Abstract
Anuik shows how a book club with a common reading (Indian Horse: A Novel, by Richard Wagamese) can help teacher candidates learn how to practice reconciliation in grassroots spaces like schools. Discussions in book club gatherings complement lessons in a mandatory Indigenous education course. Additionally, the text, a book in the historical fiction genre, shows its readers that Indigenous knowledge and history is part of the Canadian story. Wagamese’s use of hockey, faith, and family builds relatable frames for its readers. The chapter concludes with a prospective about how historical empathy may be a pedagogical framework to guide future study of the history of Indigenous peoples in Canada.
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Notes
- 1.
In Canada, the provincial and territorial governments are responsible for the design and delivery of early childhood, elementary, secondary, and postsecondary programs of study. For more information about the structure of Canadian education systems, see Wallner (2018).
- 2.
I assigned Indian Horse to introduce my students to Indigenous peoples’ education in Canada from historical, philosophical, and sociological perspectives.
- 3.
- 4.
When the Northwest Territories entered the federation of Canada in 1870, its boundaries contained land that became the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905. In 1912, the boundaries of Manitoba and Ontario took their contemporary shape as a result of cession of land from the Northwest Territories. When I referred to the Board of Education of the Northwest Territories, I referred to the Northwest Territories that entered Confederation in 1870.
- 5.
Read alongside Bruce A. Van Sledright (2001, p. 56), a student of history requires appropriate knowledge of the culture in which practices take shape.
- 6.
For Peter Lee and Rosalyn Ashby, ‘It is not merely knowing that certain historical…groups had a particular perspective on their world, but being able to see how that perspective would actually have affected actions in particular circumstances’ (2001, p. 24).
- 7.
I am grateful to the editors of this collection for this observation.
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Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Katherine Koch, Kim Frail, and Allison Sivak, librarians at the H. T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, with whom I led the Book of the Year discussion groups. I also thank Faculty of Education Deans Fern Snart and Randolph Wimmer for their support of the project. Conversations with Katherine and Caroline Land of the Edmonton Public Library helped me with my conceptualization of this chapter. I share my gratitude to the participants in the international symposium Historical Justice and History Education, which took place from June 4 to 5, 2019, at Umeå University, in Umeå, Sweden, on whose feedback I base this final version of my chapter. My most important acknowledgment goes to the students who participated in the book club meetings, especially those who participated in the one profiled here.
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Anuik, J. (2021). Practicing Reconciliation in a Canadian Book Club. In: Keynes, M., Åström Elmersjö, H., Lindmark, D., Norlin, B. (eds) Historical Justice and History Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70412-4_15
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