Resting Lightly on Mother Earth: The Aboriginal Experience in Urban Educational Settings

by Rita Bouvier (Editor), Angela Ward (Editor)

In this book, the voices of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal participants are heard as they chronicle their survival in mainstream school systems. The authors describe and analyze the experiences of Aboriginal students, teachers, and pre-service teachers struggling to find a place in urban society. Some voices are resistant, others angry, many questioning, as they enter into tentative coalitions with other urban teachers who pursue social justice for Indigenous peoples. The editors open the book with a wide-ranging look at the contexts of urban Aboriginal education, and explore the themes of the book—identity, disconnection from the land, spirituality, the effects of a colonial legacy—from their own Aboriginal and mainstream perspectives. A strength of the book is the diversity of backgrounds and experiences the authors bring. The writers are Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, from Canada, the United States and Australia. They have taught and worked in elementary and secondary schools, universities and teacher education programs. All have direct experience working in urban educational settings, and all bring passionate advocacy to their writing. Resting Lightly on Mother Earth is intended for both Indigenous and mainstream educators; it is particularly suitable for teachers and administrators in urban systems, teacher educators, and graduate and undergraduate education students.

196 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2001

About the author

Rita Bouvier was born and grew up in Ile a la Crosse, Saskatchewan, on the Churchill River System. Although she currently resides in Saskatoon, she remains strongly connected to her roots in Northern Saskatchewan.
Bouvier is an educator and a writer. She has published two collections of poetry with Thistledown Press, Blueberry Clouds (1999) and papîyâhtak (2004), and has been nominated for several Saskatchewan Book Awards. Bouvier’s poetry has been translated into Spanish and German, and her work has appeared in literary anthologies, musicals, and television productions. In 2008 the Gabriel Dumont Institute published the collaborative children’s book Better That Way with artists Sherry Farrell-Racette and Margaret Gardiner, based on the title poem from papîyâhtak. Bouvier lives in Saskatoon.