62 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.
Book: Shin-Chi’s Canoe
Shin-Chi’s Canoe depicts the story of six-year-old Shin-Chi, an indigenous child living in a residential school. It tells the story of the insufferable school conditions while seeking refuge in places like the river to remind him of home. It teaches about Shin-Chi’s life before the residential school, and while living in the school, to juxtapose the two realities. It is complete with illustrations to contribute to children’s understanding of the story.
Web: Diverse Peoples: Aboriginal Contributions and Inventions
While searching for a website to teach on Aboriginal contributions to Canada, I came across this activity. It highlights several contributions and inventions that indigenous people have created in a kid-friendly activity. It is educational in that it has information about each item and also features pictures to go along with the descriptions.
Video: Namwayut: We Are All One
Namwayut: We Are All One showcases an illustrated video of Chief Robert Joseph’s experiences living in a residential school. While it deals with sensitive topics and information, this video from CBC would be valuable to show to students so they can hear firsthand experiences.
To conclude, I believe it is incredibly important, and should be a mandatory education requirement, for students K-12 to learn about residential schools, treaties, and Aboriginal peoples’ contributions to Canada. Personally, having grown up in Kamloops and not knowing that there was a residential school here until I was twenty-six-years old does not sit right with me. There is plenty of information available on these topics, and as evidenced by this assignment there is plenty of “kid-friendly” content that could be shown to students. In order to create contributing members of society, we must first address the issues in our own backyard.