Through cultural learning, CUPE 389 member Dallas Guss is making a difference in K-12.
Original article published by CUPE K-12 President's Council
When CUPE 389 member Dallas Guss reports for work at School District 44,
he’s bringing with him cultural teachings that are thousands of years
old.
Guss, a member of the Squamish Nation, works as an educational
assistant, Indigenous support worker, and cultural support worker in
various North Vancouver schools. For the past three years he has also
provided cultural teaching in a district that’s committed to
Indigenizing schools—reversing the effects of the colonial teaching
model by including the Indigenous perspective.
Of all this work, perhaps his most rewarding role is providing
Indigenous support. Guss not only helps Indigenous students learn about
boundaries in the classroom—those rules of interaction that are not
necessarily part of Indigenous culture—but also to understand that there
are specific times to do specific things. He also enjoys helping
teachers understand how to approach a student with an Indigenous
background.
“This role has been really successful in helping teachers understand
the Indigenous perspective, so that there can be less conflict, issues,
or problems,” says Guss. As for the students? When he sees children
having a problem, he prefers not to jump in to solve it for them but
instead give them a chance to work it out for themselves.
“I encourage them to have their own space and build their own problem-solving skills,” he says.
Repairing a broken relationship
School District 44 began the journey to Reconciliation in 2016 when
three North Vancouver schools were among the first five in Canada to
sign on to the Legacy Schools program, a free national initiative “to
engage, empower and connect students and educators to further
reconciliation through awareness, education and action.” The program was
inspired by Tragically Hip singer Gord Downie’s The Secret Path,
which told—first in poems and then in an album, a graphic novel, and an
animated film—the tragic story of Chanie Wenjack, a 12-year-old Ojibwe
First Nations boy who in 1966 ran away from the residential school where
he’d been boarding for three years, dying of hunger and exposure while
trying to walk home.
As a member of school district staff, Guss appreciates the Legacy
Schools program because it’s important for today’s students to
understand the lasting impact of residential schools on Indigenous
communities.
“It’s not just facts in a history book,” he says. “I’m talking about
my parents, my aunties and uncles, my grandparents and so on. It is
really deeply personal.”
Teaching about current events, Guss helps students understand how
Canada’s broken relationship with Indigenous people still needs lots of
repairing. But he also lets them know how recent acts of resistance are
literally changing the world: citing the Wet’suwet’en pipeline conflict
and more recently the Mi’kmaq fishing dispute, he tells students that if
these events had happened even three-to-five years ago, Canadians would
not have given the same support as they have in the past year. “By
understanding and sharing what they learn at home and in their
community, District students are getting Indigenous culture into
Canadians’ conversations,” says Guss. “It’s literally changing our world
for the better.”
Changing how we educate
The Indigenous perspective is not based on a top-down model of
leadership but instead is cooperative—it’s about doing what’s best for
the people. Dallas grew up under the influence of that model thanks to
his mother’s father, who was the first Band manager, and his father’s
mother, a Councillor and Chief in the Squamish Nation. He still hears
stories about what a great leader his grandfather was. He would visit
every home and talk with everyone before reaching consensus based on
those discussions.
“I am really grateful that I came from such loving leaders. My
ancestors welcomed outsiders with open arms and did their best to give
all the teachings to everybody who came in,” says Guss, adding that his
ancestors accepted everyone as a human being regardless of skin colour,
background or religion.
In his work, Guss has taken District 44 staff and students up into
the mountains, into a longhouse, and to traditional sites. He has done
tours in Vancouver’s Stanley Park and, in the park’s east end, shown
participants where a Squamish village had been. When he shares cultural
teaching, he models his ancestors: the best communication is open,
understanding and accepting, with no separation, division, or
withholding. He also validates and acknowledges non-Indigenous people in
the District who are interested but feel uncomfortable sharing
Indigenous teachings. The Indigenous team motto for the last three
years, he says, has been to “go forward with courage.”
Active on Twitter, Guss enjoys a good debate and dismisses attempts
to pigeonhole him as “liberal” or “far left.” Indigenous people, he
says, don’t recognize such ideological concepts, which are rooted in
European political thought and a system of government that was brought
here: “We come from a system of highly advanced spiritual leaders who
spent a lifetime gaining tools not only to represent their people, but
to represent everything on earth — water, the air, the trees, the
animals, sea life, and everything in between.”
At the beginning of the pandemic, the District asked Guss to submit
some Indigenous stories for the curriculum that might help students cope
during difficult times. He chose specific Squamish legends that tied
into what people are experiencing through COVID-19. Taking a group of
Grade 3 students to the Big House in Squamish, he shared the legend of
Wountie, whose message is not to take more than you need. Sharing the
legend in schools, he showed students pictures of grocery stores with
empty shelves and explained that nothing was saved for elders and the
most vulnerable members of our community. Students, recalling what
they’d learned about Wountie, instantly made the connection: a legend
thousands of years old was still relevant today.