Re-Storying Education: Decolonizing Your Practice Using a Critical Lens

In Re-Storying Education, Carolyn Roberts—St’át’imc and Stó:lo from the N’Quat’qua and Tzeachten Nations, and a member of the Squamish Nation—draws on decades of experience in K–12 and post-secondary education to challenge educators to dismantle the colonial narratives embedded in Canadian schooling.

Roberts argues that the conventional educational system was built on a foundation of assimilation and erasure of Indigenous knowledge, and that meaningful change requires educators to unlearn and re-story the narratives they teach, the methods they employ, and the way they relate to students and land.

The book provides concrete tools: each chapter begins with a curated music-video playlist that connects to themes of culture, identity and reconciliation; it ends with reflective questions, lesson and assessment ideas, and suggestions for further reading.

Roberts invites educators to shift from a one-way transmission of knowledge toward relationship-based pedagogy grounded in respect, relevance, reciprocity and responsibility. She emphasizes creating classroom spaces where Indigenous students see themselves reflected (mirrors) and others see windows into different ways of being.