To pursue decolonization, we need to embrace that indigenous thinking is a circle – though decol we learn that knowledge isn’t about reaching an end goal, but the journey and learning through children – constraining knowledge to colonizer standards only constrains pursuit of knowledge

MINOBIMAATISIIWIN: DECOLONIZING TEK AND THE REVITALIZATION OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE IN ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES Remembering is regarded as an important step in beginning the process of decolonization: "To remember is a way to re-know and re-claim a part of your life." (62) We have to remember who we are. We have to invest in learning all aspects of our knowledge, including processes (how we come to know, through stories and experience), places (in our communities, on the land), products (the knowledge itself), and people (our own personal development for fulfilling our visions/responsibilities). (63) We have to tell our versions of this story. We often find ourselves in the position of reacting to the colonizers, and we spend too much precious time and energy deconstructing their intents, labels, and activities. (64) Maybe we need to spend more time being proactive in our communities. This is not to say that there is no role for deconstructing Western concepts, especially those that supposedly represent us. It is important to understand and dismantle the process of colonization and how it has impacted our communities. (65) But this is not essentially what we are about. It is what we have to do to stay sane and better understand the intentions of the colonizer and therefore resist them. When we do this, however, we may not be paying enough attention to our own people, our own knowledge, and what makes us who we are. Indigenous people are essentially creative people! Our worldview is about Creation, about being co-creators, transforming ourselves and re-creating ourselves as we need to meet our challenges. Winona LaDuke refers to this creative process as "Minobimaatisiiwin," which refers to rebirth and our goal to strive for a good life. (66) LaDuke states that if we focus on Minobimaatisiiwin, then we will be practicing IK. As she says, "There is no way to quantify a way of life, only a way to live it. (67) It is this way of life that sustained us for generations, that got us through very troubling times. It is the way that will guide our future. This article represents nay version of the story as I know it. I teach my story to my class. It is the only way I know how. I believe one of the most important lessons that I have learned throughout my own process of learning IK and TEK in both personal and professional settings is that IK is a circle; it is part of the larger cycle of creation and re-creation. If we reclaim our original instructions that encourage us to think in terms of cycles, such as the Thanksgiving Address and the Anishinaabe Creation and Re-Creation stories, we are brought back full circle. That is what we have to do with our knowledge: bring it back full circle so it lives in ourselves, our communities, our nations, and our children. Hopefully we will not have to rely on books, databases, and lectures to tell us who we are. I did not come to this understanding with ease. I have in fact been challenged many times by my students. At the end of the Indigenous Traditional Environmental Knowledge course that I teach, I ask students to tell me again what TEK means to them. I tell them they cannot deconstruct it (we already did this), and they are encouraged to share in whatever way they feel most comfortable (storytelling, song, art, poetry). My only rule is, "don't write it down." They are not permitted to write a formal paper. Over the years I have received many insights from students in this retelling. Illuminations I would never have gained otherwise have appeared. I believe my TEK course is a mutual learning experience benefiting both myself and my students. The revelation that stands out most in my mind came from a very frustrated non-Aboriginal student who told me when I assigned the exercise that he did not know what TEK was; he felt as though he was back at the beginning of the semester! "Exactly," I responded, "TEK is a circle; we are back to where we started." "This is not a problem," I explained, "if you let go of your linear thinking and the idea that we are supposed to get from point A to B, then you will find this exercise easier to bear." I explained that TEK, from all Aboriginal point of view, is about what you have learned and how you have learned it. The next week I was pleasantly surprised when he shared his view of TEK to the class. He returned to the beginning, to IK. He spoke about the seven grandfathers' teachings of the Anishinaabe tradition. He presented each person in the class (and there were exactly seven) with a gift that he had made. He spoke to each person as he presented his gift, telling each person why he had made them a particular gift and how it related to one of the teachings of the seven grandfathers. From each person in the class he had received a teaching over the course of the semester. This process reflects the truth of Gregory Cajete's observation that "The value of the effort, the coming to know, is found in the journey, in addition to or rather than, the end result." (68) I always stress that IK must be viewed as a circle and as a process of regeneration and re-creation. It must not be constrained by linear thinking. Part of this emerged from my own discomfort with the idea that IK was disappearing, that as Elders pass on, we are losing much knowledge. It is not that I disagree--I grieve in my own life the passing of my grandparents and great-grandparents and the loss of the knowledge they took with them--I just do not believe it is the whole story. I believe IK comes from many sources, including Creation itself. This is what the stories tell me. We learn from the spirit world; we learn from plants, animals, the sun, the moon, and from each other and from our children. TEK or IK, as Aboriginal people understand them, are not linear. It is not a simple matter of transferring knowledge from elder to youth, although this is an important process as well. I have heard Elders say that we learn much from children, that they are closer to the spirit world than we are. They also teach us patience. If one thinks in a linear fashion, it is easy to see why there is the widespread belief that IK is disappearing. I believe it is a welcome and exciting prospect that we can learn IK from our children and those yet to be born. There is hope, and that must count for something. It is true that IK comes from our ancestors, but it will also come from our future.