About This Webinar
How can Indigenous students and Tribal Nations have more voice and agency in education and the school system?
Join Carla Messinger, Turtle Clan Lenape educator, director of Native American Heritage Programs, and author of When the Shadbush Blooms, for a discussion on how to change current teaching practices that benefits Native and non-Native students, especially with Thanksgiving quickly approaching.
Carla will discuss contemporary Native and Indigenous values and how they shape daily life today in addition to the true, less than ideal origins behind the Thanksgiving story. How do the myths taught in schools internalize this oppression, both for Indigenous children who see their communities caricatured and all students who learn about a distorted history every year?
Native and non-Native educators will also learn how to use When the Shadbush Blooms to teach modern Native lifeways and think critically about selecting children’s literature. This award-winning title follows two Lenape sisters, one from generations past and one from today, through the cycle of the seasons. Its paired scenes show that tradition and change exist side by side, and that what matters most (family, community, stories, and a relationship with the natural world) endures. Carla will share ways to bring this approach into your classroom or library, along with additional resources for continuing the work.
Attendees will leave this webinar with the tools and confidence to teach Native and Indigenous history and cultures as living, present-day realities.
Carla Messinger, Turtle Clan Lenape Educator, Author of 
Katie Potter, Senior Literacy Manager at Lee & Low Books
