Secondary

At this stage, students ready to start moving into considering the ways in which Residential schools are affecting the future generations that came after the children who survived. Many of the children who came home from residential schools grew up to become adults who married, had families and many are grandparents/great grandparents still today. 

Article about the impact on 3 generations  

Use the article above which interviews 3 generations of women who are affected by residential school experience ( survivor, her daughter and her granddaughter). Have students consider (you could use a venn diagram) what are the similar effects and consequences between a mother, daughter and grand daughter as a result of residential school experiences. Of course, only the grandmother did attend, but students can consider what they have learned up until this point, and use some critical thinking to infer the intergenerational effects that it may have had on the families of those around them.

Activity Two: To bring this activity back home, and drive some of the learning with empathy, students themselves can begin to take stock of the ways in which their relationship to their parents and grandparents affects them. Why are those relationships important; what have they learned or inherited by way of traits, culture and habit from the generations above them? Students can create a campaign for others to understand how important family truly is, and the impact that it has on our existence today. 

Things I learned from my grandparents 

Learning for Life Beyond School (Culture and History Learning)

An important entry to point when considering residential schools is to look at non-formal learning; we are born into this world learning things through experience, trial and error, but most importantly, the guidance and teachings of the adults who raise us. Facilitating discussions around the loss of culture that Indigenous children may be affected by today asks us to examine where we learn about ourselves, and how important it is to maintain that.

Rita Joe Poem and Activity 

Using Rita Joe's poem and the activities that are attached, it is an opportunity to think about the importance of culture and learning beyond school.

Re-examining School

The youtube video to the right talks about an Indian Boarding school in the US (same concept) that was converted into a Indigenous college; in the community of Kahnawà:ke, there were a number of Indian Day Schools  and one in particular, Kateri School, has repurposed the original structure for community education. 

CBC Article about Kahnawà:ke Education 

A cool opportunity here could be for students to begin looking at the history of Indigenous communities taking over their own education in communities and having programs that are culturally relevant. Within Quebec alone, there are several initiatives within the 11 nations.

Activity: Have students illustrate and write about what their ideal school would look like, outlining 5 subject areas or activities that they believe are valuable for people to learn with their reasoning. 

94 Calls to Action

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report is now 10 years old, and in it were set out 94 calls to action that Canada needs to work on in order to be able to complete on the path to reconciliation. Using the website, students can interact with what is being started, what is happening and what has yet to come.

Activity:  Students can explore the website; check out the guide for how ideas on how to interact with the website. They can critique in what ways Canada is moving and failing to project of reconciliation. This can be class discussions

Outcome project:  Students ( individually or in groups) should come up with action plans for how Canada can fulfill some of the 94 calls to action. Their ideas and plans then should be shared in some sort of avenue. Students could write letters, create tiktoks about the topic, make posters or do presentations to different people within the school and the community; this is a way for the students to understand the impact that they have in the pursuit of Reconciliation, and how they can exercise their social power to raise awareness and promote ideas for action. 

Beyond 94 Teacher Guide

Beyond 94 Website

Lee Maracle Reaction

Inferring History through Primary Source Documents

Primary Sources  are available through a number of websites and archives; within these, you can find letters, school reports, photos and numbers of other documents related to Residential Schools and their functions. While it can feel overwhelming to search through them, when you find some good documents, you can really spend time teaching students how to do close readings and the think critically about whether or not we can find truth in documents at face value. 

School Menu Activity

I cannot take credit for coming up with this activity alone, as I participated in a workshop at the Indspire Conference  with archives Canada where they used these menus to do a critical thinking activity.

In the link below, there are 2 menus for residential schools ( the handwritten one has a typed version for clarity) & letters/health inspection documents. One of the menus is real ( the typewriter one) and the other is fabricated.

Part 1: In groups, have the students examine the 2 menus; ask them to deduce which one they think is real and which one is fake. Ask the groups to report back with their findings.

Part 2: Give the students the letters, and ask them to read over them; the answers to which menu is real and which is not are not necessarily in the letters, but there are indicators around the food quality and control of some of the schools, and that will help them to make a stronger case for which of the menus is real.

Residential School Menu Activity

Reflection: Students can have the opportunity to reflect on the living conditions of the Residential Schools and consider that impact alone on the children. Did families know that children were living like this? Was every school like this? There are a number of ways you can go with this activity, and there are numbers of primary sources documents that can help to make that picture.