Potawatomi

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Indigenous activism have made many non-Indigenous Canadians uncomfortably aware of how little they know about First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples. In Braided Learning, Susan Dion shares her approach to engaging with Indigenous histories and perspectives. Using the power of stories and artwork, Dion offers respectful ways to learn from and teach about challenging topics including settler-colonialism, treaties, the Indian Act, residential schools, and the Sixties Scoop. Informed by Indigenous pedagogy, Braided Learning draws on Indigenous knowledge to make sense of a difficult past, decode unjust conditions in the present, and work toward a more equitable future.

This book is a must-read for teachers and education students. It should also be read by students and practitioners in social work, child and youth counselling, policing, and nursing, or anyone seeking a foundational understanding of the histories of Indigenous peoples and of settler colonialism in Canada.

Reviews
“This book should be in every educator’s library. It serves as a model for educators to learn and teach about the history of Indigenous peoples and settler colonialism without fear or reservation. It is exactly what has been asked for over and over again.”— Tracey Laverty, First Nations, Inuit and Métis Education, Saskatoon Public Schools

"Braided Learning is a safe learning space for people at the start of their learning journey about Indigenous education and history. Each reader will take away the parts of the stories that are important to them, just like listeners do when we hear stories in the lodge from our elders. Nobody tells you what to do – you figure it out yourself with some subtle guidance." — Deb St. Amant, elder-in-residence, Faculty of Education, Queen’s University

"Understanding how educators can participate in reconciliation means understanding what stands in the way. Susan Dion understands both. Highly readable, engaging, and passionate, this book moves teachers from apprehension to action. Educators of all levels, read this book and take heed of Dion’s question: “So what are you going to do now?” — Amanda Gebhard, co-editor of White Benevolence: Racism and Colonial Violence in the Helping Professions

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Introduction: Indigenous Presence

1 Requisites for Reconciliation

2 Seeing Yourself in Relationship with Settler Colonialism

3 The Historical Timeline: Refusing Absence, Knowing Presence, and Being Indigenous

4 Learning from Contemporary Indigenous Artists

5 The Braiding Histories Stories / Co-written with Michael R. Dion

Conclusion: Wuleelham – Make Good Tracks

Glossary and Additional Resources: Making Connections, Extending Learning

Notes; Bibliography

Additional Information
288 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback

Go Down Odawa Way is a poetry collection that explores the physical, historical, and cultural spaces that make up the southwestern traditional territory of the Three Fires Confederacy. This is the region currently inhabited by southwestern Ontario and southeastern Michigan. Individual poems and sections of this collection explore the documented villages, history, and mythologies of the Odawa, Ojibway, Huron/Wendat, and Pottawatomi nations that were lost to the process of colonization and relocation. The project speaks to the history of the region that predates contemporary Canadian and American borders and namings as well as carves out a history that extends back past the mere couple of centuries of European colonization. The narrative focal point of the pieces find their roots in the traditional Lenape vantage point of the author and seeks to draw on the experiences of a modern day urban Indian in connection with the manner that land has changed with non-Indigenous settlement and those that inhabit it.

Additional Information
76 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback