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I'd like to share something with you @jkenney. I'm adapting the words of my wife, @GenOlivier, for Twitter because this is too important not to share with you. Her words from this point forward. #AbLeg #abed
Ok this is really bothering me now.
I am the parent leader for our schools Blanket Exercise program.
I have a dedicated group of grade 6-9 students. We meet once a week and eat lunch together and then practice the script.
I am the parent leader for our schools Blanket Exercise program.
I have a dedicated group of grade 6-9 students. We meet once a week and eat lunch together and then practice the script.
During practice we learn a lot about Canadian history. Especially our local history. Blanket Exercise scripts reflect the Treaty areas where it is being performed. Edmonton is in Treaty 6 territory.
If I was doing Blanket Exercise in my own home treaty territory I would follow a script that reflected the Robinson-Superior Treaty history. The first Treaty in Canadian history.
Sometimes our lunches are very light hearted, we stumble over words and place names, proper names and even English names that are large and hard to pronounce.
We go over these words time and again, we learn what Royal Proclamations are, the Beothuk people, Assimilation, Terra Nullius, Enfranchisement, and so forth. Not in a biased way, but in a historical and pertinent way that relates to our immediate surroundings.
We give time to go over these words and their meanings in a way that empowers these students to fully understand what they mean and then take those words forward in their performances and their ability to contribute to their classes and schools.
The exercise is long. We often require an entire morning or afternoon to do this with a group. We often have an elder there to be present, to contribute, to pass on knowledge and life experiences, to lead us in smudge and to teach us about smudge.
I have never met a student that didn’t wholeheartedly enjoy the opportunity to be around our elders and to learn from them. Many students have never had the opportunity to spend any time with an elder (or First Nations person) and hear their words, language and teachings.
This is one of the key things for me in our performances. The ability to have everyone be together and to learn from each other.
Sometimes our practices can get deep into some hard to acknowledge history. I am the child of a residential school survivor. And I do not speak for my mother or place a bias on her experience. But I can speak my own truth.
Sometimes we have our wonderful Indigenous Education Facilitator, TJ Bly-Skalski, there with us. She is a wealth of knowledge and kindness and her time is worth more than could ever be paid.
To shun this Exercise and to twist its meaning into something malevolent is a complete failure of the current government. We can only move forward when everything is laid bare and talked about openly.
Yes, those conversations can be hard, but they should not be controversial, they are our history, our truth, and we need more, not less opportunities to be real in those places.
How do we teach children to resolve a conflict? To walk away from it and not talk about it?
No, we bring the people involved in the conflict together to openly discuss the issues at hand and acknowledge that everyone has a right to their feelings, their feelings are real and should be acknowledged, listened to, and learned from.
So why on earth would we dismiss any of our history, push away an opportunity for real human history, learned in a group, supported by elders and staff with the ability to further understanding?
Would we dismiss a WWII veteran from being able to share their experiences with students? I highly doubt it. Because their experience is real and we have an opportunity to learn from them. Lest We Forget and all that comes with that history.
There are several hills I’m willing to die on right now. This is one of them.
Meegwetch.
Meegwetch.
