Sandi L Boucher, Red Thunderbolt of Seine River First Nation, argues that reconciliation requires more than learning Indigenous history. She maps it to the medicine wheel's life stages and proposes defining personal and organizational standards for what you will and won't do to make change real.
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Hello, you super duper, double delicious person, you. Here I am. Once again, good news, not with a rant. What I wanted to focus on today is a huge part of my career. Because you may not realize, my career, a large part of it is sharing information, like information that has been forgotten in the history books or a perspective that has been denied to non Indigenous people. It's that support and knowledge. But a large part of my career is also change. Looking at that new knowledge, what we have learned, what has happened in Canadian history, without shame or guilt, acknowledging what happened, not minimizing either, and then changing things. So that's where I wanted to go today. I wanted to share about a niche education style, my specific, specific education style. And then I wanted to talk about standards, reconciliation standards. Let's talk about it. Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River First Nation in Treaty 3 Territory in Northern Ontario. And as I said in the opening, I wanted to touch on my education style and. And then we're going to talk about standards necessary in this reconciliation work. So first, what do I mean by niche education style or specifically my education style? I've shared with you before that I was like 4, 5, 6 years old the first time I noticed that the world treated my dad, who happened to be French, different than how they treated my mom, who was obviously Anishinaabe Kwe. I realized that the world could be wrong and that the way my mom looked at things was often dramatically different from how non indigenous neighbors or friends looked at things. I was raised in line with my mom's teachings, so at a very young age, I loved learning. I still do. I absorbed teaching textbooks and stories, but always with the question, how does this fit what I already know? Because, you see, my mom would talk about that puzzle, right? That as you grow and learn and meet new people, you're adding pieces to your puzzle. But it's your puzzle. And when you hear someone say something that totally doesn't make sense, you don't accept that puzzle piece and it doesn't fit who you are. I knew I was Anishinaabe Quay. So it wasn't about following mainstream, it was learning from mainstream and taking the pieces that made sense to me. When I started this career and started working with audiences, I knew I had to take what I knew and present it in a way that would fit their puzzle pieces, not changing the facts. It's just a presentation style, encouraging their knowledge and wisdom in hopes of minimizing what so often happens. Fear. So that's how I learned. That's how I built my confidence and my wisdom. Knowing what I know isn't wrong. Sometimes I have to add to it. Sometimes I have to tweak it. Yep. A couple puzzle pieces that used to fit in my puzzle don't fit anymore. All of that is good. That is positive change. Now, remember the medicine wheel that I presented to you in the path? And how the four life stages, baby, youth, adult and elder. The baby stage is a learning stage. Everything's new and exciting then or scary. And that's a lot of people on their reconciliation journey. They're asking, I don't know. I don't even know what reconciliation means. I don't know what to do. Totally acceptable. That's the first stage. We're not going to judge you for that. We're going to help you move to stage two. The youth stage is still a learning stage, but it's a higher learning. You have the base teachings now. Now you're learning geometry and trigonometry. That kind of higher education. Same thing goes for this reconciliation journey. Now you understand the base. Now we're going to add to your understanding. Where I'm trying to get people to is the adult stage. Because the adult stage is not a lear stage. It's an action stage. It's now because learning's all well and good, but if you never do anything with what you've learned, we're not going to go anywhere. You're not going to go anywhere. My mom used to always say, wisdom is not for us. Gaining wisdom and not sharing it with people is pure selfishness. Wisdom is for the benefit of other people. We have to share it. So along that lines of learning and change, I am always learning. The more I know the way I look at it, the more I know, the better job I can do with my audiences and even my YouTube audience. So you know, I love Ed Mylett. You've heard me say his name, share his image a million times. I am reading his book the Power of One More, and the section I read this morning was about goal setting. And you probably just groaned because we've all done enough workshops and seminars and read enough things about goal setting and having smart goals and all of that fun stuff. Leave it to Ed to add another component to it. In his mind, the goal is what you want to achieve, which totally makes sense to everyone. But your standards decide if you will. Your standards are what you will do and what you will not do to achieve that goal. So for example, the goal of losing weight, that's a really common one. A lot of people doing that. So my standard, my bare minimum, I am going to work out three times a week, come hell or high water, because I want to achieve that goal. So you see how the standard is the action you either take or will not take to get the goal. So that got me thinking, because if reconciliation is the goal, I'm thinking I want to work with people to determine what their standards are. And I gotta admit, made me kind of nervous because I know there are Canadians out there. I'm going to backtrack for a sec. I would love it. I would be the happiest camper on the planet if every single Canadian standard was. They are all for progress and improvement and engagement and consultation. But if an action is going to hurt Indigenous people and add to our pain and it's not going to happen, that that's the standard, that whatever we do cannot hurt Indigenous people. Now, I would be thrilled if every Canadian on the planet adopted that standard. I don't think everyone would. I mean, when first nations don't want a pipeline running through their traditional lands and the government chooses to buy it, so it happens. That's what I'm talking about. If lower prices for your family's expenses each month, and I understand how that important that is. I have two young adults as children and I watch them struggling with finances. I have most definitely done my years struggling with finances, so I get it. But if we are okay with minimizing our expenses, even if it hurts someone else, you can't reconcile. If you're still inflicting pain, think of any relationship you've ever been in. You can't acknowledge you hurt someone, apologize for hurting them, and then keep hurting them. That's not reconciliation. That's gaslighting. That's just dishonest. So I'm curious, like I'm. I'm thinking I want to create a seminar on this and let's come up with some stuff. Standards for you as an individual or your organization or your business, your province, maybe even this country. So what would your standards be? The goal is reconciliation. What are you willing to commit to doing and not doing? I'm dying to hear your answers. Feel free to comment below or I'm always just an email away until tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye bye.
