Braiding Indigenous Knowledges

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on "a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise" (Elizabeth Gilbert). Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings--asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass--offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

Teaching Where You Are offers a guide for non-Indigenous educators to work in good ways with Indigenous students and provides resources across curricular areas to support all students. In this book, two seasoned educators, one Indigenous and one Settler, bring to bear their years of experience teaching in elementary, secondary, and post-secondary contexts to explore the ways in which Indigenous and slow approaches to teaching and learning mirror and complement one another. Using the holistic framework of the Medicine Wheel, Shannon Leddy and Lorrie A. Miller illustrate the ways in which interdisciplinary thinking, a focus on experiential learning, and the thoughtful application of the 4Rs - respect, relevance, reciprocity, and responsibility - can bring us back to the principle of teaching people, not subjects. Bringing forth the ways in which colonialism and cognitive imperialism have shaped Canadian curriculum and consciousness, the book offers avenues for the development of decolonial literacy to support the work of Indigenizing education. Teaching Where You Are presents a text useful for teachers and educators grappling with the ongoing impacts of colonialism and the soul-work of how to decolonize and rehumanize education in meaningful ways.

In recent decades, educators have been seeking ways to improve outcomes for Indigenous students. Yet most Indigenous education still takes place within a theoretical framework based in Eurocentric thought. In Teaching Each Other, Linda Goulet and Keith Goulet provide an alternative framework for teachers working with Indigenous students - one that moves beyond acknowledging Indigenous culture to one that actually strengthens Indigenous identity. Drawing on Nehinuw (Cree) concepts such as kiskinaumatowin, or "teaching each other," Goulet and Goulet provide a new approach to teaching Indigenous students. Kiskinaumatowin transforms the normally hierarchical teacher-student relationship by making students and teachers equitable partners in education. Enriched with the success stories of educators who are applying Nehinuw concepts in Saskatchewan, Canada, this book demonstrates how this framework works in practice. The result is an alternative teaching model that can be used by teachers anywhere who want to engage with students whose culture may be different from the mainstream.

Many promote Reconciliation as a "new" way for Canada to relate to Indigenous Peoples. In Dancing on Our Turtle's Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence, and a New Emergence activist, editor, and educator Leanne Simpson asserts reconciliation must be grounded in political resurgence and must support the regeneration of Indigenous languages, oral cultures, and traditions of governance. Simpson explores philosophies and pathways of regeneration, resurgence, and a new emergence through the Nishnaabeg language, Creation Stories, walks with Elders and children, celebrations and protests, and meditations on these experiences. She stresses the importance of illuminating Indigenous intellectual traditions to transform their relationship to the Canadian state. Challenging and original, Dancing on Our Turtle's Back provides a valuable new perspective on the struggles of Indigenous Peoples.

Gregory Cajete has provided another must-read book for educators seeking a comprehensive theory and action to Indigenous education. In clear, coherent, and accessible style, he answers the most important education quest today: what kind of pedagogy can maintain and revitalize the Indigenous peoples in the 21st century? Twofold: Comprehend Indigenous peoples' historical trauma and reclaim Indigenous ways of thinking, teaching, and learning from a context of community, land, and spirit. Done!-- Marie Battiste, Mi'kmaw educator, University of Saskatchewan

Knowing Home attempts to capture the creative vision of Indigenous scientific knowledge and technology that is derived from an ecology of a home place. The traditional wisdom component of Indigenous Science—the values and ways of decision-making—assists humans in their relationship with each other, the land and water, and all of creation. Indigenous perspectives have the potential to give insight and guidance to the kind of environmental ethics and deep understanding that we must gain as we attempt to solve the increasingly complex problems of the 21st century. Braiding Indigenous Science and Western Science is a metaphor used to establish a particular relationship. Linked by braiding, there is a certain reciprocity. Each strand remains a separate entity, but all strands come together to form the whole. When we braid Indigenous Science with Western Science we acknowledge that both ways of knowing are legitimate forms of knowledge. The book provides a window into the vast storehouse of innovations and technologies of the Indigenous peoples who live in Northwestern North America. I

This book explores how minority-led skateboarding, punk rock, and unschooling communities engage in collective efforts to humanize education and construct kinder social frameworks. Noah Romero examines the roles of informal and community-embedded learning in actualizing transformative education and shows how decolonizing education can take place outside of school settings. Grounded in the author's own experience in minority-led Filipino subcultures, the book introduces a conceptual framework of subcultural learning and decolonizing education centred on the Philippines and its diaspora in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Romero argues that educational paradigms with peace, human rights, multiculturalism, social justice, and decolonization at the centre can extend beyond the classroom, curriculum, and teaching and into communities. By showing how minoritized people are redefining identity and knowledge through embodied community-responsive pedagogies, the book contributes to wider debates on Indigeneity, gender justice, human rights, peace studies, and decolonizing education.