be universal in its application because of the importance of place, space, and context” (Brayboy & Maughan, 2009). This concept of thinking calls for the educator to teach students the how and why of what they are learning as opposed to just funneling the main idea through and moving on. An example used in this reading of contextual education where knowledge is specific to what is going on right then and there is the bean and plant. Rather than teaching to the basic idea of the bean being watered and eventually sprouting into a plant, which can be adapted universally for other contexts, the student teacher in this essay breaks down the learning to have the students understand the context of how and why this specific bean will become a plant including the process it will take. I believe that western educators can learn from this example of contextualized knowledge in order to benefit student learning experience through the understanding that the bean is a living thing that is interacts and is affected by all things in the same environment.

New methods of learning and engaging with technologies are emerging as we progress through the 21st Century. Complexity Pedagogy is one way that western educators have been adopting a new style of teaching that allows for the engagement with students through different technological and literary practices. Complexity Pedagogy, described in Mitchell et al.’s (2016) essay, “invites teachers to a place of possibility-with-uncertainty, where teachers invite students, through resources and critical questions, into spaces of thinking, challenging, and conversing with others” (Mitchell et al., 2016). This is similar to the concept of Indigenous Knowledge because it calls for the interaction with materials and resources in context to what and where you are learning. The introduction of collaborative learning through this complexity pedagogy opens all individuals up to new concepts, ideas, resources, and ways of thinking and learning. This is where I see the true similarity between Brayboy & Maughan (2009) and Mitchell et al. (2016). As Indigenous Knowledge builds on learning in context, the Complexity Pedagogy builds off of tapping into people and local resources as a way of learning “in context” to where and what you are teaching or learning.

Teaching and learning through an Indigenous Knowledge lens (e.g. FNMI lens) can benefit both teachers and students greatly. When comparing learning methods through and Indigenous lens to a Western Education model, we see that teachers and students become much more self and environmentally aware due to this lens opening up ideas about how we as individuals impact the world around us. This is learning through contextualized knowledge, which was discussed earlier. Indigenous Knowledge promotes each individual to grow in all aspects of life from school to the outside world, but the Western model often focuses entirely on the school aspect of life offering little to no outside education or regard for explaining why things are done one way or another. This is a basic understanding pf understanding the why before learning the how. Contextualized knowledge can benefit greatly across all subject areas in the western model of education, but it is the learning outside of school that can make a greater impact on a student and their life.