The Siha Tooskin Knows Education Guide supports learning about and discussing the teachings, practices, and values of Paul Wahasaypa’s Nakota family and to support teachers, students, and families in exploring these concepts in relation to the Indigenous peoples where they live. The guide helps readers explore learning through storied experience, visual representations of teachings, values, and relationships.

The following topics are in the guide and are meant to spark reflection and conversations among readers.

• connection to the land
• Nakota culture, language, and knowledge
• intergenerational transmission of knowledge and values
• image-based storytelling and “reading” illustrations
• agency of young people
• navigating difficult circumstances through traditional teachings

Both the Siha Tooskin Knows series and the guide aim to support readers in exploring the cultures of Siha Tooskin and relating his experiences, values, and practices to those of their own families and communities.

Charlene Bearhead (she/her/hers) is an educator and Indigenous education advocate living in Treaty 6 Territory in central Alberta. She was the first Education Lead for the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and the Education Coordinator for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Charlene was recently honoured with the Alumni Honours Award from the University of Alberta and currently serves as the Director of Reconciliation for Canadian Geographic. She is a mother and a grandmother who began writing stories to teach her own children as she raised them. Adaptations of these stories have now been published as the Siha Tooskin Knows series, which she co-wrote with her husband, Wilson.

Charlene Bearhead's profile page