When two First Nations visual artists collaborated with students to design and paint three mural-sized banners, they portrayed a journey rich with history, tradition, and courage, and fostered profound story-sharing and dialoguing.
For three days in November, my classroom was transformed into an artist’s studio. Three 11′ x 3′ blank canvas banners hung from the ceiling along the back wall. Chairs and desks were arranged in a wide circle around the perimeter of the classroom, and up along the blackboard perched a rainbow of acrylic paint jars awaiting the stroke of a brush. Soon, these banners would be painted by 55 Grade 11 students and two local First Nations artists in a collaborative art project that would portray a journey rich with history, tradition, and courage, and would foster profound story-sharing and dialoguing.
In my recent years teaching the First Nations, Métis and Inuit Studies courses at James Cardinal McGuigan (JCM) high school in Toronto, I have reflected upon the question: How do I take on the responsibility of making space for Indigenous voices and get my students to engage meaningfully in a primarily non-Indigenous, Catholic, multicultural classroom? This was the challenge I set for myself as a settler-educator, recognizing the importance of my positionality and accountability in the context of Reconciliation. I wanted to develop a positive and inclusive activity that would both amplify Indigenous voices and enable my students to have an authentic, respectful, in-person dialogue with Indigenous people while contributing to a larger project.
Gathering both qualitative and quantitative data to assess students’ learning and transformation was one of the goals of this project, so they completed a survey before we started the art project and a second one afterwards. The results were encouraging: to this day, students describe this learning experience as one where they were able to “learn from two perspectives instead of one.” One eager participant attested, “We can learn from people who have a better understanding of current issues and take part in creating a better community.”
After reading about collaborative mural painting initiatives in various school boards and universities across Ontario, I was inspired to facilitate one at my school. Research indicates that an extraordinary experience with art enables educators and participants to examine multiple, shifting meanings of culture and communities.1 I decided on a banner project because banners (more so than murals) are easy to move around and rotate between different locations in the school for students and guests to appreciate.
Acquiring funding from the Ontario Ministry of Education was essential, so I applied for a Teacher Learning and Leadership grant and received the necessary capital to commission this art project. I want to thank my school’s administration, office staff, and art department for their pivotal involvement and support throughout the project.
Inspired by an article titled “New Mural: A first step toward reconciliation for Indigenous youth,”2 I invited the artists Chief Lady Bird and Aura to come share their culture, history, and perspectives with the students, and to collaborate with them on an artistic piece that could be showcased for years to come. Chief Lady Bird is Chippewa and Potawatomi from Rama and Moose Deer Point First Nations, and her sister, Aura, is Haudenosaunee Onyota’a:ka (Oneida Nation of the Thames). I taught my students greetings in Anishinaabek and Oneida, and posted them on our classroom door to make the artists feel welcomed and acknowledged.
My students had been learning about Indigenous histories, identities and cultural ways of knowing, and I reviewed the specific themes we had examined in class with the artists beforehand so that we could connect them to the project.
In the pre-project survey, the students’ ratings of their level of knowledge about Indigenous teachings (e.g. Medicine Wheel, The Seven Grandfather Teachings) was split evenly between feeling moderately, fairly, and highly knowledgeable. Some students felt a bit daunted by the task of collaborating with Indigenous people on an art project, but most were comfortable or even looking forward to it.
After the land acknowledgement, the artists began by introducing themselves in their languages and sharing with the students their backgrounds, the importance of reclaiming their languages, and their work with young people of all backgrounds in communal spaces to promote mutual respect, care, and knowledge-sharing.
They explored many themes with the students through the artwork, including: Creation Stories, Ceremony & Medicines, Water is Life, Intergenerational Healing, Heart Work & Heart Berries, and the Saskatchewan Lily.
One student said, “Art helps me understand Indigenous concepts because it is where the artists share and express their rich heritage and stories.”
Over three days, I witnessed immense growth in my students. Each had a chance to contribute to the painting – either by picking up a brush, suggesting an image to add or a colour to use. They produced three beautiful banners depicting a Grandmother in traditional dress, illuminated by a full moon; a powerful, resilient female beneath a traditional fish fence, encircled by the Fish Totem; and a young, hopeful girl, looking ahead, firmly rooted to her ancestry and to her Creation story. The three figures stand connected to one another in a symbiotic relationship.
Furthermore, the inquiry that came out of this project was noteworthy. Students asked the artists questions about the symbolic images (e.g. the meaning of the red dress worn by the girl, or the significance of the water being passed on through generations). This spurred further student engagement in the form of independent research, or connecting these meanings to texts studied in class. For one lucky group, this experience inspired a cross-cultural youth exchange with Thunderchild First Nation in Saskatchewan in May 2019, to further strengthen their own cultural competence.
One of the main messages communicated through this banner is “We are here.” It is imperative for all of us to share this message, and to hold space for the often under-represented voices in our society.
When asked why she does this work, Aura stated, “For me it’s about sharing who I am, learning with the youth and creating spaces for them to share who they are too. I believe collaborating between cultures and communities builds unity.” She affirmed the importance of creating positive work in the school system, and her critical role as a facilitator who is “in these spaces sharing my own truth. It is really impactful.”
Chief Lady Bird said that her goal is to “create a safer, kinder, more loving environment that captures the spirit of people, the true spirit of our teachings.” While working with youth, she added, she is “honouring the creative process of everyone. We don’t do things in one cookie-cutter way – we just let it flow; there’s not a lot of room for that in many institutions, so we disrupt with kindness.”
In the post-project survey, 82 percent of students rated the experience as being either highly or fairly meaningful and engaging. In terms of lessons learned, 82 percent said they had learned about relationship building and 68 percent felt more knowledgeable about Reconciliation. All students found that this activity enabled them to learn more about Indigenous stories and traditional teachings.
One student said, “The best thing about this experience was the opportunity to collaborate with the First Nations artists and share moments with them and learn about them and their backgrounds.”
Another student – who, thanks to this project, now self-identifies as part Mi’kmaq – found a sense of belonging and acquired greater knowledge of her history. She observed, “It is important for us to take part in a collaborative art project with First Nations artists because it is important for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to show that they can work together and move forward from what happened in the past.”
This work contributes to a growing body of work on “teacher-allyship”3 and aims to inform teachers who seek respectful and relevant ways of incorporating Indigenous approaches into their pedagogies. I encourage teachers to explore the plethora of Indigenous-written and -produced resources available to them for K–post-secondary, and to be in touch with their school board liaisons; I am grateful to the Toronto Catholic District School Board’s department of Indigenous Education for their support throughout my journey.
This project also is anchored in inter-cultural understanding and respect for alternative ways of knowing. By inviting artists from marginalized groups to share their knowledge and talents with students, we give voice to often-silenced speakers, lend greater legitimacy to the curriculum, and offer students and teachers opportunities for genuine discourse and practice regarding art, creativity, and social transformation.
We came such a long way in just three days. The transformations and mutual sharing that we experienced in that “artist’s studio” were remarkable, equally for the students, the artists, and myself as a settler-educator. The experience invited students to become culturally conscious in an authentic, respectful and engaging way, to understand the concept of reciprocity, to celebrate unity, and to look at storytelling through an artistic medium. Not only do these banners represent Indigenous narratives, but they tell a living story: one of history, reclamation, and relationship.
We hope that all students feel invited to tell their own stories of identity, and understand how much their heritage plays a pivotal role in shaping who they are. I hope this important work will inspire, educate, and transform educational communities across Turtle Island.
Photo: courtesy Laryssa Gorecki
First published in Education Canada, September 2019
Notes
1 M. Greene, Releasing the Imagination: Essay on education, the arts, and social change (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1995).
2 Justin Skinner, “New Mural: A first step toward reconciliation for Indigenous youth,” Toronto.com (Aug. 28, 2017).
3 Pamela Rose Toulouse, “K-12 Truth and Reconciliation: Becoming a teacher ally,” Education Canada 58, No. 2 (2018). www.edcan.ca/articles/truth-reconciliation-k-12
Ensouling our Schools is the third instalment in the Teaching to Diversity series produced by Portage and Main Press. It lays out a clear framework by which its authors, Jennifer Katz and Kevin Lamoureux, believe our schools can be re-envisioned to better address the mental, spiritual and emotional well-being of both staff and students.
The book attempts, with fair success, to connect modern educational theory with a more traditional world view of Indigenous teachings, and uses the medicine wheel as a basis upon which to build. Katz and Lamoureux present what they call “an alternative vision to the traditional industrialized version of schooling.” This is the Three-Block Model of Universal Design for Learning, which combines inclusive education practices, social and emotional learning, and the promotion of healthy schools.
Ensouling our Schools hooks the reader in Part 1 with some startling statistics around the state of youth mental wellness in our country, presenting a strong case for urgency. The authors include an excellent examination of the science around mental health issues, although the terminology does get a bit heavy at times. There is also a strong recognition of the importance of teacher mental wellness in regards to the broader conversation. When it comes to the interweaving of First Nations spirituality practices, the book does tend, on occasion, to wax a bit romantic or overgeneralize.
The real meat of the book is in Part II. Here the authors present some fairly easy-to-follow and practical ways in which schools can implement their Three-Block Model. They include a series of unit plans, covering everything from diversity to brain reactivity to lessons on Indigenous treaty rights. These lessons could be easily adapted to fit local curriculum, but there are some tense moments when the authors propose that teachers give lessons specifically on student mental health. If a jurisdiction were to adopt this model, it might be advisable to provide some specialized training before sending classroom teachers too far down that road.
Though somewhat ambitious at times, Ensouling provides an enticing view of how our schools could be better designed to address the social, emotional and academic needs of our students. What really sets this text apart is the way it intertwines this issue and the broader issues of reconciliation. Although perhaps lacking some universal adoptability, the work contains enough significant and thought-provoking information to be well worth the read.
Photo: Dave Donald
First published in Education Canada, June 2019
Portage and Main, 2018 ISBN-13: 978-1553796831
What stories are educators drawing on as they engage truth and reconciliation education? Madden argues that T&R education should not centre solely around stories of the residential school experience and portrayals of Indigenous people as victims. “Counter-stories” of refusal, resistance, resilience, and restorying resurgence are also needed, to shine “light on community processes that challenge historical and contemporary colonial relationships with Canada.”
In my position as an assistant professor of Indigenous teacher education at the University of Alberta, I serve two main teaching roles. The first is contributing to an initial teacher qualification program designed specifically to prepare Indigenous teacher candidates from both urban and reserve communities to centre Indigenous knowledges, pedagogies, and priorities. The second is developing and implementing coursework for all pre-service and in-service teachers that explores how colonial beliefs (e.g. terra nullius), systems (e.g. formal schooling), and strategies (e.g. legislation like The Indian Act) continue to differently impact those who live in the place we now know as Canada. Across both of these teaching contexts, I have noted general confidence among educators that truth and reconciliation education offers a new framework to heal Indigenous-non-Indigenous relationships, and to pursue school improvement for Indigenous students and communities. My observations suggest the most common starting place recommended to, and taken up by, educators is classroom inclusion of non-fiction and fiction books that introduce Canada’s Indian residential school system and related topics (such as Spirit Bear and Children Make History, by Dr. Cindy Blackstock and Eddy Robinson, and the accompanying learning guide that outlines the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal on First Nations Child Welfare for an elementary-level readership).
In response to the popularity of this approach, I have found myself asking: What stories are educators drawing on as they engage truth and reconciliation education? Why are some resources more widely used than others? And how are Indian residential school narratives shaping popular images of Indigenous peoples, educators, and Canadians? In this article, I delve deeper into these questions and present a framework for educational leaders and teachers to evaluate and enhance the types of Indian residential school accounts they include in the education for reconciliation curricula they design.
Perhaps it is useful to take a step back and consider why the questions I pose in the previous paragraph are significant. In her 2009 TED talk, The Danger of A Single Story, the award-winning Nigerian author and feminist activist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie makes the case that single stories – those that show a people as one thing and are told over and over again, typically by outsiders – create stereotypes and result in one story becoming the only story. She argues that single stories have both symbolic and real-world consequences. They flatten experience, obscure humanity, exploit difference, establish deficit views, and negatively define and constrain who those at the centre can become.
