Elementary

Phyllis Webstad's story of how the loss of her orange shirt is not only the origin story for how September 30th came to be but invites young people to consider how it feels to endure loss on a less intense scale. People encounter grief in their early life (usually) with material items; it can feel so devastating when you're favorite blanket or teddy bear goes missing. The opportunity here is for students in the class to relate to the loss of a material object that means something important to you: for Phyllis, it was her orange shirt, and for others, it's something different. Exploring feelings of grief and loss with material items will help to build the foundation of empathy as students learn in their later years the depths of loss that Indigenous people have endured; but for now, let's start with Phyllis' shirt.

Discussion Questions:

• What is something that is very important to me? Who gave it to me?

• Have I ever lost anything that I was very sad to lose?

• How do I feel when things I love go missing?

• What are the emotions that Phyllis may have felt when she went to school and had her orange shirt taken from her?

• How do we identify sadness and hurt feelings? How do we cope with them? Link with strategies here 

You can supplement beyond this activity to begin talking about residential schools, and other books or participating in art activities;if you feel your students are ready, you can also discuss other kinds of loss: what does it mean to not be able to see you parents for a long time? How would you feel if your brothers and sisters had to go to different schools? These are more opportunities to consider sadness and loss to develop empathy.

The three sisters can teach us many lessons about the importance of cooperation, community and supporting one another. Traditionally, Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island plant (past and present) the 3 plants together because they work to support each other as they grow. While this lesson may not be directly related to residential schools, it is creating the building blocks for when the students start to consider what sort of effect residential schools had not only on the transmission of knowledge but also, on communities. It's one of the key foundations for future reconciliation learning.

Discussion: 

• Who is your community?

• How do people in the community help each other?

• What lessons can we learn from Corn, beans and squash for how we should treat each other?

• What does it mean to be kind to people within our community?

Colouring Page 

Activity: Create a 3 sisters display with all the ways that our school community takes care of each other. Looking at the qualities of each of the plants ( corn stands tall, beans are flexible and agile and squash protects from below), who do we identify as meeting each of those qualities: who represent the corn, bean and squash?

Connection to Residential Schools: I love to read to my class; sometimes, we can bring books to our students to embrace the stories even if they are not yet at that reading level. I would suggest reading the story Fatty Legs  to them, and following up the ways in which the community that the girls go to school in is not like their own school community. There are many activities related to Fatty Legs available online if you want to pursue that book further.

You can find a number of books to choose also here 

What we inherit from our family, and what does it mean if we lose it?

This is an opportunity for students to begin to consider what it means to inherit culture, knowledge and materials from the generations above them. When students can understand the loss that comes with the removal of one generation ( whether due to death or in the case of residential schools, isolation), they can begin to understand the impact it has on the next generations. At this stage, we aren't quite yet in the considering the negative affects of family, but more focusing on the integenrational knowledge transfer.

Activity:  Send kids home to talk with their parents: have them ask what kind of knowledge they have been passed down from their grandparents, aunts, uncles, or whoever is relevant in their lives from a generation above them. Is it a family recipe? A story about how they came to the country? Do they speak a different language at home? Have the students bring these stories or recipes in to the class, and have them each share their story.

Part 2: Ask students to write about how their lives might be different if they did not have that recipe, story or language in their household? How might their lives look different? What kind of impact will it have on the future generations (their future kids, grandkids, nieces or nephews)? Why is it important to gain knowledge from our families?

Follow-Up: Now you can begin to have the discussions about the effects of Residential Schools on the children of today. What are some of the losses that they can identify or research about because of the intergenerational impact of residential schools? 

Output project: What ways can they share what they've learned with their schools, communities and family? Ask students to consider how to share not only the importance Integenerational knowlege sharing, but why it is important to support it among Indigenous communities and families; how can schools and communities help with this?

Videos

Understanding Intergenerational Trauma (Austalia)

Intergenerational Trauma (Canada)

For this activity, I was inspired by a teacher I once worked with: she took this topic and made it applicable to today, to the contemporary lives of our students.  September 30th is a Statutory holiday for Canada and in the community of Kahnawà:ke. But when that came into being, Premier Legault didn't believe the same was necessary for Quebec.

Article with Legault's Opinion

Everything to know about TRC Day 

Questions to explore with your students:

• What is a holiday? What is it's purpose?

• Is it important( or necessary) to be at school on September 30th?

• Why is September 30th important?

• How can people commemorate this day?

Exploring these questions with your students can culminate in a number of ways. They can produce posters with their opinions, write letters to the Premier or Prime Minister to voice their thoughts and opinions on the topic. You might also consider having students create a guidebook for how to navigate September 30th in schools. Whatever the outcome, this topic is an opportunity for the students to consider the contemporary impact of Residential Schools at their level.