Occasional Paper Series #54
“We Sing Too:” Pedagogical Approaches for Listening to Children in Indigenous Picturebooks
by Rachel Stubbs, Anja Dressler Araujo, Kari Dressler, Jadyn Fischer-McNabb, Aubrey Jean Hanson, and Erin Spring
This paper brings Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers and educators together to examine the pedagogical potential of listening to child protagonists in Indigenous picturebooks and extending this praxis to listening to children in classrooms. Our team makes up the Books to Build On: Indigenous Literatures for Learning project, an interactive searchable database with over 300 texts and 150 teaching and learning ideas. This project, led by Aubrey Hanson and Erin Spring and founded in 2018, aims to connect educators with Indigenous texts for their classrooms. For Hanson and Spring, the Books to Build On resource stems from a need to “assist educators with weaving Indigenous ways of being, connecting, doing, and knowing into their teaching and learning by starting with story” (2024).
This article begins with the understanding that story facilitates learning across the boundaries of age, culture, gender, and education. We suggest that picturebooks offer a smooth way of incorporating Indigenous teachings of orality into the classroom and illustrate the nuances of oral teachings. Because listening as an act requires our participation as both listener and storyteller, this relationship decenters us as individuals and positions us as part of a larger whole. Acknowledging children as important, responsible, and agential aligns us with cross-cultural Indigenous teachings that regard children as contributing members of community.
We visit Michaela Goade’s Berry Song (2022) as an example of listening to child protagonists and the possibilities of assessing Indigenous picturebooks as teaching tools. Finally, we center the decolonial work of listening to children inside and outside of texts. This article argues that Indigenous story, particularly through picturebooks, serves as a powerful tool for bridging cultural, generational, and educational divides, while also facilitating the integration of Indigenous oral traditions into the classroom. By examining the role of listening as a reciprocal act between storyteller and listener, we emphasize the importance of acknowledging children as active, responsible participants in their communities and recognize that Indigenous picturebooks provide unique opportunities for decolonial pedagogy. This, in turn, allows for a teaching approach that centers children’s voices and their roles within broader cultural narratives.
Rachel Stubbs, PhD, is an English lecturer at the University of Calgary and St. Mary’s University and is of Indigenous and settler descent. Rachel received her undergraduate degree in English and History at MacEwan University in Edmonton and her master’s degree in English at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. Rachel is a research assistant with the Books to Build On Project in which she researches, presents, and leads workshops. This project coincides well with her own research, which focuses on depictions of Indigenous girlhood in literatures of Western Canada written by settler and Indigenous women from 1890-1939. Rachel enjoys spending her down time hiking, fishing, camping, and hunting with her two dogs, Widgeon and Cricket.
Anja Dressler Araujo is a Settler born in Manitoba, who grew up on Vancouver Island and has resided in Mohkinstsis, Calgary, on Treaty 7 land ever since. Her ancestors immigrated from Europe. She holds degrees in both Arts and Education from the University of Calgary. Anja has fulfilled many roles as part of the Books to Build On Team since joining in 2018 and most recently was project manager. She continues to be part of the content development team and the workshop team. She enjoys setting plans in motion for the project, finding new inspiring Indigenous children’s books to add to the site and share with her children, and writing and guiding other teachers in their creation of Seeds for Learning using Indigenous literatures. Anja is a practicing elementary school teacher in the Calgary area and she actively brings Indigenous literatures into her own classroom and enjoys supporting teachers around her to do the same.
Kari Dressler (she/her/hers) is a settler who grew up on Vancouver Island, resided in Calgary for her school years, and now lives in Victoria, British Columbia. She holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Law, earning a UNITAR-CIFAL Certificate in Sustainable Development Law and becoming a qualified member of the Climate Law Capacity Registry. She also holds a Bachelor of Commerce with Distinction from the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business, majoring in International Business Strategy and earning a Global Collaboration Certificate from the X-Culture Program. As the finance manager, Kari develops and implements financial tracking and reporting procedures. Kari previously acted as information manager, creating a process for tracking project objectives, resources, and applicable metadata.
Jadyn Fischer-McNab is a Cree artist who was born and raised in Mohkinstsis (Calgary), Alberta, on Treaty 7 territory. Jadyn studied at the University of Calgary, where she received bachelor degrees in Kinesiology and Education in 2015 and 2018, respectively. Jadyn has worked as a full-time junior high school teacher since 2018. Jadyn began her work at Books to Build On by originally creating lesson plans for the project in 2020 and then moving into a casual role in 2021 as a member of the content development and educational community engagement teams. Alongside her passion of connecting with story, Jadyn has illustrated the published children’s title Brave Like the Buffalo. She also owns and operates a small stationery business, artbyJFM, with products available online as well in a variety of stores across Alberta. Jadyn belongs to George Gordon First Nation (Treaty Four) and is an intergenerational Residential School survivor. She is passionate about breaking down barriers and educating others by incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing and being into her art, her teaching, and her life.
Dr. Aubrey Jean Hanson (she/her/hers) is a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta, descended from Red River Métis and Euro-settler ancestors, and is an associate professor in education at the University of Calgary. Her research spans Indigenous literary studies, curriculum studies, and Indigenous education. She has been an avid reader of Indigenous literatures since her teen years and believes in the power of story to foster relationships between readers and Indigenous cultural resurgence. She is the author of Literatures, Communities, and Learning: Conversations with Indigenous Writers, published with Wilfrid Laurier University Press in Spring 2020. With Dr. Erin Spring, she is the co-lead on the Books to Build On project.
Dr. Erin Spring (she/her/hers) is a scholar and educator of British descent now living and working with/in Treaty 7. She is an associate professor of Language and Literacy at the Werklund School and currently serves as the associate dean of undergraduate programs of education. She is also a mother to three busy children: Hawksley, Wren, and Marigold. Erin grew up on Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe Territories and lived in many different places before moving to Moh’kins’tsis (the Blackfoot name for Calgary). She has been honored to collaborate with and learn from Blackfoot and Cree communities in Alberta and Manitoba over the past ten years. Erin and Aubrey were co-leads on the Innovative Initiatives in First Nations, Métis and Inuit Education within Undergraduate Teacher Education project. Together, they led the team through reviewing the BEd curriculum, gathering Indigenous texts, and generating the Books to Build On web resource.