Prior to what is being called the “era of reconciliation,” Potawatomi-Lenapé scholar of education Dr. Susan Dion explored the danger of a single story in the context of school-based teaching about Indian residential schools. Her research showed that the single story of hopeless Indigenous victims shaped how non-Indigenous teachers and students taught and learned about Canada’s Indian residential school system. She noted an overreliance on teaching methods intended to foster empathy, such as letter writing to former residential school students. Dr. Dion demonstrates that pedagogies of empathy ensured that the single story, as well as associated images and outcomes, went unchallenged. Students remained preoccupied with feeling sorry for the “pitiful” Indigenous victim at the expense of exploring numerous examples of Indigenous strength and agency that were also present in the stories used. By contrast, they learned to see themselves as compassionate and honourable, in that they were able to demonstrate understanding of the “right” rules of moral behaviour, develop “appropriate” attitudes regarding the suffering of Indigenous peoples, and arrive at “fair” judgments about “historic” wrongdoings. Further, this approach cultivated the conditions wherein students were able to view settler colonialism – the ongoing physical occupation of Indigenous land by a colonial state and non-Indigenous settlers and violent and legislative dispossession of Indigenous peoples through established structures and everyday actions – as a thing of the past. Overemphasis on developing empathy for residential school victims overshadowed fostering students’ understanding of how they were impacted by and participated in ongoing colonial logics and effects. Engagement with difficult knowledge and unpleasant but necessary conflict was hindered.
Both Adiche and Dion suggest that while stories can be used to dispossess and change, they can also be used to humanize, empower, and heal. Counter-storytelling is proposed as a method for exposing, analyzing, and challenging narrow accounts. Counter-stories make space for multiple, nuanced stories of under- and misrepresented peoples and experiences. Counter-stories and -storytelling also provide a platform to interrogate privilege and views of Indigenous peoples and groups, to illuminate how we are all are produced within interconnected systems of oppression.
I organize Indian residential school counter-stories according to narratives of: refusal, resistance, resilience, and restorying and resurgence. To appeal to a wide range of learners and tailor to current and local contexts, I suggest including young adult and children’s literature, as well as additional texts such as primary documents, newspaper articles, film, and museum exhibits. Below I offer examples of each type of counter-story, as well as questions to guide teachers’ practices; educators are encouraged to adapt questions for their education context (e.g. level, discipline) and based on the unique gifts they possess, their geographical location, and local Indigenous priorities and guidance. Figure 1 offers examples of ways to adapt questions for younger students.
Counter-stories of refusal reveal the ways in which Indigenous peoples have been refusing participation in colonial systems since contact, despite ongoing threat to their safety and wellness as a result. For example, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s final report details a variety of strategies that include parents’ refusal to enrol their children in Indian residential schools, as well as refusal to return escapees or children at the end of summer “holidays.” Numerous accounts of students who escaped from an institution to return to their community despite the risk of death, injury, or being caught, returned, and punished are available for inclusion across grade levels. For example, Secret Path is a multi-media text that combines ten songs by Gord Downie with the graphic and animated illustrations of Jeff Lemire to tell the story of 12-year-old Anishinaabe boy Chanie Wenjack. Wenjack died on October 22, 1966 while fleeing the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School near Kenora, Ontario, with the intention to return to his home on the Marten Falls Reservation over 400 miles away.
When preparing to use these print and video resources, teachers might draw inspiration from the following questions: What colonial systems is Chanie Wenjack refusing participation in? What form(s) does refusal take beyond explicitly saying “no”? What knowledge is needed in order to engage in refusal? What is at stake in refusing? What are current examples of Indigenous counter-stories of refusal?
Counter-stories of resistance demonstrate how Indigenous communities and collectives organize and act to resist dispossession, disenfranchisement, and dismissal by the colonial state and demand recognition of human, Indigenous, and treaty rights. For example, in 1970 a sit-in at the Blue Quills Residential School in Alberta resulted in the operation of the school being turned over to the newly formed Blue Quills Native Education Council. The sit-in was led by Stanley Redcrow, a former Blue Quills student and maintenance worker at the school, and Alice Makokis, a school counsellor who worked for the Department of Indian Affairs. It involved over 300 school staff and parents and lasted 17 days, culminating in the Department of Indian Affairs flying 20 Blue Quills community members to Ottawa to meet with the Minister of Indian Affairs (and future Prime Minister) Jean Chrétien. Founded in Nēhiyaw centred curriculum, Blue Quills reopened as an elementary school and junior high in 1971 and expanded to include high school in 1976. The building now houses University nuhelot’įne thaiyots’į nistameyimâkanak Blue Quills, the first Indigenous-controlled university in Canada.
The legal campaigns initiated by former residential school students that led to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement – the largest class action settlement in Canadian history – is an additional example of a narrative of resistance that I suggest deserves space in truth and reconciliation education. In creating classroom space for counter-stories of resistance, teachers could consider how they will invite students to explore: What injustices are being resisted by Indigenous communities and/or collectives? What rights are being asserted? What strategies support organization, capacity building, decision-making, and action? (How) Is Indigenous activism unique in the example(s) being studied?
Counter-stories of resilience highlight the incredible ability of Indigenous peoples and Nations to overcome systematic assault on ways-of-knowing and ways-of-being. Resilience is often nurtured through drawing on the strength of communities and traditional teachings, both of which are comprised of human, other-than-human (e.g. plants, animals) and more-than-human (e.g. ancestors in the spirit world) relations rooted in land and honoured through protocol, ethical practice, and ceremony. The testimony of former residential school survivors who went on to work as residential school staff because they felt their presence made an important difference in the lives of students stood out in the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada as a particularly moving example of resilience.
Children’s and young adult literature, as well as graphic novels, often illuminate processes and possibilities of resilience. For example, Shi-shi-etko, written by Nicola I. Campbell and illustrated by Kim Lafave, chronicles the four days a young girl spends learning with her family in her community before leaving to attend residential school. Shi-shi-etko bathes in the creek with her mother, canoes on the lake with her father, collects medicines on the land with her grandmother, and privately offers tobacco to Grandfather Tree to keep her memories and family safe until she returns home in the spring. The reader infers that she will draw strength from the ways of her people and the land she is from during her time at residential school. A video adaptation was also directed by Kate Kroll and produced by Marilyn Thomas in collaboration with the author.
Prompts that can be adapted to encourage classroom connections through literature may include: How do the characters relate to humans, plants, animals, and other beings in the story? How do we know? How are characters’ identities connected to land? What is the significance of protocol and/or ceremony in the story? What and how do these ethical practices teach those in the story?
Counter-stories of restorying and resurgence emphasize the healing and reclamation of Indigenous peoples and places who have experienced trauma as a result of Canada’s Indian residential school system. In many cases, restorying is marked by physical change that mirrors symbolic recovery. For example, survivors, their families, and community members participated in an organized demolition of Peake Hall, the dormitory of the Alberni Indian Residential School that was located on the traditional territory of the Tseshaht First Nation in Port Alberni, B.C. The demolition was conducted in a ceremonial way and included sacred burning, smudging, and a feast, offering participants the chance to heal and free the spirits of their relatives from the former school. In addition to the demolition, the community constructed a traditional-style long house on the site and raised a pole and installed a sculpture made by local artists.
The exhibit Speaking to Memory: Images and Voices from St. Michael’s Indian Residential School is an additional example of restorying and resurgence. It hung on the exterior of the school building at Alert Bay, B.C. transforming the space; a representation of the project was also exhibited at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver.
Guiding questions to activate analysis of counter-stories of restorying and resurgence include: What traumas have specific peoples and places experienced as a result of Canada’s Indian residential school system? What forms and processes of healing are needed? What is the relationship between reclamation and healing? Between physical change and symbolic recovery? (How) Is Indigenous restorying unique in the example(s) being studied? What does Indigenous resurgence look like?
To be clear, I do support the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s view that truth telling in the form of survivors’ testimony about the abuses they suffered is an integral aspect of education for reconciliation. I do not intend to suggest that stories that shine light on former students’ lived experiences of being abused by priests, nuns, residential school staff, and/or other students should be excluded because they risk positioning Indigenous peoples as victims. Following the Commission, I hold that without truth there is no possibility of reconciliation. I recognize the potential of truth telling to restore dignity, aid in healing for victims, and pursue justice through calling perpetrators, governments, and citizens to account.
Indigenous counter-stories of refusal, resistance, resilience, and restorying and resurgence enhance this oral history by shining light on community processes that challenge historical and contemporary colonial relationships with Canada. They also make it more difficult to take up colonial positions and ways of being in relationship (e.g. rescuer/victim) that reduce Indigenous agency. As educators, the inclusion of Indigenous counter-stories in truth and reconciliation education allows us to imagine reconciliation between settler Canadians and Indigenous peoples, where the latter are not characterized by the singularizing image of victimhood.
National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation Teaching Resources.
“The Danger of a Single Story,” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche (TED talk, 2009).
Shi shi etko (video directed by Kate Kroll and produced by Marilyn Thomas, 2011).
Photo: John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail
First published in Education Canada, March 2019
Since the release of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015, school systems across Canada have been grappling with how best to embed Indigenous perspectives into all grade levels and aspects of schooling, including lessons on the history and legacy of residential schools. This has included diverse approaches to curricular reform and staff professional development plans, which have revealed that schools are progressing at varying paces along their journey towards reconciliation as they work to implement the Commission’s education-related calls to action.
While many educators find themselves at the how-to stage and fearful of committing cultural appropriation in their teaching, numerous more are still asking, “Why should I do this?”, “Why is this my concern?” and “Even if I’m now obligated by curriculum, where would I begin since I know little to nothing about Indigenous histories and cultures?”
On October 12th, in an effort to address this tension, the national EdCan Network organized a professional learning event for over 200 teachers at the University of Lethbridge called “Truth and Reconciliation in Every School: What we know, what we don’t know, and what we need to do to move forward respectfully” – an acknowledgment that the road to reconciliation is not only an ongoing process that everyone is called to take up, but also a challenging personal investment that will unfold differently for each educator. The event catered directly to teachers and teacher candidates – regardless of where they might be along their journeys – and convened authors who had written for the recently-published Education Canada magazine special focus on Truth and Reconciliation in the Schools, which maps the progress Canadian public schools are making on this front.
“It’s not so much about the individual teacher,” explained Dr. Leroy Little Bear, the University of Lethbridge’s Special Assistant to the President. “Rather, it’s about the institutional aspect that teachers are a part of, which has played a large part in history in educating those superintendents, those Indian Agents and those ministers who brought about policies that led to residential schools.”
During the event’s main panel discussion, speakers affirmed the need for educators to assess their intentions and work towards navigating from a place of heart, in lieu of “walking on eggshells” and remaining stagnant out of fear of asking a silly question that could offend someone.
Grounded in the view that not doing anything is likewise wrong, speakers accentuated how no one will ever feel 100 percent ready to take up this challenge – that teachers need to be brave enough to say “I don’t know,” which is critical when working with Indigenous peoples and marginalized communities, according to panellist Dr. Pamela Rose Toulouse.
Beyond those three words follows a willingness to reach out to valuable human resources – school district Indigenous consultants, Elders, Knowledge Keepers and those with authentic expertise – so that teachers can advance their own knowledge, build trust-based relationships, and work collaboratively with Indigenous peoples to teach all students about treaties, residential schools and long-standing issues facing Indigenous communities.
“Our biggest obstacle to reconciliation is ourselves,” emphasized Dr. Pamela Rose Toulouse, Associate Professor at Laurentian University and author of Truth and Reconciliation in Canadian Schools. “On the one hand, educators have their fears, misunderstandings and pride, while on the flipside it could be a question of indifference.”
