Introducing Dr. Belinda Daniels

On Tuesday, April 6th, one of my doctoral students, Belinda Daniels, successfully defended her doctoral dissertation, A Life Long Journey Home. Belinda’s doctoral work, presented in a manuscript-style dissertation of nine papers, shares her narrative beginnings, research, and renderings into nēhiyaw (Plains Cree, y dialect) epistemology, the main source of ancestral knowledge continuity in nēhiyaw people. In her work, Belinda attends to the questions: What are the learning processes for new adult speakers of Cree that lead to a reclamation of both language and inherent identity? What is the role of land as curriculum with regard to enhancing Cree identity? What are the conceptual and Indigenous language pedagogical ways that lead learners inward to gain knowledge, and how do they differ from mainstream educational practices?

In Belinda’s defense yesterday, as she discussed her findings and their significance, she stated:

Parent engagement is a recommendation I put forward. Schooling took children away from parents; I propose we give the autonomy back to parents. Indigenous education is much bigger than schooling; let’s honor parents, grandparents, and caregivers. ‘Just because parent knowledge is not formalized by society’ (Pushor, 2015, p. 14), their knowledge is not any less significant than teachers/school knowledge. As a result, parents play a sacred role in a child’s life, from ‘birth to forever’ (Pushor, 2013, p. 8). We need to move beyond the tokenism of elders in our schools and languages taught as subjects; parents and elders can no longer sit on the side lines, they must be seen walking through the halls and be a part of the language learning agenda. ‘Let’s change the story of who’s knowledge counts on school landscapes’ (Pushor, 2015, p. 10). Let’s be ethical and respectful and serious about Indigenous languages in schools.

Belinda’s external examiner, Dr. Sheilah E. Nicholas from the University of Arizona, wrote:

In a reflective journey undertaken through an inquiry process to address the historical erasure of the inherent rights and ongoing denial and lack of opportunities to acquire and learn the Cree language, the journey has illuminated the language-land-identity relationship as offering the potential for healing intergenerational trauma, recovery of cultural, linguistic and cognitive maps, and community overall well-being extending to stewardship of place, environment and habitat. This situates her work as a significant and critical contribution to the developing field of Indigenous language revitalization and reclamation.

I extend my warmest and most sincere congratulations to Dr. Belinda Daniels as she joins the Academy as an Assistant Professor in Indigenous Education at the University of Victoria this summer. It has been a true pleasure to ‘walk alongside’ Belinda for the past 7 years. She has become my colleague, my sister, my friend. I know her work will contribute in important ways to shifting the landscape of schools for Indigenous students and families. I look with such hope to the future!