This year's convention sessions will be virtual. We look forward to seeing you in person again next year! 

 We are all related. By that, we mean human to human, to the beings on the land and in the sea, to the sky, to the land and to the spiritual world. If we pay attention to the signs around us, we may notice that we need to listen more attentively, and with our hearts, to all that, we are in relationship with. Indigenous worldviews are holistic. Colonial structures, which are hierarchical by nature, have taught us to prioritize some relationships while ignoring others. Responsibility is the sister of relationship. As many of us from colonial cultures are just now beginning to realize, neglecting these relationships has meant ignoring our responsibilities in maintaining them. Only by returning to a holistic system can we understand how to stabilize the natural, political, and social imbalances that now threaten to tear our world apart. Each of the keynote speakers shares with us a lens belonging to the whole. It is through these many lenses that we come to know more about all our relations and our responsibilities to each.

Sara Florence Davidson (sgaan jaadgu san glans) is a Haida/Settler Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. She completed her PhD in Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia, and her research focuses on Indigenous pedagogies, literacies, and stories. With her father, she is the co-author of Potlatch as Pedagogy: Learning through Ceremony and the Sk’ad’a Stories, a picture book series that is based on family stories and highlights Indigenous pedagogies and intergenerational learning. Sara is passionate about reading, writing, and listening to stories. She lives on unceded Stó:lō Territory with her partner and their two dogs.

Dr. Shauneen Pete is from Little Pine First Nation in Treaty 6 territory.  Shauneen is a mother and grandmother.  She promotes the Indigenization and decolonization of higher education. As a teacher, she works toward settler decolonization in teacher education. Dr. Pete is a Professor in Leadership Studies at the University of Victoria. She has served as the Executive Lead: Indigenization at the University of Regina. She was also the Vice-President (Academic) and interim President at First Nations University of Canada.

The STA Convention is an annual professional development opportunity planned by teachers for teachers.
We are currently accepting vendor and workshop proposals for the 2022 STA Convention. For inquiries please email convention@surreyteachers.org