LSSD Grade 7 - 9
Truth and Reconciliation Week
Sept 25th - 29th 2023
The videos, links and activities are to help you navigate through Truth and Reconciliation week. You can complete them at any point during your day. Any questions, please let me know [email protected].
September 25th 2023
1. Acknowledging your place. Reconciliation is about acknowledging the land you stand on and the original peoples of this territory. But what is that? An article to help navigate that question, and the other question of does it have impact on the people listening to the land acknowledgement? Article: Land Acknowledgements are a good first step, but there's lots of work to be done
Go through the Inquiry questions to the right to determine what students know about Land Acknowledgments.
A real question: Do they know where to find the Land Acknowledgment for Lord Selkirk School Division? Do you? Give them a task to explore LSSD home website to look for the Land Acknowledgement and determine why they used those specific words and phrases.
The land that we are acknowledging is connected through community. Connected through the people that were here before and who are here now. Some background on Community and some though processes is posted below.
Activity 1: Getting to the Heart of the Community
To explore what a healthy community is and how we are all connected to the land.
Instructions:
1. Divide students into small groups.
2. Invite each group to collaborate and create a definition of what community means. Write their definitions/brainstorm on chart paper.
3. Use the following prompts to initiate group discussion:
Who lives in the community?
What actions, events, celebrations or values do members in the community share?
How do members interact to form their community?
4. Each group will write their definition on paper and verbally share with the class.
5. After each group has shared, invite students to respond to the following questions:
What makes a healthy community?
What words or ways do community members support one another?
How does the community rely on the land (natural environment)?
What relationships do humans share with non-humans?
How do people show respect to the land and others?
What makes you healthy (mind, body, spirit)?
What can you do to support healthy communities?
How do you celebrate the diversity of people in your community?
6. Display their chart paper in class so that they can add additional information to it later.
1. Acknowledging your place. Reconciliation is about acknowledging the land you stand on and the original peoples of this territory. But what is that? An article to help navigate that question, and the other question of does it have impact on the people listening to the land acknowledgement? Article: Land Acknowledgements are a good first step, but there's lots of work to be done
Go through the Inquiry questions to the right to determine what students know about Land Acknowledgments.
A real question: Do they know where to find the Land Acknowledgment for Lord Selkirk School Division? Do you? Give them a task to explore LSSD home website to look for the Land Acknowledgement and determine why they used those specific words and phrases.
The land that we are acknowledging is connected through community. Connected through the people that were here before and who are here now. Some background on Community and some though processes is posted below.
Activity 1: Getting to the Heart of the Community
To explore what a healthy community is and how we are all connected to the land.
Instructions:
1. Divide students into small groups.
2. Invite each group to collaborate and create a definition of what community means. Write their definitions/brainstorm on chart paper.
3. Use the following prompts to initiate group discussion:
Who lives in the community?
What actions, events, celebrations or values do members in the community share?
How do members interact to form their community?
4. Each group will write their definition on paper and verbally share with the class.
5. After each group has shared, invite students to respond to the following questions:
What makes a healthy community?
What words or ways do community members support one another?
How does the community rely on the land (natural environment)?
What relationships do humans share with non-humans?
How do people show respect to the land and others?
What makes you healthy (mind, body, spirit)?
What can you do to support healthy communities?
How do you celebrate the diversity of people in your community?
6. Display their chart paper in class so that they can add additional information to it later.
|
|
September 26th 2023
1. Reconciliation is all about Relationships. What does Reconciliation mean? How does it apply to a relationship? How does it apply to the relationship between Indigenous peoples and Non-Indigenous peoples?
2. What is the difference between a relationship and an allyship?
Use the Inquiry Questions to the right to discuss and learn more about Allyship.
3. Activity 2: Building Trusting Relationships
(PDF is below with links on how to do some of the Trust Activities)
To examine aspects of healthy relationships and the importance of establishing trust.
Instructions:
1. Share with students that community members support one another to meet a goal, develop communication and promote co-operation.
2. Facilitate the following trust activities in the classroom community. Once finished, invite students to discuss how the activity made them feel and the importance of teamwork and trust.
Trust Walk
Ten Interesting Trust Building Activities for Kids
The following are additional resources for you to explore concepts of building trusting
relationships:
Play Your Part (Right to Play)
8 Quick Relationship Building Activities
3. Next, students can explore the relevance of value systems that many Indigenous Peoples
have in their societies: Seven Sacred Teachings, Inuit Societal Values, Haudenosaunee
Values and/or the Métis Core Values and how these teachings are relevant in their lives and
how these could help build healthy and trusting relationships. You may also invite students
to develop their own individual list of values (with their family and/or community).
4. Invite students to add new thoughts to their definition of community.
1. Reconciliation is all about Relationships. What does Reconciliation mean? How does it apply to a relationship? How does it apply to the relationship between Indigenous peoples and Non-Indigenous peoples?
