Knowing the Past, Facing the Future: Indigenous Education in Canada is a collection of eleven essays edited by Sheila Carr-Stewart. The anthology provides the reader with a sample of some of the critical and ongoing challenges, approaches, and paradigms in Indigenous education. The essays are presented in three parts, with key themes in each part. The book begins with an introduction and examination of the history of Indigenous education in Canada and the Indigenous methods of teaching and learning before Europeans came aggressively searching for Indigenous lands. Part 1 discusses the history of colonial education, treaty rights, Indigenous lands, the Indian Act, Indigenous education, self-determination, the history of schooling, and funding. Part 2 discusses core themes of teacher education, Indigenous learners, racism, trauma, assimilation, and Indigenous survivance. Key concepts in part 3 include curriculum, ethical space, education equity, languages, and Indigenous teaching and learning.

Through the various themes in the three parts, the anthology brings together some of the most important historical and contemporary topics in Indigenous education scholarship. Some of the discussions in the collection offer crucial insights into the Numbered Treaties that Canada and the First Nations signed between 1871 and 1921. These underscore Indigenous leaders’ thinking at the time, including their vision for the education of their children, even as settlers were encroaching on their ancestral territories. For example, Carr-Stewart explains in chapter one that Cree Chief Thunderchild actively resisted the imposition of a Roman Catholic school in his community, in what is now known as Saskatchewan, and advocated for schooling as guaranteed in Treaty 6. This is part of the foundation of the broken promises that are too familiar when it comes to honoring treaties in Canada, both historically and in the present.

That the treaties continue to be alive, yet rarely honored, in settler colonial Canada makes this collection more significant than ever. The examination of treaties is also woven into other chapters in this anthology. For instance, in chapter 2, Larry Prochner contends that Indigenous peoples’ right to education is confirmed in treaties (p. 53). However, Canada's leaders were fully aware of what they were doing when, instead of honoring the treaties, they insisted on providing schools that were built and operated by churches. When that failed to work in the way they had hoped, the government pushed for a new policy of aggressive residential schooling (p. 96). As Carr-Stewart states, Canada has a fiduciary obligation to provide schools within the context of the Numbered Treaties (p. 90).

These efforts by the church to provide schools for Indigenous youth demonstrate the desperate, insidious, and hostile aim of the Canadian government and the church's assimilation policies. This anthology highlights the government's failure in its quest to do just that. At the same time, it shows how power relations became entrenched within the colonial systems, including education, and how they continue today. The lack of funding for Indigenous learners and schooling continues to be a dominant theme. Historically and in contemporary contexts, the disparity between the resources that schools and students in the community can access compared to those available to provincial-level schools within Canada is stark. By deliberately ignoring and undermining treaties, the government of Canada continues to discriminate against Indigenous children through its inaction and its failure to honor treaty rights.

In chapter 5, Noella Steinhauer reminds us that First Nations schools operate on fewer resources and have lower levels of support and services than provincial schools (p. 128). These discrepancies have serious implications for Indigenous youth whose treaty rights are dismissed. Harry Lafond and Darryl Hunter, in their chapter, examine curriculum and what it can look like, following Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission report in 2015 and its ninety-four calls to action. The intent is to shift from the standard Eurocentric curriculum to an Indigenous-based curriculum that centers Indigenous pedagogy through the core themes of lived experiences of the land, making connections with the land, and learning from Elders. All of these are established in Indigenous identity, learning, and teaching. Lafond and Hunter reinforce the point that Indigenous curriculum is about representing spirit, emotion, thought, and behavior for the future (p. 201).

The weaving in of stories from Indigenous history enhances and enriches this collection. These include stories of Indigenous leaders as they signed and advocated for treaty rights, stories that depict the state violence and theft of Indigenous lands, and stories of the destruction embedded in settler colonialism. They also include stories of Indigenous philosophy, “of not thinking of ourselves, but of our children's children,” according to Plains Cree Head Chief Ahtahkakoop (Saskatchewan) before the signing of Treaty 6 (p. 201). These stories are central to Indigenous peoples’ understanding of their world and demonstrate more than ever the significance of this work to Indigenous scholarship. The anthology focuses on the historical inquiry of education as well as on the present and the future, as aptly titled. There is an understanding that these are linked and that Indigenous education remains paramount to Indigenous peoples, youth, and communities in the past, as it is today and in the future. The collection's authors show the critical importance of Indigenous pedagogy and knowledge systems and why Indigenous education must be governed by Indigenous people for Indigenous people.

Chapter 8, by Jane P. Preston, begins with an analysis that reinforces the vital importance of Indigenous world views and of fostering ethical space in the classroom (p. 204). This is especially significant given the historical inquiry provided within the anthology that addresses the trauma Indigenous people experienced through imposed education. The holism and the Circle, the Medicine Wheel, and the land all epitomize Indigenous pedagogy and what it means to foster ethical space and holistic education within learning contexts. While Canada talks rhetorically about reconciliation, this edited volume will help educators think about what reconciliation looks like and who needs to reconcile. The power dynamics that are entrenched in education relating to Indigenous people in Canada continue to permeate all aspects of education and to affect Indigenous people. This impact is seen in the ongoing disparate lack of funding and resources that are available for Indigenous youth in comparison to provincial schools. This anthology calls for teachers to think critically about their role as educators. Since teachers are at the front of the classroom, they must think about what education means to them. This is apparent in Brooke Madden's research in chapter 10, “Hybrid Encounters: First Peoples Principles of Learning and Teachers’ Constructions of Indigenous Education and Educators.” As Madden stresses, the importance of how “First Peoples’ principles of learning” is shaping teachers’ constructions of “what counts” as Indigenous education in British Columbia and the characteristics and practices of teachers who are involved in incorporating the principles in the curriculum (p. 260). Also, teachers must work with local knowledges (p. 261).

The anthology supports Indigenous methodologies and ways of teaching and learning. Each chapter demonstrates the constant struggle that Indigenous people face in trying to gain control of their education and in thinking about what is at the heart of Indigenous education—that is, Indigenous self-determination. In chapter 6, “Iskotew and Crow (Re)igniting Narratives of Indigenous Survivance and Honouring Trauma Wisdom in the Classroom,” Karlee D. Fellner calls for a shift in Indigenous survivance, noting what Indigenous scholar Gerald Vizenor refers to as “an active sense of presence” (p. 163), which exemplifies Indigenous forms of education that are ever present. The revitalization of Indigenous stories and ways of being also ground this work and make it a powerful and vital contribution as Indigenous people continue to retell their own stories and assert their self-determination.

This collection makes a valuable contribution in the areas of education, the history of education in North America, the humanities, and social science. More specifically, scholars in Indigenous education and Indigenous scholarship will especially find this an appealing collection of essays. This research is much needed, and scholars will find the book a wonderful and welcome addition to Indigenous education and scholarship.