Vol. 2 No. 2 (2025): Pawaatamihk: Relationality, Ethics and Identity
Scholarly Papers

From Ghosts to Gifts: Weaving Land, Memory, and Care into Curriculum

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  • Cindy Chartrand
Cindy Chartrand
Metis
Image credit for film photograph(s): George Gibson iPhone photo credits: Claire Johnston Title of work: 'how do you use your medicine?' Date: 2025 Medium: Black canvas, neon spray painted wooden beads, acrylic beads, nylon thread, climbing rope, ribbon Ownership: collection of the artist Dimensions: 6 ft x 8 ft
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36939/pawaatamihk/vol2no2/art108
Categories

Published 2025-12-22

Keywords

  • Indigenous Curriculum,
  • Metis Education,
  • Blood Memory,
  • kinship pedagogy,
  • land based learning,
  • neurodivergent learners,
  • speculative futures,
  • curricular ghosts,
  • maternal pedagogy,
  • ceremony,
  • meta-curricular,
  • wâhkôhtowin
    • ...More
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How to Cite

Chartrand, C. (2025). From Ghosts to Gifts: Weaving Land, Memory, and Care into Curriculum. Pawaatamihk: Journal of Métis Thinkers, 2(2), 55–68. https://doi.org/10.36939/pawaatamihk/vol2no2/art108

Copyright (c) 2025 Cindy Chartrand

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This paper explores curriculum as a living, relational practice grounded in Métis knowledge, personal narrative, and poetic inquiry. Framed by the metaphor of ghosts and gifts, it reimagines curriculum as ceremony: a sacred process of remembering what was erased, honouring the spirit of the child, and centering kinship, care, and land. By weaving Indigenous story, blood memory, maternal pedagogy, and speculative futures, the paper challenges colonial logics of standardization and deficit. It affirms curriculum’s transformative potential when rooted in love, imagination, and sacred relationality, offering pathways for healing, resurgence, and dreaming otherwise within educational practice.

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