The First Peoples Principles of Learning was created originally in tandem with the BC Ministry of Education and a First Nations Education Steering Committee. The FPPLās are 9 principles that were created by Indigenous knowledge keepers and BC educators to help teachers and educators in the classroom implement Indigenous education, practices, knowledge, and culture into their classrooms. These principles while I have used them are incredibly helpful when trying to make a lesson that is accounting for Indigenous learning. The biggest struggle I have found that I personally have with these principles is when it comes to making sure they are authentic in my lessons. I do not want to have a principle in their just because I have to, or I donāt want to have a lesson and then I can manipulate my wording to make it fit with the First Peoples Principles, I want it to be authentically theirā¦ and that is what I struggle with. I often question myself on if this works or if this is a big stretch making this apply. For example one of the First Peoples Principles is that ālearning involves patience and timeā. Well, in my opinion mathematics takes patience and time when it comes to teaching it and learning it. So, every math lesson I make could technically be using this FPPL, I am aware this is a big generalization however for the most part I argue it is true. My struggle then is, would this be authentic, because all math takes patience and time to learn it, so is this a valid way of using the FPPL. I can honestly say at this point in my learning, my program, my education I do not know the answer quite yet. It is a question I continue to seek an answer to as I go through my schools, converse with different people in the profession, and learn in the classrooms.
To be perfectly clear, I love the FPPLās, and they have helped me in a lot of my lesson planning and have even just taught myself personally a lot about Indigenous culture which I appreciate immensely. I still at this point do not have the best handle on how to use them in the most effective way possible as I know how valuable they are. With that point I am still doing the learning and probably will forever be doing the learning on how to implement them most effectively for the rest of my time in the profession and in my own life, and that is probably not a bad thing, it is just a realistic thing.
