Shannon Leddy

Dr. Shannon Leddy

Assistant professor of teaching, Faculty of Education, UBC; co-director, Institute for Environmental Learning

Shannon Leddy (Métis) is a Vancouver based teacher and writer whose practice focuses on decolonizing education and Indigenous education within teacher education. She holds degrees in Art History and Anthropology from the University of Saskatchewan (1994), an MA in Art History (1997), and a BEd (2005) from the University of British Columbia. Her PhD research at Simon Fraser University focused on inviting pre-service teachers into dialogue with contemporary Indigenous art as a mechanism of decolonizing education and in order to help them become adept at delivering Indigenous education without reproducing colonial stereotypes.

During her time as a public school teacher with the Vancouver School Board, Shannon worked at several high schools as a teacher of Art, Social Studies and English. After a two-year secondment to work as a Faculty Associate in SFU’s Professional Development Program in teacher education, she returned to the VSB to undertake the coordination of an arts-based mini-school. She has also worked as an Instructor in SFU’s Faculty of Education teaching courses in pedagogical foundations and Aboriginal education. In 2013 she was awarded SFU’s Aboriginal Graduate Entrance Scholarship and a SSHRC Bombardier Scholarship in 2015.

Shannon serves as the Co-Director of the Institute for Environmental Learning, a UNESCO Regional Centre of Excellence. As the Institute moves into its next decade, she has come on board to help build relationships with Indigenous community members and Knowledge Keepers to renew the vision of land-as-teacher, to move away from ideas of land as commodity, as recreational, and consumable.