“But I don’t have Indigenous students in my school” is but one of the common excuses Dr. Toulouse has encountered from educators. Her suggestion is to liken reconciliation as a collective endeavour as are other large-scale challenges such as food security, climate change and equity, which touch anyone who has children, grandchildren, nephews and nieces, family and friends who comprise today’s generation and those to come. Confronting indifference and excuses also entails illuminating the contemporary contributions of Indigenous peoples – giving credit where credit is due for Indigenous inventions and inspirations for the “sport of hockey, medicines, potato chips and Dr. Pepper,” as Dr. Toulouse listed. Whereas curriculum will speak about residential schools and treaties, educators are charged with filling-in gaps by leading conversations about positive Indigenous role models and contributions that have been made by Indigenous peoples.
Panellist Julaine Guitton is a novel example of a non-Indigenous teacher who has prioritized the resiliency of Indigenous peoples within her classroom over topics of cultural genocide and residential schools. This approach, entrenched in the viewpoint that Indigenous peoples are not victims first, has proven effective among her fifth and sixth-grade students as project lead for Stavely Elementary School’s “Project of Heart.” The project entails general research about residential schools in Canada, followed by more narrowed research into a particular residential school, meeting with a residential school survivor and a culminating artistic act of reconciliation. In a rural township where many students live on farms and ranches, understanding Indigenous peoples’ connection to land and place was cornerstone to these discussions which, as Elder-in-Residence Francis First Charger illustrated, allows students to understand different people, different worldviews and interrelations.
“I remember where I was when the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was finally released, and I felt especially compelled as a teacher being in a position where I knew that I could help other people,” Guitton recalled. “I didn’t know how I would accomplish that, so I decided to just wear an orange t-shirt to school one day and begin a discussion with my students about what that meant.”
Ira Provost, Manager of the Piikani Nation Consultation, was Ms. Guitton’s community resource person throughout the project. With a career as an Indigenous liaison and cross-cultural educator, Provost found himself astounded by the depth and breadth of learning that had taken place, which transpired through speeches that the students had presented to school board trustees, the superintendent, Stavely’s school principal, FNMI support personnel and Elders from the Indigenous community during a class-organized community event.
All Indigenous peoples want, as Provost highlighted, is meaningful engagement, which forms the derivative of an ongoing commitment to starting early and moving beyond one-off endeavours.
“Reconciliation is about a thousand cups of coffee,” stated panel moderator Dr. Michelle Hogue, Associate Professor and Coordinator of the University of Lethbridge’s First Nations Transition Program, in her recap of the conversation. “It’s about sitting, listening, being present and building relationships.”
Eleven of the ninety-four Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) final report are specific to education. Call to Action 63, “Building student capacity for intercultural understanding, empathy, and mutual respect,” challenges Canadian education systems to focus on students’ understanding of Indigenous human rights and social justice initiatives. Non-Indigenous students are now beginning to learn about the truth of residential schools, treaties and other long-standing issues facing Indigenous communities such as lack of clean drinking water, housing and food shortages. Truth and reconciliation is a spiritual and emotional journey required of all students and educators – from the head to the heart – that will unfold differently for everyone.
As active participants in modelling reconciliation with their students, teachers need both professional development (PD) and a support network that provides safe places to share feelings of trauma, joy, anger, resolve, grief, and hope that they may experience along this journey. PD themes can include cultural competency and safety, the First Nations Mental Health First Aid course, holistic arts therapy and other areas that explore emotional and spiritual intelligence. The support network for non-Indigenous school districts includes an Indigenous Lead, who has meaningful awareness and knowledge of learning resources and cultural protocols.
Overall, Call to Action 63 goes beyond curriculum requirements, pedagogy and resources, and it is critical to changing how generations of young people move forward together.
Czyzewski, Karina. “The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Insights into the goal of transformative education.” International Indigenous Policy Journal 2, no. 3 (2011).
McCarty, Teresa, and Tiffany Lee. “Critical culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy and Indigenous education sovereignty.” Harvard Educational Review 84, no. 1 (2014): 101-124.
Nagy, Rosemary. “The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Genesis and Design1.” Canadian Journal of Law & Society/La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société 29, no. 2 (2014): 199-217.
Savage, Catherine, Rawiri Hindle, Luanna H. Meyer, Anne Hynds, Wally Penetito, and Christine E. Sleeter. “Culturally responsive pedagogies in the classroom: Indigenous student experiences across the curriculum.” Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education 39, no. 3 (2011): 183-198.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future – Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation of Canada. Winnipeg, MB: Same as Author.
This infographic aims to empower teachers, principals and administrators across Canada with four key steps to begin implementing truth and reconciliation initiatives immediately into K-12 classrooms.
Developed in collaboration with Dr. Kate Freeman and Dr. Lindsay Morcom from Queen’s University’s Faculty of Education, and Shawn McDonald of the Algonquin & Lakeshore Catholic District School Board, this quick-scan infographic outlines how educators can avoid cultural appropriation, prioritize authentic indigenous expertise, develop relationships with local Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers, and build their own knowledge on the traditional territories that they live on. This infographic was inspired by a feature article that recently appeared in Education Canada Magazine.
The EdCan Network has also released a new Facts on Education fact sheet authored by renowned expert Dr. Pamela Rose Toulouse of Laurentian University, entitled How can we embed truth and reconciliation in every school?, which offers evidence-based strategies for how educators and students can bring this learning into our school communities.
In addition to the downloadable copy of the infographic, which can be posted in staff rooms and classrooms, here are several practical resources available to support teachers in building their knowledge and confidence on this subject matter.
Panel Moderator: Michelle Hogue
Panelists: Dr. Pamela Rose Toulouse, Ira Provost, Julaine Guittane
This conversation inspired an article published in the Summer 2018 issue of Education Canada Magazine. Read Carrying the Fire.
Illustration: Don McIntyre
Music: “Perfect” by Ketsa Music/UTK Publishing (www.ketsamusic.com)
The EdCan Network invites you to discover good practices, exemplary school programs and practical ideas for educators seeking to work towards truth and reconciliation in their schools and classrooms.
Add these books and magazine articles to your summer reading list and boost your knowledge before the next school year!
A youth talking circle on truth and reconciliation in our schools
Intentional conversations with Indigenous youth
Teachers and school leaders play a key role in reconciliation, but policy makers must resource schools for equity of opportunity and success
How to get started, and who can help
A Project of Heart at Stavely Elementary School
Download and Print the Figure
from Truth and Reconciliation, K-12: Becoming a teacher ally
Reconciliation in Action: Creating a Learning Community for Indigenous Student Success
This step-by-step report can be used to create your own unique program in consultation and collaboration with local Indigenous communities.
We’ve also put together a series of student and educator video testimonials demonstrating how “culture is medicine” that gives students a sense of pride and a will to succeed.
Where are we at in Nunavik?
Bringing Mi’kmaw Knowledge and Western curriculum together
Are you celebrating the National Indigenous Peoples Day in your school?
The theme selected for this issue of Education Canada resonates with Kativik Ilisarniliriniq,1 the school board of Nunavik. Weaved into our current activities, the goal of delivering Indigenized educational services and programs to Inuit learners animates our organization at all levels, from its elected representatives to pedagogical experts, teachers and school administrators.
Kativik Ilisarniliriniq was created in 1975, under a land claims settlement known as the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (JBNQA). Negotiated after a major hydroelectric project in the James Bay received opposition from the Inuit of Nunavik, the James Bay Cree, and other Aboriginal groups, the agreement is a protected treaty under the Constitution of Canada.
The school board embodies Inuit-controlled education. Indeed, under the JBNQA, Kativik Ilisarniliriniq can exercise unique powers to develop programs and curriculum aimed at enabling Inuit students to preserve their language, culture and identity. Providing students with access to learning based on Inuit values, culture, language, history, worldview, and approaches to pedagogy is therefore at the core of our mission and vision.
As an organization, we approach education from a holistic perspective. The services we deliver – as well as the curriculum and programs we develop – are rooted in the Inuit definition of Inuguiniq, an education process that seeks to develop the human being as a whole through direct engagement with the environment and the community. This is clearly reflected in the school board’s 2016-2023 Strategic Plan.
Applied to curriculum development work, these fundamental principles have led the school board to innovate and rethink its curriculum development framework. Rather than looking for areas where Indigenous content could be inserted into existing provincial programs, we used an Inuit perspective to incorporate the Quebec Education Plan (and other global or Euro-centric approaches to education), into a framework driven by Inuit worldview, Inuit pedagogy, and Inuit values.
The resulting curricular framework builds on Inuit heritage: thousands of years of environmental and architectural knowledge, sustainable communities, and a sophisticated language and culture. Recently presented at the Inuit Education Summit, a conference organized by the International Circumpolar Council (ICC), this approach was validated by the strong support it received from the Inuit representatives of ICC member countries.
A curricular framework built on Inuit heritage truly aligns to the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). I believe it also presents the Quebec government, through its Ministry of Education, with a unique opportunity to demonstrate leadership in working alongside Kativik Ilisarniliriniq to implement the TRC recommendations that relate to education.
Concretely, when applied to Science and Technology, using a curricular framework built on Inuit heritage has paved the way to the development of programs such as Inuit Environmental Science. Grounded in Inuit culture and land knowledge, the program aims to teach the conceptual and skills-based competencies that will allow Nunavik youth to meet and even exceed the requirements for the Quebec Ministry of Education Science and Technology Cycle One and Two and Environmental Science and Technology Progressions of Learning.
The program structures learning around seasons, with units tying lessons to the Arctic fauna, flora and environment, as illustrated in Figure 1. The program is currently being introduced for review for accreditation by the Ministry of Education.
As the school board pursues its effort to “Indigenize/Inuitize” the education services, programs and curriculum it offers, support from the Quebec Ministry of Education is essential. The Idle No More movement, the work of the TRC and its recommendations, as well as the increased media attention that Indigenous issues have attracted since the last federal elections all contribute to an environment in which there is a more acute awareness of the necessity to do things differently for reconciliation to become a reality.
As it currently stands, the Canadian public education system does not provide learners, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, with much in terms of knowledge related to “the history and legacy of residential schools, Treaties, and Aboriginal rights, as well as the historical and contemporary contributions of Aboriginal peoples to Canadian society.”2
While the situation varies from province to province, Quebec is not exempt of what the Director General of the First Nations Education Council Lise Bastien describes as “systemic ignorance.”3 This ignorance also reinforces the profound colonialization that we still have to extricate from our education system and mentality.
This point is important as it has a direct impact on the school board, and on the challenges we face as we seek the accreditation of programs and curricula built on Inuit heritage. Indeed, within the non-Aboriginal population, there is little awareness and understanding of Inuit rights enshrined in the JBNQA, and of who we are as Inuit; the government officials and ministry employees we work with are no exception to that. In this regard, it should be noted that the dialogue recently re-established between Kativik Ilisarniliriniq and the Quebec Ministry of Education also contributes to awareness-raising about Indigenous education, and is in itself a process conducive to reconciliation.
In terms of curriculum development, the Nunavik population is small and Inuit expert resources are scarce. In the case of non-Inuit expert resources in Canada, few are familiar with Inuit and Indigenous worldview and pedagogical approaches. This poses challenges that should be acknowledged; as an employer, we must be able to offer competitive work conditions to these experts who are in demand.
As mentioned above, the Quebec education system does not provide learners with much in terms of knowledge related to the historical and contemporary contributions of Indigenous peoples. As the school board caters to Inuit students and learners, filling this gap has been a priority for us.
In this regard, the following initiatives should be mentioned as best practices: 1) a new Nunavik History Program; 2) the launch of Nunavik Sivunitsavut (Nunavik Our Future, in Inuktitut); 3) the teacher training program implemented in partnership with McGill University.
Currently in progress, the development of a Nunavik History Program was undertaken in collaboration with the Avataq Cultural Institute. The program bridges the school board’s regular and adult education sectors. It consists of 12 modules and will cover the period of 1600 to 2016.
The launch of the new Quebec history program in 2017 only reinforced the school board’s determination to pursue the development of its own program. While a step in the right direction, the new program contains little content related to the Inuit in Quebec. In no way does it respond adequately to Nunavik youth’s desire for knowledge about their history and identity as Inuit.
