The Wabaan teacher education program in York’s Faculty of Education is being given a reboot designed to ensure students feel comfortable in both Indigenous and university settings.
The accelerated 16-month program is offered every two years, and applications are open through mid-January for its 2026 cohort. Cohort members move through the program together, forming a community.
Assistant Professor John Hupfield, the program co-ordinator, emphasizes Wabaan’s unique pathway toward a Bachelor of Education degree and Ontario teacher accreditation.
“We’re creating a conduit for Indigenous educators,” says Hupfield, an Anishinaabe educator and grass dancer from Wasauksing First Nation near Parry Sound, Ont. “We’re creating an access point for mature learners and culture-based educators so they can get into the classroom. It’s a way of giving back to our Indigenous communities.”
The accelerated 16-month program doesn’t require its candidates to have any university experience or a teachable subject; the Faculty of Education team considers an applicant’s knowledges, experience and interest in sharing it. People with a passion for their culture, whether they create beadwork or ribbon skirts, dance in pow wows or serve as knowledge keepers for their First Nation, are encouraged to apply.
“The university education system wasn’t designed by Indigenous Peoples,” Hupfield says. “That construct didn’t exist in our communities, and the education system isn’t equipped to meet our needs. The Wabaan program takes into consideration the unique needs of Indigenous students, rooted in history and factoring in the residential school experience and the resulting intergenerational trauma.”
At Wabaan, however, students’ Indigenous backgrounds are considered valuable and important.
“It’s not traditional teacher education,” says Gabrielle Ayotte, a 2021 Wabaan graduate, who is currently working on her PhD in Indigenous education at York. “The program implements oral knowledge, and the relationship between students and teachers is at the centre. We’re able to think about land and spirit and have opportunities to bring our own stories into the classroom. Our knowledges are not usually validated in the education system.”
Ayotte grew up in Montreal as a member of Garden River First Nation. She visited her community near Sault Ste. Marie each summer.
“My Indigenous identity was never discussed growing up,” Ayotte says, “but family and friends began to ask questions about residential schools [when news broke about the Joyce Echaquan tragedy] and our identities. I wanted to learn more about my identity and colonization, and Wabaan seemed like the perfect program for me. It had all the elements I needed to learn about and grow.
“It provided a space where my classmates and I could breathe and didn’t have to explain what it means to be Indigenous. I found community there.”
Hupfield says that Wabaan “tries to create educators better equipped to meet the specific needs of Indigenous students. One of the ways we do that is by helping teaching candidates foster their own sense of identity and understand the values they carry and the teachings they know. I want to equip them to take on a leadership role.”
Wabaan classes have generally been held at the Urban Indigenous Education Centre (UIEC) in Toronto’s East End, but this year, the York campus will host the classes throughout the summer. Hupfield is eager to see York build stronger ties between the university and local Indigenous communities.
“There are lots of opportunities for the program to grow and for York to have meaningful relationships with the Anishinaabe Nation and other First Nations,” Hupfield says.
“York will once again be hosting the winter Pow Wow on campus, and it is an opportunity for Indigenous people to see themselves on campus and consider it as a place for culture-based gatherings.”
UIEC also has a major benefit as a classroom space; it is located next to Wandering Spirit School (Kâpapâmahchakwêw), a K-12 Toronto District School Board school that “provides Indigenous children with an opportunity to learn about Anishinaabe cultural traditions in a nurturing, caring environment.”
Laurie LaBrecque, who graduated from Wabaan’s first cohort, teaches land-based learning and physical education at Wandering Spirit School. A member of Dokis First Nation situated along Ontario’s French River, LaBrecque, who grew up in Toronto, says “Wabaan changed my life.”
“I grew up in a white, middle-class environment and saw myself as white, even though I knew my culture. My grandfather was a residential school survivor who grew up on a trapline, and I went to Pow Wows with my aunt. But I struggled at university, and graduation felt very far away.”
A friend who taught at Wandering Spirit School encouraged her to consider Wabaan, given that she had always enjoyed working with children.
“I look at people talking about Indigenous pedagogy and a lot of them have no classroom experience,” says LaBrecque, who is now working on a master’s degree at the University of Toronto. “I believe the biggest change I can make is in the classroom.
“Education was used as a weapon of violence against Indigenous people. The only way to make change is to have people with lived experience involved in the system.”
As Wabaan graduate Ayotte says,
“The media frame us as broken people, but we are reframing that.”
The Wabaan program is an important piece of that puzzle.
To learn more about the Wabaan teacher education program or to apply, visit https://www.yorku.ca/edu/students/waaban/
Article by Elaine Smith, special contributing writer