RE-STORYING EDUCATION

A manual for educators to decolonize their classrooms and put the focus on Indigenous cultures.

The author—a direct descendant of Chief Hunter Jack of the N’Quat’qua Nation and a former elementary school principal for the Squamish nation—is a proponent of re-storying education in Canada, which she describes as “a process of dismantling old narratives to rebuild and re-story new narratives to include historically silenced voices in education, to make space for all stories of this place to be told.” Her book is aimed at educators, encouraging them to teach Indigenous history and interact with Indigenous students more authentically. To do this, she argues, educators need to unlearn the colonial framework of education. The book’s eight chapters include a history of how the public education system has failed the Indigenous people (and how to correct that failing), a discussion of how colonialism is manifested in the classroom, and a plan for assessing how these changes are being implemented. The chapter titled “Journey through Education,” in particular, is full of useful information from the author’s personal memories of an education that served to reinforce the colonial point of view to arguments for more Indigenous representation in school curricula to ways in which the grade-school curricula need to be revamped and updated. (This chapter also tackles weighty topics about representation and racism in the classroom.) This is all very heavy material, but the author doesn’t get bogged down. The structure of each chapter—including musical playlists to listen to as you read, a handful of questions for reflection, and a handy list of resources—makes for an easy read, one that not only explores the problems it raises but also offers a range of solutions. All of this combines to give the reader a thorough look at what the author finds lacking in the Canadian education system and the steps that can be taken to help correct it.

A well-presented consideration of a generations-long problem in education.