In addition, it is also important to recognize that the Indigenous educational content offered to non-Indigenous Canadians through the public education system (as well as the lack of such content) will continue to have tremendous repercussions on the Inuit of Nunavik. The school board (and other Nunavik organizations) would benefit from provincial education systems that offer more Indigenous and Inuit educational content. This would have a positive impact on our workforce if, in the future, the professionals we recruit outside Nunavik were to arrive with knowledge about Indigenous peoples in Canada, and a better understanding of the Arctic context and communities in which they are working.
Nunavik Sivunitsavut is inspired by the successful Ottawa-based Nunavut Sivuniksavut, that has been around for 30 years. Hosted at the Avataq Cultural Institute in Montreal, the initiative offers a one-year college-level experience to adults who hold a Secondary Studies Diploma. The courses, the knowledge and the skills student acquire are rooted in the Inuit culture, language and identity.
For each course completed, students obtain college credit from John Abbott College (our accreditation partner). The credit accumulated can count towards any college or CEGEP program in Quebec. The Nunavik Sivunitsavut team is currently formed of six teachers, two of whom are Inuit from Nunavik. Nunavik and Inuit experts are frequent guests in our classrooms and we are grateful to all those who have generously shared their knowledge with students.
Nunavik Sivunitsavut enriches the options available to Nunavik youth at the college level in Quebec. As our first cohort indicates, the initiative is well positioned to have a positive impact on student perseverance at the post-secondary level. Our hope is that it will contribute to increase the number of Nunavimmiut4 holding college and university level education, so that more Inuit can benefit from professional and economic opportunities in Nunavik.
Nunavik is a huge territory and there are not many opportunities for youth from different communities to meet and exchange with one another. At Nunavik Sivunitsavut, students share a strong learning experience through which a common sense of Inuit identity emerges. Students from the same cohort will very likely meet again in future roles or professional positions. From that perspective, Nunavik Sivunitsavut can also foster future partnerships and collaborations in the region.
Ensuring the transmission of Inuit values, culture, and language through an education system where Inuit employees form only 51.49 percent of the workforce is challenging. At the moment, the school board employs 462 teachers, of which 36.4 percent are Inuit (168 Inuit teachers) and 40 percent of them hold a teaching certification issued by the Quebec Ministry of Education.
To increase access to the profession of educator, Kativik Ilisarniliriniq offers a Teacher Certification program and professional development programs to its Inuit teachers, Inuit teacher trainees and Inuit school administrators.
The program is implemented in partnership with McGill University. All courses are taught in Inuktitut, by Inuit instructors working alongside with McGill consultants. Since 1978, a total of 182 Inuit teachers have graduated from this program. As such, it has contributed to and continues to play an important role in building pedagogical expertise in Nunavik.
The recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission are valuable in many ways. In fact, they support Kativik Ilisarniliriniq in the exercise of the unique powers conferred to it by the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. They also validate the approach that characterizes our program development work. Most importantly, they highlight the opportunities currently available to us (as well as our interlocutors within the Ministry of Education) that can be seized to refocus the conversation on the educational needs of our communities. In this regard, and as discussed here, many initiatives are already well underway!
Photo: Marie-Andrée Delisle-Alaku/Kativik Ilisarniliriniq
First published in Education Canada, June 2018
1 Kativik Ilisarniliriniq means Kativik School Board in Inuktitut.
2 Guiding principle number 10. See: Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action, 2015.
3 Coined by Lise Bastien, Director General of the First Nations Education Council, the term “systemic ignorance” has since been widely used to describe the general lack of knowledge non-Indigenous Canadians display about Indigenous people in Canada, their language, culture, current realities and identity. Bastien first used the term when advocating for inclusion of content on Indigenous people in the province’s pedagogical material and curriculum as well as for the inclusion of content developed from an indigenous perspective. See: Jessica Nadeau, Plaidoyer pour une présence accrue de la culture autochtone, Le Devoir, November 29, 2016.
4 The term Nunavimmiut is an Inuktitut word. It is used to designate “the residents of Nunavik.” Currently, the Inuit represent approximately 85 percent of the Nunavik population (Statistics Canada, Fact Sheet for Nunavik, March 29, 2016).
My grandmother, Madonna Rose Toulouse, attended St. Joseph’s Residential School for Girls in Spanish, Ontario. She contracted pneumonia during her time there, nearly died and was sent home to Wikwemikong First Nation on Manitoulin Island. For the rest of her life she had chronic lung issues because of this illness. Madonna has been in the Spirit World for almost five years now. It is important to know that my grandmother was one of the strongest and funniest people I have ever known. She was a storyteller; known for her humour, conveying of genealogy and sometimes harsh (but true) advice. Madonna continues to have a profound and deep impact on me and this is why Truth and Reconciliation in our schools hits close to home. I am so glad that this complex part of our Canadian story is going to be remembered, retold and hopefully learned from.
So what is at the core of Truth and Reconciliation in K to 12? What does it actually look like in the day-to-day classroom activities of our children, youth and young adults? This article offers a glimpse of the possibilities for relationship building, curriculum connections and personal growth.
Residential school impacts, Indigenous peoples’ contributions, understanding treaties and cultural teachings are themes that provide a foundation for all students.1 Each of these topics first and foremost has to be centred around the Indigenous communities where your school is located. For the educator, it means taking that step to reach out and connect with the First Nations, Métis and/or Inuit peoples in the area. This may begin with contacting the person responsible for Indigenous education at your school board. Or it may start with attending Indigenous events in your area (e.g. Walking With Our Sisters installation, Red Dress campaign, Louis Riel Day, Arctic Winter Games, powwows). Either way, this process will require your time and the ability to keep an open mind.
Having the ability to say “I don’t know” and learning together is what educators and students do in classrooms that honour Indigenous ways of knowing.2 Many educators in K to 12 fear getting Indigenous content wrong or misrepresenting the information. This is why it is important to include a variety of resources that are authentic, and why I am a strong advocate for Indigenous voices speaking for themselves and integrating them across the curriculum. I suggest having traditional and contemporary knowledge keepers about residential schools, treaties and the teachings be valued guests in K to 12. These meaningful visits need to be supported by lessons (pre and/or post) that are interactive, hands-on and have real-life applications.3 The content of these lessons can come from these suggested books on residential schools and treaties for elementary and secondary classrooms (see Figure 1). Please note that this is not meant to be an exhaustive list, as each province and territory may have its own suggested resources on these topics.
I am very lucky to work with some amazing people at my university who have innovative ways of approaching reconciliation with action at the centre of it. Shelly Moore-Frappier is the Director of our Indigenous Sharing Learning Centre (ISLC). She comes from the elementary/secondary system and taught for a number of years at that level. Shelly and her team at the ISLC have designed and continue to deliver a program called “One Dish, One Spoon.” This program bridges elementary students (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) to the university with Truth and Reconciliation as the main driver. Grade 6 students from our region come to the university to hear from Indigenous youth who are making a difference in social change. Thirteen-year-old Autumn Peltier, known for her advocacy for water, is one of the key speakers, as well as other Indigenous role models. The Grade 6 students spend the day immersed in workshops and activities centred on their interests and ways to implement reconciliation in our schools and communities. Each school leaves with a commitment to a project that they will engage to implement Truth and Reconciliation (such as a community garden commemorating survivors and inviting residential school survivors to guest speak at their schools).
Project of Heart and their lived philosophy of students leading change is truly reconciliation in action. This national initiative honours the voices of survivors and provides a space for youth (and their mentors) to communicate their learning journeys. One can’t help but feel inspired by the multitude of stories where our young people share what they have learned (and are doing) about the residential schools legacy. Another project that touches my spirit is the 2016 Science Camp at Algoma University, where 40 Indigenous students from local First Nations participate in a week of focused activities. These 12- to 15-year-olds toured Shingwauk Residential School, listened to the stories of survivors and created wooden tiles (installation pieces) with personal reflections. When you take a closer look at the tiles, the message “forever loved, never forgotten” stands out. These words underpin the work of our youth and their brave mentors across this country.
I have had the honour of knowing Troy Maracle (Hastings Prince Edward District School Board), Jody Alexander (Ottawa-Carleton District School Board), Kathy Dokis-Ranney (Rainbow District School Board) and many other Indigenous Leads for years. I’ve seen their collective work in action and their tireless advocacy for Indigenous inclusion across K to 12. These individuals and their network of supports have implemented reconciliation activities like Orange Shirt Day, Shannen’s Dream, KAIROS Blanket Exercises, Treaties Week and National Indigenous Peoples’ Day on June 21 (for URLs and more activities, see box: “Reconciliation Activities for Schools and Allies”).
These folks, their students and their communities’ commitment to Truth and Reconciliation are making the difference. Their leadership and community connection is the promise of reconciliation in action.
I am Anishinabe. My mother was Odawa and my father is Ojibwe. I also consider myself an ally for human and other-than-human rights (the earth and her children). Being an ally is a role that we all must occupy if we wish to see a better future for our children and the next seven generations. Allies from all walks of life are critical to implementing the Calls to Action from the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) Report.4 Defining oneself as an ally requires understanding who you are, why you are involved and how you can make a difference.
For myself, I see advancing the TRC calls as directly connected to my role as a teacher and a learner. I have spent a good part of 25 years focused on Indigenous education, with a specific emphasis on pedagogy. This has led me to some interesting and ever-evolving observations, the most prominent being that what works for Indigenous students often works for most others. Classrooms that build from a holistic model and/or consideration for the whole child tend to work for all students5 (see Figure 2). This means that allies need to commit to reconceptualizing their classrooms and how they teach all students. It further requires planning our school year with the spiritual, physical, emotional and intellectual aspects of education in mind.
This model and teachings come from the Anishinabek of my area. Each Indigenous Nation has their own understanding of holistic education.
The sacred circle is a place where we all belong and have a role to play in this journey towards Truth and Reconciliation. Being and becoming an ally for each other (human and non-human) is the only way to bring those Calls to Action forward in K to 12. Professional in-service, curriculum inclusion, policy development and engaging with each other is only part of the solution. Developing real relationships, acknowledging our failures and finding new ways to support the TRC in our classrooms will be the real challenge.6 I’ve accepted this call. I am reminded of it every time I drive past a school, stop behind a school bus, or talk to one of my students. I hope that you too accept this call as we move forward, together, in a space of respect, truth and transformative change.
You can support the TRC by becoming an ally and participating in these select initiatives:
Photo: Shutterstock
First published in Education Canada, June 2018
1 Margaret Kovach, “Treaties, Truths and Transgressive Pedagogies: Re-imagining Indigenous presence in the classroom,” Socialist Studies/Études Socialistes 9, no. 1 (2013).
2 C. Savage, R.i Hindle, L. H. Meyer, et al., “Culturally Responsive Pedagogies in the Classroom: Indigenous student experiences across the curriculum,” Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education 39, no. 3 (2011): 183-198.
3 G. Ladson-Billings, G., 2014. “Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 2.0: Aka the remix,” Harvard Educational Review 84, no. 1 (2014: 74-84.
4 Karina Czyzewski, “The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Insights into the goal of transformative education,” International Indigenous Policy Journal 2, no. 3 (2011).
5 Jan Hare, and Michelle Pidgeon, “The Way of the Warrior: Indigenous youth navigating the challenges of schooling,” Canadian Journal of Education 34, no. 2 (2011): 93.
6 Rosemary Nagy, “The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Genesis and design,” Canadian Journal of Law & Society/La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société 29, no. 2 (2014): 199-217.
When planning this special edition of Education Canada, one thing we knew for sure is that we did not want to overlook the insights and ideas of the people at the heart of the issue: Indigenous students. On January 19, 2018, four young adults joined us in a phone discussion to share their thoughts about what Truth and Reconciliation means to them and how that should be reflected in our schools…
I know these are big, open-ended tough questions, but really you are the next generation and are going to be the game changers, and ones who open up doors in a lot of different ways, so we’re very interested in what you have to say.
