How Illustrating a Land Acknowledgment Helped Lower School Students to Move Beyond Stereotypes
When you think about a land acknowledgment, what images come to mind? What visual language informs your design?
These questions were at the heart of a project I created at The Packer Collegiate Institute. In 2023, I worked with Fourth Grade students to write a land acknowledgment specifically for Lower School learners. The following year, I invited Third Graders to illustrate that text in posters that would become educational tools throughout the division. For our young artists, illustrating these posters was an act of service. They produced engaging imagery that could spark curiosity and reflection among their peers in ways that words on a wall might not, making the land acknowledgment a living, breathing part of our school environment. While developing the materials and guiding my students toward efforts that were both thoughtful and true, I myself went on a learning journey. Part of that journey involved revising and recalibrating, a best practice we share as educators regardless of the discipline you teach or the age of your students.
When Stereotypes Emerged
To get it right, to ensure depth, accuracy, and true understanding, this project required a multi-layered approach to preparing students for the task. Students experienced field trips, close examination of artwork made by contemporary Native artists, and a range of creative problem-solving modalities in art. We explored place through drawing, painting, and collage. Students engaged with contemporary Indigenous people in our community. They watched videos of Native artists explaining why land acknowledgments matter, and why they represent just one step toward partnership and understanding.
When we began the posters, students understood that, as visual storytellers, they were creating illustrative narratives for the community. The imagery needed to embody the ethos of our land acknowledgment and to refer to the text itself, all without relying on words to carry the meaning.
When the first sketches emerged, I found myself looking at teepees, tomahawks, campfires burning in city streets, and figures in regalia. Every stereotype I thought we had moved past came flooding back. It was shocking, not because students weren’t trying, but because the pull of those images was so strong. Even after thoughtful preparation, the default imagery persisted. Students kept asking: “How do I show that someone is Indigenous without drawing them in regalia?”
Finding Connection Through Disconnection
A couple of classes in, I realized that we were stuck. Not because the students lacked skills, but because they were trying to solve an intellectual problem before they established an emotional connection to it. They understood the assignment but hadn’t connected to the deeper meaning in a way that felt personal and urgent. What became evident was that I had tried to teach a concept I had not yet made real to my young learners. You can’t understand the depth of someone else’s relationship to land if you haven’t examined your own. Stewardship, protection, and gratitude are not abstract values. They grow from love of a specific place and the people connected to it.
I paused and set aside time for what I called the “special place” project. Each student identified a place that held deep significance, somewhere they loved so much they would want to protect it, a place tied to memory, family, or solace. They could work in any medium they felt most comfortable in. The only requirement was sharing their story with classmates and explaining why it mattered.
The artwork that emerged was extraordinary. Students illustrated parks where they played with siblings and friends. They painted the beaches, forests, and trails where their family regularly enjoyed time in nature. One student sculpted the kitchen where she and her cousins made gingerbread houses, a holiday tradition going back generations. To her, Grandma’s house was a landmark for a family whose roots grew in that very soil. During sharing circles, I watched body language change as students described these places. Their hands gestured passionately as they recalled memories. Their smiles, bright and proud, spoke volumes without words.
Returning With New Understanding
When students returned to the posters, something had shifted. Not everything, but enough. Stereotypes are stubborn, rooted as deep as splinters lodged near bone. The questions became more precise. Students were no longer asking how to draw “an Indigenous person.” They were asking how to show partnership, how to visualize learning from others, how to depict reciprocity and care for the land without defaulting to outdated iconography.
Design choices became obviously intentional. Students drew people standing side by side, working together. They included thoughtful details: contemporary clothing, urban settings, and flora rendered with care. Some groups used selective text (a t-shirt reading “Lenape And Proud!” or a sign marking a community garden) to clarify meaning without overwhelming the visual storytelling. They paid attention to body language and to gestures of collaboration and respect.
As the weeks passed, our conversations deepened. We talked extensively about representation and the fact that you cannot know someone’s culture or history just by looking at them. Students began noticing stereotypes on their own, recognizing them in their early sketches and actively working to move beyond these patterns. We discussed how images carry assumptions and how easily those assumptions become part of our thoughts before we’ve had a moment’s consideration.
The Gift of Complexity
At year’s end, when students reflected on their efforts, many said the land acknowledgment project was their favorite, noting its challenge and complexity. The curriculum included field trips, artist talks, and the exploration of their own special places—each piece building toward this moment of creation. They embraced their role as thought partners, recognizing that their work was a call to engagement rather than a history lesson.
Global education is not a linear practice. It requires practitioners to revisit foundations, to slow down when we want to rush forward, and to honor complexity even when simplicity would be easier. It asks us to lead with care, recognizing that accurate representation is itself an act of respect and, ultimately, solidarity.
I would encourage teachers doing similar projects to listen for the friction, the uncertainty, the places where students struggle, not because they lack understanding but because they’re grappling with something genuinely difficult to process. Those moments are signals, not failures. They are opportunities to pause, to ground the practice in something personal before returning to the conceptual, and to remember that ownership of abstract ideas becomes tangible when rooted in lived experience.
I would remind them, as I remind myself, we are each other’s teachers. The posters my students created are “imperfect”, still evolving, much like the practice of understanding and partnership they represent. This ongoing evolution isn’t a limitation. It’s what makes the work authentic and alive.
Liz Titone’s Action Research project examines how the following year’s Third Graders interpreted these peer-created posters. You can access her research artifact in the Member Resource Library. Look for “Research on Student-Created Land Acknowledgement Text and Visuals – Packer Collegiate Institute (2025)” under Teaching & Learning > Curriculum Examples.
