Digital Collections

Canada is a multicultural country. It is a place where people from many nations live closely together while still celebrating their cultural heritage. In the last few years school boards and curriculum writers have begun to focus on the importance of teachers and students learning about multiculturalism. It is important for the future survival of ourselves and our country, as we must learn how to live and work together. Nevertheless, the past, present, and future of the Native peoples of this country are still sorely neglected in Canadian classrooms. Many programs and canons in Canadian schools are Eurocentric; there is little diversity in the sources of information used in classrooms, and such programs have been criticized for failing to reflect the true nature and diversity of Canada.

Teachers, parents, and relatives have a new responsibility now: to take a more critical look at the sources of information we are using. Most books on Native people has been written by non-Natives and so are based upon anthropologists' or historians' views and guesswork on Native peoples of the past and present. However, resources have begun to be made by Natives about Natives over the last two decades. Increasing amounts of reliable, more accurate, and more relevant information is becoming available to educators across the country. More Native people have gone back to school to study such subjects; more Native people have returned to their cultures to learn about the subjects therein.

This unit begins with students telling their own life stories to help them realize that all people have stories. Writing and sharing life stories in the classroom helps to build a bridge between all students, no matter what their background.