HUNTER: Moving into the 21st century, I do believe that we need to take action. Some of the reserves have been taking action. The chief for Whitecap, outside of Saskatoon here, really puts emphasis on supporting the youth in the community. There’s more funding going toward the school, and it’s creating a great environment for the young people of that community. I think we do need to put emphasis on the younger generation in order to move forward. There are other issues, such as domestic violence, sexual abuse, drug addictions and suicide, but if we teach the younger generation that this is not the way, that it doesn’t have to be like this, then they will strive to actually make things better once they graduate and go out into the world. That’s my take on reconciliation and youth.
I go to school in the city now. I transferred down south coming out of Grade 9, for the betterment of my education. My mom really didn’t want me to stay up north in my reserve because the education there is poor, the school system is underfunded.
TARENE: That’s what I think we should talk about a little bit, how Indigenous education systems are funded a lot less than mainstream education. It was the same with me, I grew up on a reserve and I did graduate from the high school on my reserve, but from Grade 1 to 9/10, I went to school in the city. It was for the same reason; I wanted a better education so I registered myself and my siblings in the public school system.
But that’s a huge problem, that we have to outsource ourselves to other places away from our community, where we can be involved in our culture and kinship. Those ties are sort of lost, and we have to make that leap just to have the same level of education that non-Indigenous people are having. That’s something that really needs to be addressed.
TALIA: I moved away from my territory, from the prairies, because it was really hard being there as an Indigenous person, with the negative stereotypes that come along with this heritage. It’s really frustrating. But for the years I’ve been travelling, I’ve always carried this big sense of guilt for leaving home, like I’m leaving my family or my siblings or somebody there that would need me. It was just going back this Christmas that I realized that I no longer have to feel guilty or selfish for leaving home, for wanting to better myself – and that came with giving up alcohol and trying to be more traditional and smudging more and trying to be more active in any type of discussion that involves Indigenous people. But I’m still contemplating whether, when I’m done with my academia, if I want to go back and try to create a positive space for the Indigenous people there.
HUNTER: I also have stresses from my family, knowing the problems that they are going through. It really hinders me sometimes from concentrating on what needs to be done. Like my cousin commited suicide, just a year and two days ago, and after that I did abuse alcohol for awhile. It was hard, really hard, getting over that. It took about a month before I realized, what can I do so this doesn’t happen again? So that’s when I decided to take an interest and learn about my culture and my people.
We should teach the true history of Canada. I think that if we start to teach those histories and the effects of colonialism, then we’ll start to clear the air a little bit because I feel like that’s where a lot of the racism and ignorance comes from.
TARENE: Another issue is Indigenizing education. We need to be starting in early elementary and right through to Grade 12, because a lot of the gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people come from the ignorance and not knowing the history, not understanding colonialism and the effects it has on Indigenous people. So in social studies in Grades 4-7, you’re learning about settlers coming into Canada, and you have that small little paragraph that says First Nations People wilfully moved so settlers could live there. We should teach the true history of Canada. I think that if we start to teach those histories and the effects of colonialism, then we’ll start to clear the air a little bit because I feel like that’s where a lot of the racism and ignorance comes from.
I also think it’s really important to create spaces for Indigenous students wherever it may be, in communities, in the school system, in the city. And there needs to be relationship building between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students so we can start to break down the barriers that keep people focused on the negativity.
GREG: One thing that I wanted to talk about was creating that dialogue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. I spent my entire schooling in the public system. There was an elementary school on my reserve, but I was always put into the city school 15 minutes away. But as I transitioned from elementary to middle to high school, I noticed that people’s conceptions about Indigenous people had drastically changed, to the point that going into high school I felt uncomfortable and alienated. I think that trying to promote that dialogue and trying to have those conversations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people will help us understand each other’s differences and find a common place to be able to agree on something that allows us to move forward. Too many times I feel that people focus on each other’s weaknesses when we should really be focused on what makes them strong, and on using those strengths to better our nation as a whole.
TARENE: Those are really good points. There need to be spaces made for those types of conversations, facilitated by people who are comfortable and trained, and they should be happening in school systems in all different levels and age groups. I think when people have these conversations in a… I don’t really want to say safe space, because no one can guarantee a safe space, but in a relatively safe space, I think a lot of times people come through with a better understanding, as opposed to learning something through a book.
HUNTER: I do agree with this. In Native Studies, we were reading about sweat lodges and smudging, but learning about it from a book is very different from actually doing it. You get a deeper understanding, you actually get a connection, when you actually do something that’s related to the topic. That’s true about anything, really, I think it’s one of the major problems with education as a whole. It emphasizes the memory of things and doesn’t really emphasize doing it. That also has to do with getting the students interested. They’ll have a deeper understanding of the subject and in turn will be interested in learning more.
TALIA: I want to help plan curriculum, I want to help change the way we teach our kids. And I think the first thing that needs to be instilled is that sense of cultural pride, getting those little kids into a sweat lodge, teaching them that our identity is valuable. Then they’ll be able to carry the fire, and then they’ll be able to be more prepared for the life we send them off into.
They’ve tried for the last 500 years to assimilate us, and it’s not going to happen. They say it takes two to three generations to lose your culture, but we’ve been fighting for it for the last seven. Yeah, it’s nice to teach it here at the university level, but before we even start sharing it with our European neighbours or our other minorities, who are really beautiful too, we have to instill it in our kids. We have to take it back before we can try to explain to anyone else how beautiful it is.
You know, I look at my friends who come from, I guess, a privileged lifestyle where their parents were successful, they had jobs, health care, health insurance… So they didn’t have to go through Indian Affairs, cause it sucks, you know? There’s such a huge stigma around it, that when people bring it up, I’m actually kind of still ashamed that I need help from Indian Affairs. And my non-Indigenous friends who are younger than me are getting their Masters degrees, while I… I’ve worked amazing jobs, travelled to the most Northern remote places, but I pretty much failed my first semester of university here in Montreal and I was scared – scared to go home, scared to tell anybody. I’m in therapy for this, and it’s help me realize that growing up I pretty much raised my siblings and I developed this sense of “I have to do it on my own, no one can help me.” And that I had to overcome all of the shitty things I went through as a kid and in my teens and what I’ve done to myself because I was really incredibly hurt, from being a residential school survivor survivor. I didn’t have to actually go to residential school to have the exact same effects happen to me – being taken away from my parents, being in foster care, the molestation and abuse. It was all there.
TARENE: If I could change one thing? It would be kind of adding on to what Talia was saying, teaching our youth that we are not vessels for white settler colonial shame. We’ve been talking a lot about barriers, and I think one of the reasons why there are so many barriers in front of our people is because it’s kind of the narrative we’ve been told. That’s what society teaches us – that our families are broken so they can’t teach us anything about who we are. So it’s important for our generation and for us when we have children, to instill that in our kids, to be proud of who we are. And then we need to start peeling back these layers, that colonial narrative that’s all over Canada that kind of fits Indigenous people into one box, you know, like the dumb drunk Indian. To do that we need to start within the school systems.
GREG: I know personally when I was younger I wasn’t really connected to my culture, and I did face a lot of mental health issues and alcohol abuse. I was a lost soul for a while. I was able to rediscover myself when I got more involved in my culture and learned a lot more about my traditions. It gave me a more holistic approach and allowed me to feel a lot more like who I am. I just really want that for every other Indigenous youth out there.
TALIA: I just hope they find it a lot sooner than we did. That’s one of the biggest issues right now that we’re facing as a generation: we are really fighting for who we are. I’m fighting to take back my language. I’m fighting to feel comfortable in my own skin for being brown. I have to fight to learn my name in my language and figure out what Bear Clan actually means, and what Eagle Woman means and Migiiziikwe, to find out where my people come from and why I carry a peace pipe.
I’m incredibly proud and happy now about who I am as an individual and what small accomplishments I’ve actually made. And it’s learning to be humble and to have humility, and to share and to laugh, and to just exude love all the time.
TARENE: I would want it to be challenging, but also a space where they feel respected and where people know their histories.
HUNTER: I would like my children or grandchildren to find more fulfilment in life through their schooling. When they enter it, they are still on their journey of finding who they are, and when they leave I want them to have a stronger sense of who they are as a person and go off in the world from that place of knowing who they are. That’s my big thing with school: it’s very hard to find yourself in it.
I want to add, I want all kids to go to school feeling like they are not less human for who they are, their background, their people. I want them to feel fully human. I went to school feeling left out because of the colour of my skin.
TALIA: I just hope that, ten years from now, there’s a school on every fucking reserve! A properly funded school, with running water, that isn’t in trailers, that can give them a place to actually flourish and realize who they are and be proud of who they are – and also give them the life tools to be successful.
And I really want them to have a safe home. That truly depends on me and us as parents to not make the same mistakes.
GREG: Everyone pretty much covered it. I want my grandchildren to have that identity, and not to be at a disadvantage because of their ethnicity or because of who they are. That’s something that a lot of Indigenous people are facing today – we have had more struggles compared to other people. I don’t want our kids having to face those kinds of struggles.
HUNTER: I have just one thing to add I guess. I was told that it’s been seven generations before ours that have had a time of pain and suffering, and that it will take seven generations more until that pain has fully healed. I was told it is our generation, the Millenials, that is the start of that seven-generation healing process. When I was told this, I felt compelled and motivated to start doing things to better myself and my people. It is us who will rekindle the flame of hope. And through that hope, will inspire others to actually go on that journey.
First published in Education Canada, May 2018
A THIN FOG hung above the restless water of Alaska’s Alexander Archipelago, veiling the mountains as they stood rooted in the ocean’s deep fjords. I had driven this route since the beginning of the school year nearly two months before. Timing the drive perfectly, I would arrive at the first bus stop, far up the finger-like inlet, at just the right moment to meet the two children who lived there at the end of their scamper from their front door, greeting them with my best bus-driver’s smile.
That morning, I noticed that I had arrived early at the widened shoulder a mile or two before that first, daily rendezvous. Wheeling the 11 ½-meter behemoth off of the highway, I chose to wait out my ten extra minutes here, where I could meditate on the rising sun and the scattering of the morning mists. Throughout Southeast Alaska the highways are chipped from the mountainsides along the water’s edge, and it was here, next to the perpetually rolling waves, that I now paused.
A sudden motion just off shore caught my eye. A deep, churning whirlpool pierced the surface of the waters. In a moment I was out of the bus and had hopped to a large boulder that rose above the rolling waves. No sooner had I landed than the black and white form of a killer whale drove three meters into the air beside me. Four meters out, the surface crashed with the fall of the returning whale. Immediately, I was aware of the pod, skimming, slicing and surfacing before me, to my right, to my left. Across the channel a second pod chased salmon in ritual feasting.
“Five minutes since I stopped…” I thought. “Perhaps I could collect the children early and return.” The engine fired; yes, the boy and his little sister (seven and five) headed out the door early as they saw the bus approaching.
As I was also completing a practicum in their school, I had seen these two children, who greeted me early each morning with such warmth, later in the day, dissolving into the social fabric of the school, silently disappearing. Conversations with the students themselves, their teachers and their parents revealed the deeper challenges they felt as they struggled to accommodate both traditional Tlingit values and the foreign expectations of formal academia. Their father was a world-renowned carver of Tlingit totems, some of which stood in European museums. Now his children, as well, were attempting to stand strong in their school.
“Why are we stopping here?”
“You’ll see. Look out there!”
“What is it?”
“It’s the orca. They have come here to eat.”
“Can we get out? What do they eat? Where are they going? How fast can an orca swim…?”
As the bus filled that day, I saw the two children melting again into silence, but as I glanced in my mirror from time to time, I saw a sparkle in their eyes, and I knew orcas played there.1 Over the course of the intervening 30 years, my work both in Alaska and on the Canadian prairies has taught me much about the value of land-based education. I have had the great privilege of sitting with many Elders, gaining insight into land-based learning as traditionally practiced and understood by the Tsimshian, Tlingit, Haida, Dene, Anishinaabe, Dakota, and Cree nations.
Settler societies around the world create educational institutions that function to perpetuate the philosophical understandings of the dominant culture. Consequently, they do a disservice to learners who are thereby deprived of broader understandings of the world. In the Canadian context, for example, children (Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike) might learn facts pertaining to the biology and habitat of killer whales, but they would not gain an understanding of the intricacies of relationship within the circle of creation.
