Embedded Files
This toolkit is intended to advance Truth & Reconciliation within The Foothills School Division by guiding its readers to understand common terminology, and move forward with purpose and direction in Truth and Reconciliation in a good way.
The information and resources outlined within are relevant to all staff, students, families, and community members. Through consultation with Elders, education and cultural advisors, and research of past studies, we have identified five common factors that promote Truth and Reconciliation and lead to Indigenous student success. These factors were used to outline this toolkit through the following headings: Parent and Community Engagement, Cultural Appreciation, Instructional Practices, Professional Learning, and Student Supports.
Truth & Reconciliation is relevant to everyone and requires involvement from all Canadians. Understanding the true history of assimilation and historical treatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada will shed light on current events. We cannot change the past, but we have a responsibility to make better informed decision and create a future where all people are accepted.
It is our hope that we can work together with every member of our community to create allies, mend intercultural relationships, and support Indigenous peoples coping with the effects of intergenerational trauma.
What is Truth & Reconciliation?
What is Truth & Reconciliation?
Awareness Acknowledgement Atonement Action
Awareness Acknowledgement Atonement Action
“The Indigenous learning process recognized that anyone and anything could be a teacher, including the natural and spiritual world. It was understood that a student could also be a teacher, resulting in a cyclical learning process.”
Culturally Relevant Aboriginal Education, Nicole Bell and TerryLynn Brant, Pearson Education 2014. page 3
The cyclical nature of learning is represented in multiple places in this toolkit, drawing on teachings from the Medicine Wheel and the Circle of Courage.
Core Concepts
Core Concepts
Understanding traditional Indigenous education is essential in creating a culturally relevant educational process for students. This toolkit shares critical concepts, wiser practices, and classroom considerations that will benefit all learners while also deliberately supporting the success of Indigenous learners.
A core concept that informs Indigenous philosophy is the belief in the interconnected nature and oneness of all life. Bringing this concept into the classroom requires educators to understand that learning needs to emphasize such values as respect for all living things, their relationship, sharing, self-reliance, and individual responsibility. The practices in this toolkit carry these values.
Understanding the importance of the concept of teaching orally and through role modelling is another essential consideration in creating classrooms that support the success of Indigenous learners. Traditionally, oral teaching was often used when conveying ideas and share teachings about feelings, culture, attitudes, and ways of life. Story telling was used traditionally to teach children identity, purpose, and destiny. Stories are used to connect people to their community and natural environment. Additionally, students would learn through observation of their teachers repeatedly completing tasks. Providing multiple means of engagement for all learners is a driving concept underlying this toolkit.
Information from Culturally Relevant Aboriginal Education, Nicole Bell and TerryLynn Brant, Pearson Education 2014. Page 2 - 4.
Key Ideas
Key Ideas
In reviewing the literature, the following characteristics of traditional learning are evident and important to note:
Learning is a life-long process involving mind, body, and spirit simultaneously.
Experience is the foundation for learning.
Learning is a shared, cooperative venture - The old and young need each other. One to provide understanding from experience and one to frame discussion in the current world.
The foundation for interaction with others is respect, kindness, good intentions, sharing, and knowledge of self.
The community and the individual have reciprocal responsibilities.
Learning begins with vision of self, of goals, of the whole, of the direction a task is to go in.
Everyone has a responsibility to give back and to consider their actions in light of the effect on generations to come.
In this toolkit, we endeavor to use the student's culture as a bridge to success.
image by Chris Corrigan
Quick Guide
Quick Guide
Introduction
- What is Truth & Reconciliation?
- Purpose & Intention
- Core Concepts & Key Ideas
Terms & Guiding Documents
Parent & Community Engagement
- Importance of family engagement to student success - Ways families can get involved
- Practical ways schools can engage Indigenous families
Cultural Appreciation
- Rich Cultural Traditions
- Residential Schools
- Intergenerational Trauma
- Advancing Reconciliation
Ways to bring cultural appreciation to classrooms
Ways leaders can support cultural appreciation.
Instructional Practices
- Circle of Courage
- Concepts within curriculum (medicine wheel, authentic voice, 7 sacred teachings, circles, two-eyed seeing etc.)
Professional Learning
- Decolonizing Education
- Appropriation
- Resources
- Activities for staff
Student Supports
- Continuum of supports for Indigenous students
- Indigenous Student Award
- Creating Allies - educational tools & activities for all learners
Resources
- Entry point lessons
- Foundational resources
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