Wado! Miigwech! Axhé’héé! Mahalo nui! Ahóoh! Nya:wëh! K’ele!
Thank you to all who joined us for our Building Foundational Literacy Skills in Early Childhood with Contemporary Indigenous Peoples & Native American Stories webinar.
Deep gratitude to the incredible Dezi Lynn from National Indian Education Association. Her informative presentation hammered home the immense impact of contemporary literature that authentically reflects Indigenous Peoples and Native American identities and histories.
If you missed it live (or want to watch it again), you can access the webinar below or on the Lee & Low YouTube channel.
Read on for links to the resources mentioned during the webinar as well as an excerpt from Dezi’s presentation.
Email us for more information or a professional development certificate.
WEBINAR SLIDES WEBINAR TRANSCRIPT READ THE DRUMBEAT DECODABLES ON EDELWEISS
Here’s an excerpt from Dezi Lynn’s presentation:
“The first thing that I wanted to talk about was finding relevant content about Native American peoples, which, for many of you who might be new to this subject, because of the traumatic injustices of the past with the U.S. government and state entities. The stories about our peoples were erased about who we are and the truths behind our histories, and were meticulously crafted and recreated to not place accountability on colonizing systems, including the education systems. So for years, texts about Native peoples were rarely written by Native peoples. And when they were, they, we were depicted as antiquated. And, recently, there is research from Dr. Joaquin Muñoz from the University of British Columbia with the lenses that many books and literature erroneous lenses about who we are. The five areas that he discussed in his research were that there is an emphasis on history, which ties in with us being antiquated. There's an emphasis on history from a non-Native perspective. There is a prioritization of non-Indigenous authors, and that's across the board for, literature or content or standards. There is a reliance on heteronormative patriarchy, that that perspective is often the most dominant perspective when our stories are told. The valuation of English language writing is prioritized. And there is a heavy focus on the magical, mystical Indian. So, in order to be able to portray us in a way that was easier to deal with, our texts were not written by us, and our stories were not written by us.
Currently, there is a burgeoning of new Native authors and illustrators in children's and young adult literature. And it is a beautiful time that we are able to live in, where so many different Native authors are coming out with beautiful books. The artwork is done by Native illustrators, and we still need more. We have some amazing, authors and illustrators out there, but there's still room to grow. The need for that representation to continue is strong. And on that, we have kind of a little bit of an imbalance of this era where our story was written by non-Native people, and that, colonizer audacity to share our stories was strong, and we're moving into a new era where we need to tell our own stories. We want to tell our own stories. So with that, there is a big responsibility on anybody who uses texts, whether it's teachers or, curriculum creators, publishing companies, librarians, multiple people that have access, caregivers that have access to texts, to be able to assess the authors and illustrators with their authenticity around Native representation. Especially with texts for younger children, because that is their first exposure to who we are as Native peoples. We must be represented accurately from the start, so that our representations are correct from the beginning, versus those correct representations coming in later and trying to correct what has already been misportrayed about us from the start.
With Dr. Muñoz's research, he gave us five lenses to help us move toward a new direction, and what he focused on was contemporary visions of who we are, focusing on Indigenous authors that are writing from their lens, from their nations that they belong to. Exploring feminist and queer author stories and heroes, exploring Indigenous language and Indigenous Englishes, and a focus on the futurity of the mundane, recognizing that we live valid, present-day lives, and that those should be portrayed in the literature that we use with our students.”
Below are 2 resources Dezi recommended for finding relevant content about Indigenous Peoples & Native Americans:
- Northern Arizona University’s Culturally Responsive Assessment of Indigenous Schooling (CRAIS) Tool
- Debbie Reese’s Worksheet for Selecting Native American Children’s Literature in collaboration with National Museum of the American Indian’s Native Knowledge 360
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There is such rich diversity across Indigenous Peoples & Native Americans communities. Use these additional resources to learn more about Indigenous Peoples & Native Americans throughout Turtle Island:
Author Sandra Samatte roots each story in the Drumbeat Decodable Book Collection in her lived experience as an Anishinaabe mother, educator, and author from Skownan First Nation.