The colonial, pedagogical structures within which educators are obliged to operate, both in terms of curriculum and instructional practice, consistently stand in stark contrast to understandings of the world that are rooted in diverse, Indigenous, philosophical perspectives. Teachers are required to hold forth in classrooms that are far removed from lessons that can be learned on the land. They are to teach classes of 25 or more with limited time for students and still less for those who are the silent ones. The inculcation of outcomes often supersedes real learning, and these outcomes reflect perspectives that have not been reconciled with philosophical truths found in Indigenous worldviews. Furthermore, learning on the land from the teachers one finds there is, all too often, discredited and deemed to be irrelevant and unquantifiable. Indigenous Elders, however, tell us that profound lessons can be learned from all whom we find on the land, including those of the winged, finned, plant, four and six-legged nations.
The educational machinery established by dominant, colonial culture exists to continue the larger societal systems. The enfranchised will remain enfranchised, and the marginalized will not escape marginalization in successive generations without a genuine process of reconciliation where alternative world-views are not only appreciated but embraced.
Of key concern, then, are questions of validation: are there not invaluable lessons being missed by all students when the lessons of the land, so familiar to traditional Indigenous individuals, are ignored? Stemming from this central philosophical concern arise other, practical considerations. For example, in what ways can the accomplishments and learning that take place on the land be validated, and how do we teach students to listen to the many teachers within the circle of creation?
Traditional land-based learning presents in two distinct categories: learning that is imparted by Elders and/or traditional knowledge keepers in the community, and learning that derives from the land itself. Teachings received on and from the land fashion both conceptualizations of the world and moral understandings pertaining to self-conduct in the world. In support of this dynamic form of education, the Coalition for the Advancement of Indigenous, Land-Based Education (CAILBE) was originated in Canada and is now an international coalition built around the revitalization of traditional, Indigenous ways of learning on and from the land. With adherents from around the world and members in seven nations (Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Nigeria, Sweden and the U.S.), CAILBE is dedicated to promoting governmental and institutional changes that result in the acknowledgement of Indigenous understandings regarding LBE and to assisting individual teachers in the development and inclusion of traditional LBE experiences for their students. This work is accomplished not through direct political action but through the empowerment of educators to take part in engineering real and lasting change. CAILBE has grown rapidly since its inception in June of 2016. CAILBE members have made a commitment to infuse the work that they are already doing with promotion of LBE and the philosophical perspectives that underlie it. Members with initiatives, questions or academic presentations are guided and supported by this international association.
Dr. Richard Manning, CAILBE member from the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ, has observed, “The last century of compulsory schooling has rendered young people disconnected from their… local ecologies of place.”2 If it is to be intuitive, land-based education (LBE) must begin early in life, frequently in the context of family structures and activities. Teachers seeking to implement Indigenous, land-based learning strategies have found that many students from almost every environment (not just “city kids”) lack these early, land-based learning experiences and must be given guidance in their first encounters with learning on the land.
Certainly, many teachers attempt to incorporate fieldtrips into the delivery of curricular outcomes. Although this is laudable, it does not reflect the realities of those who have learned deeply from the land. To pass through the natural environment on an excursion related to, for example, a science class, does not equate to this type of Indigenous, land-based learning. By contrast, in progressive models, students are taught the basic foundations of traditional LBE. (See Gakina Awiya Biindigeg below.)
Those who learn on the land must first develop a sense of respect for all the teachings that may be found there. Cree Elder Gerald Morgan frequently asks the students he teaches on the land if they have seen anything as they travelled to meet him in the bush. Very often they give a negative response, meaning that they have seen nothing that they consider noteworthy (e.g. moose, eagles, bears). Morgan then asks if they saw no trees, no sparrows, no rocks. He goes on to explain that the greatest lessons are often brought by the smallest of teachers. We are so schooled in hierarchical thinking of European origin that we fail to appreciate the smallest of these teachers.
Students who seek to learn on the land must also know how to wait long there. Lessons do not become a part of who we are until we consider deeply the implications for the way we walk in this world. In the same way that students must listen and observe closely to comprehend that which is being conveyed by a teacher in a classroom, so, too, learning on the land requires that keen attention be given in order to understand the lessons imparted there.
The goal of LBE within a great many Indigenous communities around the world is that each student learns to take his or her place in the circles of creation and community in a good way. This is the essence of the Anishinaabe/Cree teaching of pimatisiwin (walking in a good manner).3 To take our place well in the circle involves being in harmonious relationship with all others in the circle and with the Great Mystery (i.e. Creator) at the circle’s centre. We come to understand that all our relations in the circle can show what they have learned about these things, and, as respected teachers, they can guide us into better ways of being in the world as we learn from them on the land.
Dr. Maggie Walter, CAILBE member and University of Tasmania professor, describes Indigenous connection to the land in personal terms: “I am a descendant of the Trawlwoolway in Tasmania. The nation takes up the north east corner of Tasmania and is distinguished by wonderful white beaches, open wooded country and plentiful plant and animal resource around which our traditional people’s lifestyles were based. Not many of us live in the area these days – it is a relatively sparsely populated part of Tasmania – but if you travel there you can see the signs of our people’s occupation everywhere – in the midden lines in the sands and the shells along the beaches. You don’t have to be Aboriginal to understand our connection to country or to feel the continued presence of our ancestors in this place.”4
Clearly a significant paradigm shift must take place for land-based learning to be given weight in the schooling systems of settler societies. Some, such as Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, question whether this can be done at all.5 The argument here is that land-based learning and colonial educational practices are too disparate to be reconciled and that, should an individual seek to be educated on the land, the better course of action is to jettison any hope of incorporating this into the accredited procedures of education in mainstream schooling.
On the other hand, recent trends in pedagogy in Canada and elsewhere have begun to explore differentiated ways of learning. These efforts represent positive steps toward recognizing, validating and normalizing the learning of students in traditional ways on the land. A groundswell of support for change, of which CAILBE is merely one manifestation, is seeking to alter the direction of current practices in education. As with most philosophical shifts, one must think in terms of generations rather than in terms of years. For this reason CAILBE members recognize that the greatest need is to present educational experiences to coming generations that reflect Indigenous understandings and values. The central aims are that Indigenous ideals become valued at a level that is at least on par with those of the larger settler-societies and that, as part of this shift, time be allotted for Indigenous land-based learning. As this becomes a reality, LBE could potentially become a transformative force in the development of all students.
The revitalization of Indigenous, land-based education may, in some jurisdictions, involve the creation of alternate, accredited tracks toward graduation in which Indigenous philosophy and LBE are central. At the very least, a greater openness to the involvement of traditional knowledge keepers in the imparting of understanding to students must be forthcoming. Legislative enactment of policy and law governing education most often supports and finances those systems deemed to be efficient in confirming the status quo; nevertheless, it is at this legislative level that change must, eventually, come. Therefore, those who understand the importance of traditional LBE must raise a collective voice, both by joining organizations such as CAILBE and by infusing their current practices in education with an appreciation for Indigenous values and world-views, including ways of knowing and learning on the land.
The Gakina Awiya Biindigeg student group at Springfield Collegiate Institute in Oakbank, Manitoba, is one example of a progressive land-based learning program. For over a decade students who participated in this optional programming were regularly taken onto the land to learn from Elders and traditional people. The scope of this learning was extremely broad and included traditional values and teachings derived from the experiences encountered while in a variety of remote locations. Students were shown how to relate to the various teachers that are encountered on the land (e.g. the four-legged, many-legged, finned, winged), enabling them to learn directly from these teachers during independent ventures onto the land. When Elders felt that a student was ready s/he would be put out onto the land for a vision quest or other ceremony. Through the avenue of Manitoba’s cultural exploration credit, students were enabled to use this traditional learning towards graduation.
Photo: iStock
First published in Education Canada, June 2018
1 The young boy mentioned in this story has now grown and has followed in his father’s footsteps as a carver. The young girl is a library assistant who has, among other things, initiated a children’s garden at the local public library where she works.
2 Richard Manning, Place, Power and Pedagogy: A Critical Analysis of the Status of Te Ātiawa Histories of Place in Port Nicholson Block Secondary Schools and the Possible Application of Place-Based Education Models ((PhD thesis, 2009): 56.
3 The late Dr. Mary Young elaborates on this concept in her book Pimatisiwin: Walking in a Good Way: A Narrative Inquiry into Language as Identity, (Winnipeg: Pemmican Publications, Inc., 2009).
4 Maggie Walter, “Meet the Presenter: Maggie Walter, Indigenous Studies,” Open 2 Study (August, 2014). https://blog.open2study.com/post/meet-presenter-maggie-walter-indigenous-studies
5 Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, “Land as Pedagogy: Nishnaabeg intelligence and rebellious transformation,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society. 3, no. 3 (2014). http://decolonization.org/index.php/des/article/view/22170
On the morning of September 30, 2016 I wore an orange shirt to school. I had received an e-mail about Orange Shirt Day, including a short video, and I decided to wear orange and talk to my students about residential schools and reconciliation during our Social Studies time. I showed them the video, and the looks on their faces told me that they had questions. They asked me things like, “Is this for real?” and “Did this really happen in Canada?” They had legitimate questions and the desire to learn and pursue them was evident in our classroom conversation.
I teach at Stavely Elementary School, a very small rural school in Southern Alberta. There are less than 100 students in our K-6 school and we teach multiage classrooms. I teach a Grade 5/6 split. We are about a 40-minute drive from the nearest First Nation reserve.
I had been looking to do some problem-based learning within our Social Studies that year and I decided that this would be our topic. We listed our questions, and ultimately defined our guiding question as, “How do we find out the truth about residential schools in Canada and make reconciliation with this part of our history?” This was a big question with lots to unpack for a class of Grade 5’s and 6’s. We began by doing research, using books and the Internet, but found that we were struggling to find appropriate resources. I then approached
our Livingstone Range FNMI (First Nations, Métis and Inuit) Success Coordinator, Georgina Henderson, who became an integral part of our work. She helped connect our class to residential school survivors and the Project of Heart.1 It was clear to me early on that this was a big project, with a lot of important thinking. It was not going to be done in one day or even a week. It became a thread that ran through our entire school year. I think this allowed us to begin to engage in some real reconciliation – you see, I don’t think reconciliation is something to be checked off a list as completed; it is a continual work in progress.
For me, the story of reconciliation starts a long time ago. I grew up on a ranch on the Milk River Ridge that has been in my family for generations. I know places by the names that have been passed down through my family, and I appreciate the necessity of stewardship of the land. I also know that my family were not the first ones there. I remember being a very little girl and riding with my dad. We stopped to close a gate, and when I looked down from my saddle, I saw a rock that looked to be a hammerhead. From where we sat on our horses that day we could see the tipi rings in the grass and the river close by. Someone had clearly lost that rock long before I walked there.
I love the land, and I am a treaty person. It starts there for me. Home is a special and sacred place; I would hate to lose it. I know that it became my home through homesteading, which was made possible because of treaties signed with First Nations. Because of my presence on the land today I, too, am a treaty person. This story resonated for many of my students, many of whom come from farms and ranches and have strong a connection to the land in our area. I think in some ways this provided a point of connection for our investigation and project. We discussed what it would feel like to have special and important pieces of our land taken from us. Students could identify with this; they responded with anger and sadness. Then we started to talk about what it would be like to be taken away from our families, separated from our brothers and sisters, and placed in a school where everything was different. The students truly felt empathy for the students who attended residential schools. They questioned how it was even possible. We looked at the point of view of the government of the time. This angered and saddened my students. We learned a lot about how and why residential schools were used in Canada.
