Research Question: Why are holistic approaches to teaching important for Indigenous student learners? Thesis Statement: Holistic approaches to teaching enhance Indigenous student learner outcomes by emphasizing teacher and Elder collaboration, cultural values and language example use, and providing hands on engagement of the student in the classroom. Summary: Approaches to teaching First Nations children in the classroom currently use traditional knowledge instruction involving hands on teaching and learning. Studies demonstrate that the holistic approach to develop all aspects of the learner (using the Medicine Wheel) both reinforce and expand the understanding of traditional First Nations culture as well as provide better learning outcomes for students. To encourage a holistic approach, Armstrong (2013) calls for the engagement with community Elders to help co-produce learning materials for teachers called "Indigneous Inquiry Kits"; this enhances teacher resources and promotes the inclusion of the community in the process of curriculum development. Cultural values and language are similarly important for enhancing student retention of material, as Ezeife (2006) demonstrates in his use of Aboriginal specific references for mathematics, where students were 15% more likely to retain set theory concepts when Aboriginal names were used. Finally, encouraging hands on work in the classroom helps students to apply Indigenous traditional knowledge in a tangible results based format, as Munroe et al (2013) demonstrate in their student of Mi'kmaw students working on traditional crafts to understand science and mathematics lessons. For my essay, I will explore these concepts in more detail, providing a solid overview of how co- designing for curriculum development in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal contexts serves to improve student and teacher engagement while building trust in the process of education. Co- designing of curriculum and design learning approaches to education, combined with an emphasis on Aboriginal culture and ways of knowing, should help increase educational outcomes in First Nation communities, and demonstrate why a holistic approach to teaching Indigenous students is so important. 3 Annotations: Armstrong, Helen 2013 Indigenizing the Curriculum: The Importance of Story. In First Nations Perspectives. Pp. 37-64, Vol. 5. The author begins by noting that hegemonic practices are those that consensual social practice allows to control the storied past of Canada's First Peoples - and this use of stories is critical to re-indigenizing school curriculums, so they developed a project to validate Aboriginal stories for Aboriginal students to learn in the classroom (Armstrong, 2013: 37-44). Though the project did not succeed, the author learned that teachers needed tools to implement those stories, and developed a system to have teacher candidates create "Indigenous Inquiry Kits" (IIKs) that would cover one interest area, but could come in many variations, from cooking bannock and outdoor activities to a storied "How Tricksters Teach Us About Ourselves" (Armstrong, 2013: 52-55). The next step was to develop a Curriculum Initiatives Centre to put all the Aborignal stories (fiction and non-fiction) in one place and thus allow native and non-native teachers to draw on centre for support, with films, puppets, animal figurines and other manipulative devices (Armstrong, 2013:56-58). Bringing in artist educators and tying culture to the curriculum has helped more students stay in school and achieve better provincial test scores, and the teachers themselves became more engaged with their students and with their teaching (Armstrong, 2013:60). Ezeife, Anthony N. 2012 A Cultural and Environmental Spin to Mathematics Education: Research Implementation Experience in a Canadian Aboriginal Community. First Nations Perspectives 4(1):2-39. The current under-representation of Aboriginal students in science, mathematics and technical fields is also a concern, prompting one researcher to develop cultural and environmental mathematics education (Ezeife 2012:7). His work shows the value of building education on the Indigenous knowledge system in his study of Grade 5 and 6 learners in Walpole Island First Nation, Ontario. Ezeife compiled the Indigenous mathematics knowledge and interviewed Elders to gain local knowledge and history (Ezeife 2012:7-8). He then developed curriculum for the standard math teaching system and an Aboriginal version that gave a much more directly object related language and specific Walpole Island examples (Ezeife 2012: 10-20). Both teach set theory, but the latter version was much more popular with the students and they scored 15% higher on tests than the control group (Ezeife 2012:22-24). Ezeife's (2012) study demonstrates how using culturally relevant terminology in mathematic instruction can help improve student retention of the material. 4 Munroe, Elizabeth Ann, Lisa Lunney Borden, Anne Murray Orr, Denise Toney, and Jane Meader 2013 Decolonizing Aboriginal Education in the 21st century. McGill Journal of Education 48(2):317-338. Traditional Aboriginal education has emphasized the maintenance of cultural identity while achieving formal education, using traditional knowledge as a complex blend of oral, practical and symbolic ways of learning that are tied to the land and the culture (Munroe et al 2013: 320- 322). Today's Western curriculum must develop competencies in creativity, innovation, collaboration and technological skills, and students will develop these "...when they are engaging with a topic of some significance to them and to the world." (Munroe et al 2013: 324). Both Western and Aboriginal learning systems, then, call for education of context and interconnection of all things and to emphasize creativity and innovation and holistic approaches to learning embodied in web of relationships (Munroe et al, 2013: 325-326). Two Mi'kmaw community-based education systems are particularly relevant here: Example 1: Grade 2 science in Mi'kmaw Immersion merging Indigenous and European knowing - might be planting an orange and gluing Mi'kmaw translations over English text, but hold it in value. Example 2: Children learn about Pi by making traditional quill boxes through 'three and a thumb' (Munroe et al, 2013: 329-330).