The Voice of Witness education team is excited to announce the newest member of our education advisory, Suzanne Methot. She will be joining current members in supporting VOW’s education program with strategic goals, assessment, new initiatives, and outreach.
Suzanne first collaborated with Voice of Witness as the curriculum specialist for VOW’s latest oral history project, How We Go Home: Voices From Indigenous North America. Suzanne worked with the VOW education team to develop the free lesson plans accompanying the oral history collection, providing resources and historical framework for understanding contemporary Indigenous experiences and the impact of over five hundred years of colonization.
Suzanne (Asiniwachi Nehiyaw/Rocky Mountain Cree) is a writer, editor, and educator with a long history of work centering issues impacting Indigenous communities. She the author of the non-fiction book Legacy: Trauma, Story, and Indigenous Healing, co-author of the Grade 11 textbook Aboriginal Beliefs, Values, and Aspirations, and a contributor to Scholastic’s Take Action series of classroom resource books. Suzanne is a speaker on human rights, Indigenous literatures, Indigenous worldviews, Indigenous approaches to health and wellness, intergenerational trauma, and decolonization, and she also designs programs and facilitates professional development sessions for the education, health care, environmental, and arts and culture sectors. Born in Vancouver and raised in Peace River, Alberta, which is known as Sagitawa (“where the rivers meet”) in the Nehiyawak language, Suzanne is Nehiyaw of mixed Indigenous and European heritage. She currently lives on unceded Snuneymuxw territory near Nanaimo, BC.
Suzanne has 30 years of experience creating and applying equity and anti-oppression frameworks, beginning as an adult literacy and skills training practitioner and then as an elementary classroom teacher specializing in social justice education. She has also worked in advocacy and direct-service positions at Indigenous organizations, serving community members who are marginalized by racism, poverty, homelessness, health status, addictions, mental-health challenges, crime, and victimization.
On working with Voice of Witness, Suzanne says:
I’m interested in addressing decolonizing/decolonized pedagogy, teacher professional development as regards to teaching Indigenous subject areas in the classroom, and helping educators understand that trauma- and healing-informed teaching practice is part of anti-oppression. I’m a big believer in land-based education and arts education, so I have a vested interest in making sure those approaches are reflected in VOW’s curricula as well.
I’m also looking forward to embedding Indigenous histories, experiences, and perspectives into VOW’s work and collaborating with a really dedicated staff team—people who know the issues and are willing to learn about whatever they don’t know.
We are thrilled to continue working with Suzanne! To learn more about Suzanne’s work, visit her website.
Visit the VOW community page to learn more about the Voice of Witness education advisory.
