Week 3:
Education as Reconciliation
At the library where I work, every year we have many Indigenous displays including celebratory days like National Indigenous Peoples Day, more self-reflexive days like Treaties Recognition Week, and the most well-known day of observance, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, September 30th.
Every year we put out books, materials, artifacts that relate to the day of reflection, and every year someone makes a comment about “why do I have to reflect, it’s not like I did anything,” or “why don’t they just get over it.” This comment was said to me just after the Kamloops discovery from a white, female, 89 year old patron, “I feel bad for the priests and nuns who worked so hard running those schools,” to which I had to interject. I was shocked and angry, firstly because she thought that was an acceptable thing to say to me because I am Caucasian, and secondly because she clearly had zero education about the treatment of Indigenous populations of Canada. My response to her was harsh, not my finest customer service moment, but if someone had made a racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, antisemitic, or any other prejudice comment to me my response would have been the same - NO. That’s enough, and we as educators have a unique and profoundly important job of making sure that no Canadian raised in our education system ever says anything remotely so ignorant.
I have heard from parents many times, and unfortunately from some teachers as well, that talking about residential schools is inappropriate for young children and I couldn’t disagree more. Just as in any subject that we teach, we scaffold. We don’t teach children language by handing them a book of Shakespeare prose, we break down the information into developmentally appropriate measures and build towards deeper understanding.
The foundation of respect and understanding is empathy, so for me it is the cornerstone of reconciliation. There are many books for preschoolers about empathy, and building upon that as educators we can talk about things like, “how would you communicate if you weren’t allowed to speak your language? How would that make you feel?”. “What if you were given a haircut, but you said no?” or “how would you feel if you couldn’t see your parents for a whole year?”
We can ask questions and teach empathy, we can scaffold learning and we help our children be the best humans they can be. Denmark has socio-emotional skills development built right into the curriculum called “KlassenTid,” similar to our Strand A in mathematics:
“curriculum of a compulsory task called Klassen Tid:
a dedicated time when pupils and teachers talk in
an intimate and confidential environment. [..] These
activities help the development of social-emotional s
kills.” (Lalomia et Cascales-Martínez, 2024)
I look forward to being an ally on our collective journey towards teaching reconciliation and the truth. It can be done, we just have to make up our minds to do it.
Lalomia, A., &. Cascales-Martínez, A (2024, October 1). Social-emotional Skills Development, the Design of a Project in a Danish School. Revista Romaneasca pentru Educatie Multidimensionala. https://lumenpublishing.com/journals/index.php/rrem
Education for Reconciliation
62. We call upon the federal, provincial, and territorial governments, in consultation and collaboration with Survivors, Aboriginal peoples, and educators, to:
i. Make age-appropriate curriculum on residential schools, Treaties, and Aboriginal peoples’ historical and contemporary contributions to Canada a mandatory education requirement for Kindergarten
to Grade Twelve students.
ii. Provide the necessary funding to post-secondary institutions to educate teachers on how to integrate Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods into classrooms.
iii. Provide the necessary funding to Aboriginal schools to utilize Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods in classrooms.
iv. Establish senior-level positions in government at the assistant deputy minister level or higher dedicated to Aboriginal content in education.
63. We call upon the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada to maintain an annual commitment to Aboriginal education issues, including:
i. Developing and implementing Kindergarten to Grade Twelve curriculum and learning resources on Aboriginal peoples in Canadian history, and the
history and legacy of residential schools.
ii. Sharing information and best practices on teaching curriculum related to residential schools and Aboriginal history.
iii. Building student capacity for intercultural
understanding, empathy, and mutual respect.
iv. Identifying teacher-training needs relating to the above.
64. We call upon all levels of government that provide public funds to denominational schools to require such schools to provide an education on comparative
religious studies, which must include a segment on Aboriginal spiritual beliefs and practices developed in collaboration with Aboriginal Elders.
65. We call upon the federal government, through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and in collaboration with Aboriginal peoples, post-secondary institutions and educators, and the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and its partner institutions, to establish a national research program with multi-year funding to advance understanding of reconciliation
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