Project of Heart is a collaborative journey of learning about residential schools in Canada from those who survived them. It includes general research about residential schools in Canada, then a more narrowed research journey into a specific residential school, including meeting with a residential school survivor, and then finally an artistic act of reconciliation. We had already done general research when I learned about this opportunity, and were ready to begin a more detailed look at a residential school that was near to us. Mrs. Henderson connected us with Ira Provost and the Piikani Traditional Knowledge Services centre in Brocket, and we felt that St. Cyprian’s Indian Residential School would be a good place for the class to focus our attention. Mrs. Henderson set out to find a survivor who would be able to work with our class. We found this in Mrs. Betty-Anne Little Wolf. I was thrilleto have her join our journey, as we had worked together previously at F. P. Walshe School, where she had been the Native Liaison Worker prior to her retirement.
As we were moving into Project of Heart, we had a launch in our classroom. Each student wrote about their thoughts, feelings, and the things they had learned through our research so far. We then shared them with our audience, which included residential school survivors, members of the Piikani Nation, parents, our superintendent, and our school principal. It was a big day; the sincerity of the students was palpable in the room. Some of the words that students shared that day were:
“Our learning is important because it has touched our hearts.”
“This project made me think how sad it must have been for parents that had to let go of their children… and how awful it must have been to go to residential schools.”
“I was saddened to learn about residential schools and the grief that they brought First Nations, but I also saw hope when I learned more about Orange Shirt Day.”
“Why would Canadians think of taking other families’ kids without their permission and trying to change their culture?”
At the end of our launch day I recorded the following reflection:
I was overwhelmed by the power of the student voices, their sincerity and true heart. I am thankful that I have the opportunity to work with such amazing students each day. I am reminded of the gravity of my job and position on days such as these; I have the chance to impact children in real ways. The lessons I choose, the areas we focus on, they matter – like really matter. I am not sure that five or ten years from now students will remember all of the geographic regions of Canada, but I do hope, with some confidence, that they have become better, more engaged, more knowledgeable, thoughtful, kind human beings because of this project. I can tell that they have really connected and I am honoured that I get to go along their learning and growing journey, for just as they are learning and growing, so am I.
Betty-Anne came to visit our class and speak of her experiences, which was a very powerful day for my students. They listened with so much respect and interest that I know that they will remember this experience for a long time. They innately seemed to understand the sacredness of the sharing they were part of. In addition they were able to take the information that we learned from her first-hand experiences and integrate it with the research that we had done. It also brought us opportunities to look at historical perspectives: after our visit, one of my students reflectively commented, “I learned a lot about what it was like to attend a residential school, but wouldn’t it be neat if we could also hear from a boy, because I bet that boys had a different experience from girls?” In that single comment I knew that my students were connecting the skills set out in the curriculum with the journey we were on. I also knew that they were coming to understand the depth and diversity of this area of history.
We defined reconciliation as the restoration of friendly relationships. As a class we worked with Mrs. Henderson, and survivors of St. Cyprian Indian Residential School, to try to learn more and really understand the residential school experience. We also worked through the Blanket Exercise2 as a way to deepen our knowledge and understanding. These were powerful experiences for the students, and everyone involved.
Throughout the process I always encouraged students to be honest with their questions and I promised to be honest with my answers. In the beginning some of the students talked a bit about being scared when they went to play hockey on local First Nations Reserves. I appreciated their honesty but I also wanted them to learn and appreciate that the teams they played there were just kids like them – this is where I think reconciliation really can grow. The more that we can all see that people are just people, regardless of where we live, the better off we will all be.
Our community is very small; most of the students have known each other their entire lives and spent all of their school years in the same class. This year, for the first time, a few of them openly spoke of their First Nations heritage, and even of their grandparents being residential school students. As a teacher, this change felt like a big deal for me.
It was amazing for me to see students really own what they were learning and apply it in new contexts. One day one of my students came and said, “I heard something about a bridge in Calgary being renamed because of residential schools.” As a class we researched, based on the information that we had, and learned about the renaming of the Langevin Bridge to Reconciliation Bridge. We had a great discussion about how we name things and then the way that the passing of time may change our views on those names. Another student asked if our work on residential schools was related to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Students were taking the learning and our conversations in the classroom and extending them beyond our walls.
While there are many areas that we did not explore in great depth in our classroom work and Project of Heart, I did acknowledge them as places that students may look into further as they get older. I acknowledged that sexual abuse also took place within the residential school system, but we did not delve deeply into this area. The same held true when I was asked about the missing and murdered Indigenous women. I did say that I believe that there may be connections through history to the things that we were learning about, but we did not explore it in depth. Students get this. This was made most clear to me this past September when I asked my Grade 6’s, the Grade 5’s from last year, to go talk to each of our other elementary classes about Orange Shirt Day. As we planned our presentations, they were thoughtful of the age of people they were presenting to. They were determined to be honest, to teach them about the impact of residential schools, but also to do it in an age-appropriate way. I believe that this can be done. Kids are more capable that we often give them credit for.
Our concluding act of reconciliation was visiting the St. Cyprian Indian Residential School site near Brocket, Alta. Surrounded by the physical context of where the school once stood, we were guided through the site by Albert Prairie Chicken, a former student who explained more about what it was like to attend St. Cyprian’s Indian Residential School. This was a powerful day for many students. Perhaps one of the most striking things that resonated with me was when he showed us a picture of himself and eight other boys, at about the same age as my students, and then told us that only two of them are still alive. This really struck me and caused me to reflect even further on the depth of the impact of the residential school system. As a part of Project of Heart, students need to make and present an item to represent the reconciliation to the survivor who has worked along with them in the process, in this case Betty-Anne Little Wolf. Given our connection to the land, our class opted to paint a large rock from a local field, and place our fingerprints upon it to show that we are forever changed by this experience, that we are people committed to the process of reconciliation. We decided to take this one step further and each student chose a small rock from our community to paint and leave at the St. Cyprian Residential School site. It was our personal marking of reconciliation.
While there were many heavy parts as we worked through our Project of Heart, we also found ways to have fun. As we concluded our school year we celebrated with some of the people who had helped us along they way by having Mrs. Lorraine Morning Bull and Mrs. Georgina Henderson make fry bread with us, and sharing a meal together. We also held a closing activity where we invited all of the guests from the launch back again. We sat together in a circle on National Indigenous Peoples Day and talked about what we had learned and how it had changed us. It was during this time we presented our rock of reconciliation to Mrs. Betty-Anne Little Wolf. Here are some of the things that my students had to share that day:
“This has changed the way I see First Nations, I now see them as heartbroken people from our past, I see them now as people who have been through so much. It also made me a different person, because since I learned so much I feel their sadness inside.”
“I have changed because I felt like our classroom changed the world in a way.”
“This project has changed me in so many ways. It has shown me the truth about residential schools and the harsh treatment of our Canadian government. Residential schools have brought sorrow, hardship, and a deep wound that might not recover for many generations.”
“Even though I am going to a different school next year I will bring all that I have learned with me.”
As a teacher, I always hope that my students learn but, more than that, I hope that my students leave my classroom better people. I know that they will not remember each of my lessons, but I do hope that this project has imprinted upon their hearts and has changed the way that they look at First Nations people. I hope that it has cracked the door to reconciliation for them. I hope that one day, when they are parents, they will raise a more aware and reconciled generation of children.
Photo: Courtesy Julaine Guitton
First published in Education Canada, June 2018
Without question, we need discussions about Truth and Reconciliation in all classrooms in every community and every educational institution across Canada. From my traditional Mi’kmaw way of understanding the world, I firmly believe these discussions must begin with exchanges of stories because such is the foundational basis of all relationship. I also passionately believe these exchanges must be ongoing and that they must take place within an acknowledged journey of co-learning wherein we – Indigenous peoples and the newcomers in our Indigenous lands – seek to learn together, to learn from each other, and to learn to draw upon the strengths, indeed the best, in our different ways of knowing, doing, and being.
Many years ago, I brought forward the guiding principle of Etuaptmumk or Two-Eyed Seeing for co-learning. It encourages the realization that beneficial outcomes are much more likely in any given situation when we are willing to bring two or more perspectives into play. As such, Etuaptmumk / Two-Eyed Seeing can be understood as the gift of multiple perspective, which is treasured by the Mi’kmaw people and probably most Indigenous peoples. Our world today has many arenas where this principle, this gift, is exceedingly relevant including, especially, education, health, and the environment. I’ve often described Etuaptmumk / Two-Eyed Seeing this way:
“I, you, and we need to learn to see from one eye with the best or the strengths in the Indigenous knowledges and ways of knowing… and learn to see from the other eye with the best or the strengths in the mainstream (Western or Eurocentric) knowledges and ways of knowing… but most importantly, I, you, and we need to learn to see with both these eyes together, for the benefit of all.”
In my experience, many people across Canada and in different locations have a desire to bring together the ways of knowing of Indigenous peoples and newcomers. Different approaches and different names are in use for this type of work and Etuaptmumk / Two-Eyed Seeing is but one. Regardless, the work is not easy. I always emphasize that the ongoing journey of co-learning is essential in order to develop and nurture collective and collaborative understandings and capabilities. Otherwise, the work can all too easily slip into a lazy, tokenistic approach in which Etuaptmumk / Two-Eyed Seeing and similar efforts quickly become mere jargon, trivialized, romanticized, co-opted, or used as a “mechanism” where pieces of knowledge are merely assembled in a way that lacks the S/spirit of co-learning. And thus, we need ongoing co-learning in our classrooms. But we need also to act upon the recognition that informal learning environments exist in abundance throughout our communities and within the whole of society… and co-learning needs to occur in them as well as in the formal classroom setting. So I believe this educational need is both deep and broad.
I look forward to this special issue of Education Canada: We must share our stories and we must learn to listen to stories other than our own… our knowledges live in our stories.
L’pa ma’ pun tluow ta’n tettuji nuta’q sku’tminenow Ketlewo’qn aq Apiksiktuaqn msit wutaniminal aq msit ta’n te’sikl kina’matnuo’kuo’ml ta’n telki’k u’t Kanata. Ta’n ni’n tel nestm koqoey, amujpa tela’sik wlu wsitqamu’kminu. Amujpa etlewistu’ti’k aq wesku’tmu’k ta’n wejitaik mita ta’n tujiw etlewistu’ti’kw melkiknowatu’k ta’n teli-mawqatmu’ti’k u’t wsitaqmu. Paqsipki-tlamsitm ta’n tettuji nuta’q u’t tla’siktn ke’sk pemitaikl msit wutawtiminal. Nutaik toqi- kina’masultinew mawi kwilmu’kl ikjijitaqnminal aq kinu’tmasultinew ta’n koqoey maw-kelu’kl e’tasiw ala’tu’kl, muskajewe’l. Mu ajkine’nuk ta’n tettuji pilui-kina’masulti’k, ta’n tel-lukuti’k aq ta’n telo’lti’k – mawikwaik amujpa nike’ – l’nu’k aq ak’lasie’wk.
Sa’qiji’jk na nike’wesku’tm aq kekkina’muey ta’n ni’n telo’tm wela’sik tel-kina’masultimk kiskuk. Telui’tmap “Etuaptmumk.” Akklasie’wiktuk telui’tasik – “Two-Eyed Seeing.” Etuaptmin na koqoey, toqa’tu’nl ikjijitaqnn. Mnaqij akkaptmin u’t tel kina’masimk, nmitisk aq wetuo’tisk me’aji wl’a’sik toqa’tumk ikjijitaqnn l’nue’l aq aklasie’we’l. Na nekmowey wjit Etuaptmumk teliksua’tasik kutey iknmakumkl ta’n tujiw tel-kina’masimk l’nuimk. Nestmu’k, mita sa’q ki’s tel’ukuti’k aq kesite’tmu’k.
