THE STORIES WE TEACH


BY VELVET LAC ASSE F


or the last eight years, I have been developing social justice curricu- lum for kindergarten-Grade 6 students at The Grove Commu- nity School. I am learning pow-


erful ways to integrate equity, community activism and environmental justice into the Ontario curriculum through inquiry-based learning and the arts. I am also thinking about what it means to be an ally and the importance of disrupting dominant narra- tives about colonization, gender, immigra- tion, race, among other issues, not just for those most affected but for everyone. This work in our schools is important because it helps our students become critical thinkers and empowered to make change. I talk with my students about the fact that


the stories we learn do not include all our voices. Storytelling is a powerful tool to help students think critically about whose voices are represented and whose voices are missing in our schools and in our curriculum. These questions can lead to conversations about the impact of not seeing your family reflected


14 ETFO VOICE | FALL 2017


in the dominant narrative and questions about how these stories support hierarchies of power. Who benefits from these stories? How does a story support or disrupt power structures? In her TED Talk, “The Danger of the Single Story,” feminist author Chimam- anda Ngozi Adichie argues that “We cannot talk about storytelling without talking about power.” Educators may be reluctant to ex- plore the impact of power and privilege in our schools, but this work is necessary if we are going to challenge the unexamined op- pression and racism in the stories we tell. In “Teaching Treaties as (Un)Usual Nar-


ratives: Disrupting the Curricular Common- sense” Jennifer Tupper and Michael Coppelo describe curriculum as “the collective story that we tell our children about our past,


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