A LESSON IN DIVERSITY
A new children’s book celebrates indigenous cultures and perspectives left out of history books,
Cheryl Bear is an educator and musician from northern British Columbia who has heard her elders’ stories of being ripped from their homes as children and sent to residential schools.
Tim Huff is a Toronto author and long-time youth worker, a self-described “white guy in his 50s” who recalls playing cowboys and Indians as a boy because he didn’t know any better.
An unlikely collaboration between the two activists, who met more than a decade ago at a conference on homelessness, has produced a children’s book they hope will help bridge the rift between their cultures, starting with some of Canada’s youngest citizens.
The Honour Drum: Sharing the Beauty of Canada’s Indigenous People with Children, Families and Classrooms was three years in the making and is intended to celebrate indigenous cultures and perspectives usually left out of history books and classrooms, Bear says.
“This book is almost like a call to action to sit up, pay attention and to begin a new relationship, (which) has to be done with mutual respect,” says Bear, who is from Nadleh Whut’en First Nation in B.C.
The 29-page book is structured around 14 stanzas created by the coauthors and accompanied by Huff’s colourful illustrations.
Its real punch comes from discussion pages written by Bear and opposite each page of verse, with insights, history and questions that can be adapted for any age.
They span topics ranging from cultural appropriation to racial stereotypes in ways that children from grades 2 or 3 can handle and older students in middle school can probe at a deeper level.
“Look to the people of age and of youth/With a history of wisdom, of honour and truth,” reads the opening.
The guided discussion, explaining that indigenous peoples were in North America centuries before European settlers arrived, adds another layer.
“Typically, the history of Canada starts with the immigrant story,” it notes.
“However, this is a one-sided story that has been told many times. The indigenous story is quite a different story.”
The Honour Drum, which will be officially launched Saturday in To- ronto, comes at a time when educators are looking for ways to include indigenous perspectives while teaching everything from history to geography.
Last year, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission report called for age-appropriate curriculum from kindergarten through Grade 12 to reflect aboriginal experiences and contributions to the country.
Starting this fall, morning announcements at all Toronto District School Board schools now include an acknowledgement of the traditional territories they are situated on.
The move is also in the process of being put into place in the Peel board.
“In my classroom, it has definitely sparked questions,” says Elena Carlyle, who teaches a Grade 3-4 class at Keele Street Public School in Toronto, and has already ordered multiple copies of The Honour Drum to foster many more conversations.
Changing the curriculum to include indigenous perspectives is “a huge but necessary shift” in elementary schools, she says. But teachers need trustworthy resources, language and the voices of people who can tell their stories to help do that in a meaningful way.
As Bear and Huff note in their introduction, they are alike in many ways, but the histories of their ancestors cross “at complex intersections” and reflect an “uneasy reality” felt by all Canadians.
Bear knows first-hand the misunderstanding and stereotyping that is often borne of ignorance. She recalls arriving at a shelter in Vancouver’s downtown eastside one day searching for a missing person and being asked “do you have a bed here?”
At the time, she was working on her doctorate in pastoral leadership and ministry.
Huff has established himself as a writer and speaker who has never been afraid of tackling difficult subjects or of inviting children’s questions. He has written children’s books on homelessness and disabilities with accompanying teaching tools.
Creating The Honour Drum took the friends three years of long discussions, tears and laughter to painstakingly craft each word.
They met wherever they could — in Thunder Bay, Vancouver, Toronto, Muskoka. It was, in a sense, their own journey of reconciliation.
“It was a process of learning to walk together,” Bear says.
“It wasn’t easy. We had to talk through almost everything.”
Adds Huff: “At hard times I would say to Cheryl, if we can’t do this as two friends who care about each other and who are in harmony with each other . . . how do we expect the country to pull it off?”
Bear says it’s important that the youngest generation learns the truth about the history of Canada.
“That’s where we start — the truth of the past — and then we can move forward.”
“That’s where we start — the truth of the past — and then we can move forward.” CHERYL BEAR EDUCATOR, MUSICIAN AND AUTHOR OF THE HONOUR DRUM