The Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to action and the BC curriculum require teachers consider and incorporate Indigenous voice, issues, resources and perspectives in their teaching.
The aftermath of the Summer 2020 anti-racism protests sparked international conversation on the urgency of racial justice for Black, Indigenous and People of Colour, a conversation that continues today. As we reflect on how to be anti-racist and how to decolonize our societies, we must discuss the importance of education in achieving this. I believe that highlighting the histories and cultures of marginalized groups in the education system is essential to creating a truly anti-racist society. Finding resources to begin incorporating these ideas into classrooms can be daunting for many.
This post attempts to highlight a handful of Indigenous education-related resources that can help guide teachers in creating anti-racist lessons and activities that highlight the importance of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
Curriculum Bundles:
Curriculum Bundles have been assembled by Indigenous educators from around British Columbia, most of whom are students and graduates of the NITEP program. Each of them focuses on a particular skill, resource, or place, and connects with BC curriculum.
The UBC based website, https://indigenizinglearning.educ.ubc.ca/ includes excellent resource links and information about ‘welcomes’ and ‘land acknowledgements’.
Cultural Maps:
Native Land is a website that maps out the ancestral lands of Indigenous peoples from
Here is a screen capture of a map of the territories of Indigenous groups in North America.
around the world. The main feature of the website is an interactive map that can filter the lands by linguistic groups, territories, and treaties. Another local BC website, The First People’s Map of BC, shares Indigenous language, art and heritage in an interactive format perfect for students seeking to learn more about local language and culture or connect with artists. You can even hear audio clips of native language speakers.
FNESC:
The First Nations Education Steering Committee, or FNESC, is an organization that advocates for the inclusion of Indigenous history and cultures into the curriculum as well as the well-being of Indigenous students in British Columbia. They offer a plethora of resources for teachers to make use of in classrooms, including lesson-planning documents in a variety of subjects.
UBC Booklists:
The UBC Education Library has numerous booklists available for educators and teacher candidates, offering an abundance of resources ranging from picture books to use in the classroom to lesson-planning guides. The library offers multiple booklists regarding Indigenous culture and history. These booklists cover topics such as residential schools, storytelling resources and literature written by Indigenous authors.
Puppets at Xwi7xwa:
In addition to their vast textual resources, the Xwi7xwa Library at UBC has a number of collections of puppets created by Indigenous artists to help engage students using storytelling. There are a variety of collections that can be borrowed from the library, including the “Grace the Eagle“, “Splash the Orca” and “Streamer the Salmon” collections.
Digital Stories:
Indigenous Storybooks is a repository of free openly licensed online stories written by Indigenous peoples in Canada. Inspired by, and utilizing, the open-licensed stories from Little Cree Books, this project aims to make the text, images, and audio of stories available in Indigenous languages as well as English, French, and some of the most widely spoken immigrant and refugee languages of Canada.
Strong Nations:
Strong Nations
Strong Nations is an online store and publishing house that sells authentic Indigenous-created art and literature. They are a BC-based organization, however they offer resources from Indigenous groups from all over Canada. One interesting resource that I found on Strong Nations is the “This Land is our Storybook” series, which is a series written from the perspective of Indigenous children living in the Northwest Territories.
As we navigate conversations surrounding anti-racism and reconciliation, it is vital that we continue this discussion in teacher education and in the education system more broadly. You may wish to visit SFU’s “Think before you Appropriate” resource as you explore and learn. I hope that you will explore the resources in this post so that you can begin incorporating Indigenous voices in your classroom.
Guest post by Naomi Hudson, Scarfe Sandbox Project Assistant and Virtual Peer Mentor, Winter 2020; edited by Yvonne Dawydiak, Winter 2022.
