In this section, you will find two critical repsonses that I have crafted to two different case studies that deal with themes of power, authority and media literacy. These cases were studied in EDEF3200 – Philosophy of Education [2022]. I have linked and summarized the case studies for further context.

Study One outlines a situation in which an adminstration staff member (Armand) has decided, after a tense discussion with coworkers, that he will not allow an Indigenous Elder to teach the Indigenous Language courses at their school. He reasons that the Elder is not a certified teacher and that this affects his ability to hire them. He instead hires a non-Indigenous language speaker and does not feel this needs to change.

The following is a short essay outlining my response to case study one. I focus on the existence of overarching themes of power and authority with regard to Truth and Reconciliation.


I’ll begin by stating that I can not fully sympathize with Armand. While through my white settler lens I can see the argument that he is simply doing his job by upholding policies, I argue that this sentiment is the perfect example of the energization of hegemonic power structures which contribute to the othering of subaltern groups, masked by what the dominant discourse recognizes as innocuous “my hands are tied” reasoning. While Armand may not consciously be upholding post-colonial power dynamics, he passively sustains colonization by hiring non-indigenous language speaking teachers solely on the basis of them holding a teaching degree.  Armand is in a position of authority, authority given to him by a system which has historically used their self-made definition of authority (bolstered by power) to attempt to extinguish the culture of Indigenous peoples. The institution of school literally decided that it would be authoritarian over education and legitimized itself as a central power that would establish rules and regulations that must be upheld above all other cultural groups’ ways of knowing and being. Armands choices echo the sentiment that white, western education systems are knowable, true and thus are to always be upheld. Armand is also echoing that Indigenous knowledge is not transferred in the same way as white, western knowledge and therefore it cannot be appropriately regulated (controlled).

Power is maintained through the apparatus of language. In this case, the institution of education created by western government maintains power by using language such as policy, union, contracts, and favouritism. This language allows the institution to appear to make space for Indigenous knowledge, but only within the terms and parameters that they dictate for anything else would loosen their grip.

To oversimplify; would you prefer to learn how to fly a plane from a person who flies planes, whose ancestors have flown planes and is passionate about sharing their knowledge or would you rather learn how to fly a plane from an instructor who does not fly planes but has read about flying planes and holds a certificate in teaching. Within our society, we are likely divided on which we feel more comfortable with, for many of us believe that a teaching certificate is synonymous with being certifiably conscious, knowledgeable, safe and authoritative. We have been conditioned to believe that other ways of knowing and being simply do not meet this standard. I argue that a teaching certificate can not and will not ever guarantee those qualities. It is a false sense of permissible power.

Finally, for anyone who still feels that the rules are the rules. Change them. Our system cannot simultaneously approach the 94 calls to action while blatantly upholding practices rooted in colonial maintenance of power. Our system cannot say “we are sorry, we will help to revitalize your language but we cannot let you partake in the process, because the system which incited this problem says that you and your knowledge are not valid under its rule. So we’ll take it from here. Again.”

Please click through to the next page to read my second case study repsonse.

Pages: 1 2