Kiskuk u’t eymu’ti’k u’t wsitqamu pukwelkl etekl koqoe’l ta’n kisi we’wmu’k Etuaptmumk. Kisi we’wmu’k wjit kinamasuti, t’an teli-tajiko’lti’k, aq ta’n te’li klo’tmu’k u’t wsitqamu. Kaqisk teluey amujpa ewe’wmin newte’jk pukik meknimin ta’n mawi-knaql lnueye’l ikjijitaqnn ta’n nenminn aq ta’n mawi-wla’sital wjit ki’l, ni’n, aq kinuk, tujiw kekknu’tmasin ewe’wmin piluey pukik ta’n te’sik nenmin ikjijitaqn akla’siewey koqoey kelu’k ta’n tel-nmitu’tij. Tujiw weswa’tu’nl ikjijitaqnn aq toqwa’tu’nl – Etuaptmumk msit kowey, mawa’tu’nl aq aji wlaptikemk kwilimimk mawi-kelu’k wjit msit wen. Ta’n ni’n telaptm koqoey aq ta’n tel nenm, pukwelk wen ewe’wk Etuaptmumk msit Kanata aq se’k u’t wsitqamu. Pukwelk wen wetnu’kwalsit kisi toqa’tun l’nuey aq akklasie’wey klaman wla’sitow aq klu’ktitow. Jel ap pilu’wi’tmi’tij ta’n tujiw wejitu’tij, katu newte’jk na pasik ni’n telo’tm etek – Etuaptmumk. Katu ap mu-ajjkine’nuk mita l’pa ma’ pun tluow ta’n tel nuta’q mawa’tunew aq toqa’tnow ikjijitaqnminal pemitaik kekknamasutimk klaman ml’kiknowatisnuk mawa’tu’kl ta’n te’sikl iknmatimkewe’l ala’tukl aq ta’n te’sikl me’ kisi kina’masultitesnuk.
Mu ml’kuktmuk u’t nike’, aq attikineta’wk toqa’tunew, aq e’tasiw kepmite’mukl kjijitaqnn lnu’eyl aq akklasie’we’l, na mnaqnatew aq ewliksu’a’tasiktitew koqoey maliaptmu’k. Na ni’n nekmowey ketlamsitm aq kejitu nuta’q u’t toqa’tasin kkjijitaqnn kina’matmuo’kuo’ml, katu elt nuta’q kepmite’tminow te’sik kisi kina’masimk wutaniminal aq msit u’t wsitqamu. Nuta’q elt tuwa’lanew kwijimuk ta’nik kekknamu’kik mita asa newte’ te’sik kisi kina’masultitaq kwijimuk aq malikwuo’mk. Ta’n tel-nemutu ni’n, kenek me’ eltaik kekkna’masulti’kl toqwa’tumk u’t kkjijitaqnn, pukwelk me’nuta’q pana’tunew. Nenaqite’tm u’t wi’katikn: Kina’masuti Kanata: Nuta’q kin’ua’tatultinew a’tukwaqniminal aq kina’masultinew ejiksitmu’kl atukwaqnn se’k wejiaql – kkjijitaqnminu mimajik atukwaqnnminal.
(Elder Albert’s voiced thoughts, written in Mi’kmaw by Carol Anne Johnson)
First published in Education Canada, June 2018
In an effort to implement the recommendations for education contained in the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, provincial school systems are developing curricula that incorporates Indigenous perspectives respectfully and accurately for all students. But non-Indigenous educators, who’ve had limited learning experiences in their own schooling about Indigenous cultures, histories and issues, are now grappling with the fear of “getting it wrong” for their students. But a B.C.-based learning community model in Kelowna demonstrates how non-Indigenous educators can envelop students in a network of Indigenous teachers, adult advocates and the wider community to curtail Indigenous student dropout rates while immersing non-Indigenous students in Traditional Knowledge.
The Indigenous graduation rate has risen from 66% to 77% in six years at Mount Boucherie Secondary in West Kelowna, B.C, which has a high percentage of students with Indigenous ancestry. Educators have attested that culture is medicine, and that immersing students in land-based activities, First Nations-centred courses, the local Okanagan language and traditional drumming and talking circles has given them a sense of pride and a will to succeed.
This report provides practical examples complete with video testimonials from students and teachers on how the Academy of Indigenous Studies has built lasting relationships with local First Nations communities – demonstrating how existing provincial course offerings can be leveraged to create a for-credit learning track that allows Indigenous and non-Indigenous students to learn about Indigenous cultures throughout their entire high school journeys.
“We have well-intentioned, non-Indigenous educators across the country who are afraid of not teaching this material respectfully and authentically,” says Darren Googoo, Chair of the EdCan Network, a pan-Canadian collective of education leaders. “But doing nothing is also wrong, and this approach allows educators to effectively mobilize reconciliation in their schools right now.”
To access the full report and videos, please visit: www.edcan.ca/academy-report
This case study report provides practical examples on how the Academy of Indigenous Studies has built lasting relationships with local First Nations communities – demonstrating how existing provincial course offerings can be leveraged to create a for-credit learning track that allows Indigenous and non-Indigenous students to learn about Indigenous cultures throughout their entire high school journeys.
This B.C.-based learning community model in Kelowna demonstrates how non-Indigenous educators can envelop students in a network of Indigenous teachers, adult advocates and the wider community to curtail Indigenous student dropout rates while immersing non-Indigenous students in Traditional Knowledge.
Non-Indigenous educators in urban high schools can leverage this step-by-step report to create their own unique programs in consultation and collaboration with local Indigenous communities.
We’ve also put together a series of student and educator video testimonials demonstrating how “culture is medicine” that gives students a sense of pride and a will to succeed.
The call to all Canadians to reconcile relationships with Indigenous peoples offers opportunity to heal old wounds and build a nation that aspires to equitable benefits of citizenship. The why of advancing reconciliation through schools is easy. We have the opportunity to shape the hearts and minds of the children and youth who will advance a vision of equity. The how is more difficult, as competing visions and interests precipitate countless priorities for educators to consider in fostering reconciliation.
I am convinced that as educators, our value proposition is captured in one of my principal’s frequent attestations that “first, we’re a school.” This principal leads a core neighbourhood community school in Saskatoon, serving 400 primarily First Nations students. She invokes this proclamation when considering priorities and initiatives, as the social and learning needs of students place a premium on instructional time.
This principal routinely defers to community to assist in the transmission of Indigenous knowledges, while ensuring that she maintains her commitment to instructional leadership. The “first we’re a school” disclaimer could just as easily be used to limit Indigenous influence, but when claimed by this principal, it is a commitment to ensuring that we assume our responsibility as educators. I, too, subscribe to the belief that when everyone with a role in the educational continuum does their part, then student success is attainable. We have a role that is unique and informed by our training and experience. No one else in the support network is as attuned to individual student learning needs by virtue of our assessment literacy and knowledge of diverse instructional practices.
As educators re-orient to the belief that they are potentially the greatest contributors to Indigenous student success, policymakers in Canada must confront the reality that learning is differentially resourced for on-reserve First Nations learners in Canada. First Nations communities have the desire and capacity to improve their schools, but professional educators – Indigenous and non-Indigenous, on and off-reserve – need to be resourced for success. Untying educators’ hands by appropriately resourcing the technical and relational work of teachers is paramount.
“First we’re a school” implores educators to maintain a laser focus on learning outcomes. Of course, if we recycle the same unwelcoming and unresponsive environments that alienated generations of Indigenous people from Western education, then we yield our potential to contribute to reconciliation through education. We need to integrate relational and Indigenous pedagogies to ensure that we are not perpetuating exclusion and stratification. Engagement, wellness, culture, and language are all vital aspects of a responsive and effective learning program.
The problem is that educators experience inertia by fixating on student deficits, their own knowledge gaps, or their belief that they have to be the expert. These distractions erode the primacy of responsive instruction. Teacher leaders must promote one year’s growth in one year’s time as the primary narrative associated with educating Indigenous students. The short-term actions of effective teachers accumulate to realize the long-term vision of equity of outcome for Indigenous students.
Through the many trends and innovations that punctuate the profession, the enduring truth is that, when students acquire core competencies, most notably literacy, then belonging and transitions are enhanced. Our commitment must be the provision of equity of opportunity to ensure equity of promise. Indigenous students come from resilient families with brilliant histories in intellectual traditions and complex languages. Their communities have contributed medicines, systems of governance, conservation practices and critical philosophies to the global context. Indigenous children will continue to advance and contribute Indigenous knowledges as they learn and grow. The question is whether Indigenous students will have to endure school and succeed in spite of it, or experience school as an endorsing part of their growth continuum?
In an era informed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action, school jurisdictions are increasingly stating their commitments. It is my hope that their first commitment is to equity of opportunity and outcome. The role of the professional educator is instrumental in reconciliation. We need to adopt an epistemology of promise: know your students, understand their learning needs, believe in their trajectory of greatness, and do your part to ensure growth. I encourage professional educators across the country take the advice of a principal of an innovative and effective school in Treaty Six territory and, when discerning how to contribute to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, consider that “first, we’re a school.”
Photo: Courtesy Saskatchewan School Boards Association
First published in Education Canada, June 2018
All Canadians are called to action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report, but it is educators who have a particular responsibility. Most teachers though, don’t know how or where to begin and are nervous about making mistakes. In Speaking Our Truth: A Journey of Reconciliation, award-winning Indigenous author Monique Gray Smith invites educators to follow her on a journey to understand the impacts of colonialism and the Residential School system for Indigenous peoples. For concerned teachers, Smith offers a solution or a “call to teaching”; one that suggests educators learn with students and have them shape the outcomes rather than try to “teach” a particular curriculum. This is particularly important, as Dr. Marie Wilson says in chapter 4, because it will be “the children who will lead the way” forward.
Throughout the book, Smith provides ways to hold an open space in the classroom that enables students to ask the difficult questions and encourages them to “think with their heart” – the pedagogy of her book. Chapter one welcomes educators, provides the history of Residential Schools, and sets the landscape with the Seven Sacred Teachings. Smith uses the narratives of those on their journey towards reconciliation throughout Speaking Our Truth, to illustrate how we can “hold each other up” (the theme of her book for young readers, You Hold Me Up) and develop an understanding of what Indigenous and non-Indigenous relationships can look like moving forward. The questions asked throughout the four chapters, and the multitude of resources she provides, serve as a “curriculum” guide for educators and students to work together collaboratively to imagine a different society not tainted by racism and discrimination, where all ways of knowing are considered valuable. Her Cree philosophy of tawâw – “there is always room” – sets the tone for this book that welcomes us all on the path to reconciliation. Speaking Our Truth: A Journey of Reconciliation is a critical guide for all educators, at all levels.
First published in Education Canada, June 2018
Orca Book Publishers, 2017 ISBN: 978-1459815834
“Education is the key to reconciliation.” – Justice Murray Sinclair, Chair, Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission illuminated a history that has been ignored or glossed over for far too long: the suffering and damage caused to Indigenous children and their families by residential schools, and the ongoing impact and legacy of colonialism.
The challenge before us is to acknowledge these truths and work toward a just and respectful relationship with this land’s Original Peoples. It remains to be seen how well we as a country will meet this challenge, but one thing is clear: educators have a critical role to play. Through the education system, we can ensure that the next generation of Canadians grows up with some understanding of the histories and cultures of First Nations, Métis and Inuit (FNMI) peoples, and that FNMI students receive an equitable and culturally relevant education.
But how to begin? We know that many teachers feel daunted by their own lack of knowledge and fear of “getting it wrong.” There is great work being done, however, that can inspire and guide us – addressing both the specific needs of Indigenous students and the need to better educate all students.
I’m very excited that this special issue is entirely devoted to Truth and Reconciliation in education. It showcases inspiring models and practical ideas for educators who wish to take steps towards reconciliation in their schools. The articles we received were truly outstanding, and I am very grateful for the generosity and enthusiasm of our contributors.
I’d specifically like to thank two people. Michelle Hogue, our Guest Editor, sits on Education Canada’s Editorial Board and is a Métis scholar teaching at the University of Lethbridge. She was not only an invaluable guide and advisor but also took on nitty-gritty work like moderating our Youth Talking Circle (and please do read what these extraordinary young adults have to say – they blew us away with their openness, wisdom, and determination to contribute to a better world). I also want to thank Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall, who set us on the right path with his introduction to this issue on.
Elder Albert says we are on “an ongoing journey of co-learning” from and with each other. Educators don’t need to know it all. We simply need to be ready to seek out the knowledge of those who do know, and to learn alongside our students.
Send your comments and article proposals to editor@edcan.ca
Photo: Dave Donald
First published in Education Canada, June 2018