The Goal: For education to be relevant, engaging and meaningful, it must reflect students’ lived experiences, and worldviews. This website is intended to create a stronger connection between Indigenous cultures and the classroom to improve the educational experience for all students.

Project Mission: The mission of the Beyond Words: Sharing Indigenous Cultures and Books website is to provide an avenue for communities and schools to connect virtually through Indigenous literature and create opportunities to share experiences.

Who We Are: We are a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators and students who are dedicated to pursuing a deeper understanding of Indigenous history, people and perspectives through literature and engaging in conversations with communities and schools who are also on this journey.

What to expect: The site offers schools a virtual book club where teachers and students can share their reactions to and reflections on Indigenous books and other Indigenous cultural materials with which they engage, such as videos, lesson plans, podcasts, artwork, etc. It is envisioned that students at various grade levels will be able to interact with students of similar ages in other schools, both within their own region and beyond. It is anticipated that students will have the opportunity to explore Indigenous literature, realities, history, perspectives and culture with students in other parts of their region, in other parts of Canada, and internationally as well as have the opportunity to learn from Elders across the globe and be immersed in cultures outside of their own experience. It is also envisioned that teachers will also have the opportunity to network and discuss how to best engage students with these materials. An additional outcome of this project would be for Indigenous peoples from different parts of the globe to forge stronger connections, recognize commonalities and differences, and deepen understandings of what it means to be an Indigenous person in an increasingly-globalised world.