Where do I come from? Where am I going? Why am I here? Who am I? The Honourable Justice Senator Murray Sinclair identifies these existential questions as key to a child’s education.
This is especially true for Indigenous students who live in a colonial society that continues to deny and reject the legitimacy of Indigenous worldviews and to erase Indigenous identity and presence.
Educators understand that in order for Indigenous students to achieve the academic success and sense of well-being necessary to flourish in Canadian society, education must point students toward the answers to those questions posed by Senator Sinclair. Education for Indigenous students must, like the Maemaegawaehnssiwuk (the little people of the oral tradition of the Anishinaabek), help to bring those students who are lost back “home.”
Greg Pruden
That is, education must help Indigenous children to discover themselves, to know the true history of their nations and the true colonialist history of Canada, to experience the beauty and profundity of traditional teachings, and to share the stories of Indigenous men and women and boys and girls whether contemporary or of the past.
There is no generic, one-size-fits-all culture among Indigenous nations; each is unique. Prairie schools and classrooms should include texts and other resources that explore and reflect the specific histories and cultures of Indigenous Peoples of the Prairies. Luckily for teachers and students, there are more quality titles than ever by Prairie authors, both Indigenous and not, doing just that.
It would be impractical to attempt a comprehensive listing of quality books with a focus on the Indigenous Prairie experience.
However, such a list, intended for high school students and teachers, would include recent and not-so-recent titles such as:
- Rooster Town: The History of an Urban Métis Community, 1901–1961, by Evelyn Peters, Matthew Stock, and Adrian Werner,
- Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Issues in Canada by Chelsea Vowel,
- A Really Good Brown Girl by Marilyn Dumont,
- North End Love Songs by Katherena Vermette,
- Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life by James Daschuk,
- Stolen City: Racial Capitalism and the Making of Winnipeg by Owen Toews,
- In Search of April Raintree by Beatrice Mosionier,
- The Rez Sisters by Tomson Highway, and many, many others.
Prairie books such as these can equip those Indigenous students who are lost in a confusing and dangerous world with the knowledge, strength, and confidence to find their way back home.
