Un-settling our Everyday Frameworks: Reflections on a day-long Indigenous Cultural Competency session

May 11, 2026

In 2026, I am thinking, writing, crafting, and consulting with a purpose in mind: that of the educator. To me, the educator spans the wide range of work that I do, both formally and informally, in and outside of postsecondary institutions, workplaces, conferences, professional development sessions, and on/through social media.

On April 30, I had the opportunity to attend and participate in the Nbisiing Indigenous Cultural Competency training at the Native Canadian Centre on Spadina Road just north of Bloor Street in the heart of Toronto given by Bob Goulais.

It’s taken me a while to offer this reflection. However, within the last week there was:

·      more evidence of the horrible impacts of the child welfare system in which Indigenous children are overrepresented,

·      Red Dress Day, May 5, to observe the missing and murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit Peoples; and,

·      deliberation in the Senate of Canada regarding Bill  S-2 changing government regulations regarding the Indian Act and the second generation cut-off of which Indigenous person has access to enshrined “Indian” rights and status.

All of these events made the training even more salient and potentially transformative.

I have had the privilege of experiential immersions into Indigenous ceremonies and cultural experiences and scholarly exposure to Indigenous knowledges and worldviews of First peoples within Canada and elsewhere in the Americas. However, this was the first time that I registered and undertook a formal training that combined elements of First Nations cultural immersion, storytelling, and the histories and legacies of Canadian colonization, exploitation, and racism.

The location and geography itself of the training is salient: Spadina Road (and Avenue) south of Bloor Street, a key west-east artery across Toronto and west into Mississauga, are all derived from First Nations languages: Spadina from ishpadinaa meaning “high hill or ridge” in the Anishinaabemowin (Ojibway) language, Toronto from Tkaranto, a Mohawk word meaning “trees standing in the water,” and Mississauga, derived from Misi-zaaging. This an Anishinaabe word to describe “those at the great river mouth,” known as the Mississauga, now Mississaugas of the New Credit.

First Nations languages, peoples, and cartographies are thus embedded in my everyday geography and perhaps so embedded that they are hidden from view. This training at the very least make me more aware of my place, city, province, and country in ways that encourage me and the 30-ish co-participants to un-settle our everyday frameworks: geographic, historical, political, cultural, and beyond.

Bob Goulais led us through a highly immersive experience, grounded his own First Nation culture and experiences as an Anishnaabe from Nipissing First Nation in northern Ontario, and extensive experience in designing and executing First Nations and Indigenous policies and frameworks for the provincial government, including training for various public and private sector leaders.

We were seated in a large “sharing circle” around a wide range of ceremonial and culturally-relevant artefacts that symbolized various aspects of Anishinaabe and other First Nation symbols. Right away, this represented a different cultural architecture for learning that the colonial, Western one, whether the traditional or flexible classroom. The circle format compelled us to engage with our senses: to listen, observe, touch (such as the talking stick and other cultural elements) and smell (such as the wafting of the culturally-relevant medicines, like sweetgrass). Few took notes, and few used their devices; rather, we were asked both at the beginning and at the end of the session to share our names, our clan/people, our ancestry/where we from, and what we hoped to learn and learned.

For me, as an educator, a trained cultural anthropologist, a practising interculturalist, and leadership development consultant, I was looking to be more intentional and active in considering Indigenous perspectives, worldviews, and knowledges. Indeed, one of my key takeaways from the session was that “Indigenous” itself is always plural and a current way in the English language to group together various First peoples who have lived on this land mass we know call Canada since before historical recording, that is, “time immemorial.” In Canada, First Nations, Métis and Inuit are also legally-defined categories, and importantly, Goulais’ efforts to present an Anishnaabe perspective and worldview helped to de-homogenize what we often lump together.

The learning combined so many diverse strands, from Anishnaabe worldviews and values, including bravery, wisdom, respect, and truth, to the multi-layered histories of British and French colonial contact, land dispossession with and without the signing of treaties, and the administration of a Canadian government that sought to assimilate and annihilate Indigenous peoples through laws and policies, that included the residential school system. I knew of many excerpts of this information, but the weaving and incorporation within living and adapting Anishnaabe worldviews and values made me reflective of the heavy weight of colonization (and here I also speak of someone of ancestry of western India and raised and schooled in English and Western disciplines) and the significance of findings way to un-settle it in my own thinking, being, and importantly, acting.

Jason Ng, Spadina Avenue, Toronto