2. What is the difference between a relationship and an allyship?
Use the Inquiry Questions to the right to discuss and learn more about Allyship.
3. Activity 2: Building Trusting Relationships
(PDF is below with links on how to do some of the Trust Activities)
To examine aspects of healthy relationships and the importance of establishing trust.
Instructions:
1. Share with students that community members support one another to meet a goal, develop communication and promote co-operation.
2. Facilitate the following trust activities in the classroom community. Once finished, invite students to discuss how the activity made them feel and the importance of teamwork and trust.
Trust Walk
Ten Interesting Trust Building Activities for Kids
The following are additional resources for you to explore concepts of building trusting
relationships:
Play Your Part (Right to Play)
8 Quick Relationship Building Activities
3. Next, students can explore the relevance of value systems that many Indigenous Peoples
have in their societies: Seven Sacred Teachings, Inuit Societal Values, Haudenosaunee
Values and/or the Métis Core Values and how these teachings are relevant in their lives and
how these could help build healthy and trusting relationships. You may also invite students
to develop their own individual list of values (with their family and/or community).
4. Invite students to add new thoughts to their definition of community.
|
|
|
September 27th 2023
1. Relationship to the Land.
Backgrounder on Relationship to the Land is included below.
Activity 1: Relationship with the Land
To reflect on and acknowledge our relationship with the land.
Instructions:
1. Find a variety of photos of landscapes or videos to share with students. Alternatively, you
can invite students to share photos of landscapes or places that are important to them or
provide time to draw a landscape of some place special to them.
2. Use the following prompts to generate discussion:
In what ways do you use the land? Think of the many ways the land provides for you
daily (from the time you wake up until the time you go to sleep).
How does it make you feel? What does it do for your mind, body or spirit?
How do you show appreciation for the land?
Activity 2: Taking Steps Forward
To acknowledge the land and the relationship one has with the land.
Instructions:
1. Make an imprint of your footprint in dry/wet sand, snow, soil or paint. Take a photo of your
footprint. Print the photo and place it on a larger background. Think of your home, school or
favourite place nearby and the area around it.
2. Write a statement(s) in response to these questions to include with your footprint:
What do you love about the land around you?
How does the land help you?
What will you do to help the land?
What footprint do you want to leave behind on the land?
What are your responsibilities toward the living things on the land?
1. Relationship to the Land.
Backgrounder on Relationship to the Land is included below.
Activity 1: Relationship with the Land
To reflect on and acknowledge our relationship with the land.
Instructions:
1. Find a variety of photos of landscapes or videos to share with students. Alternatively, you
can invite students to share photos of landscapes or places that are important to them or
provide time to draw a landscape of some place special to them.
2. Use the following prompts to generate discussion:
In what ways do you use the land? Think of the many ways the land provides for you
daily (from the time you wake up until the time you go to sleep).
How does it make you feel? What does it do for your mind, body or spirit?
How do you show appreciation for the land?
Activity 2: Taking Steps Forward
To acknowledge the land and the relationship one has with the land.
Instructions:
1. Make an imprint of your footprint in dry/wet sand, snow, soil or paint. Take a photo of your
footprint. Print the photo and place it on a larger background. Think of your home, school or
favourite place nearby and the area around it.
2. Write a statement(s) in response to these questions to include with your footprint:
What do you love about the land around you?
How does the land help you?
What will you do to help the land?
What footprint do you want to leave behind on the land?
What are your responsibilities toward the living things on the land?
backgrounder_on_relationship_with_the_land.pdf | |
File Size: | 470 kb |
File Type: |
September 28th 2023
Remember to wear Orange Tomorrow!
1. Identity as a form of connection to the Land.
Indigenous peoples constantly link their identity to the land and the communities they are from. It's part of finding common ground and familial/kinship connections. Within many Indigenous communities kinships is not only by blood, it by the land that people have connection to. Being knowledgeable about your identity gives you are stronger sense of self.
Use the information and the Inquiry questions to the right to discuss as a class.
2. Activity 1: Introductions
Have the students identify themselves.
Use the Anishinaabe protocol greeting when engaging with new people:
Learning about each other enables people to see the commonalities and not feel so impersonal or detached.
I have included my Anishinaabe Protocol Greeting so that students can hear what it sounds like in Anishinaabemowin. - Ms. J. Bercier
Remember to wear Orange Tomorrow!
1. Identity as a form of connection to the Land.
Indigenous peoples constantly link their identity to the land and the communities they are from. It's part of finding common ground and familial/kinship connections. Within many Indigenous communities kinships is not only by blood, it by the land that people have connection to. Being knowledgeable about your identity gives you are stronger sense of self.
Use the information and the Inquiry questions to the right to discuss as a class.
2. Activity 1: Introductions
Have the students identify themselves.
Use the Anishinaabe protocol greeting when engaging with new people:
- State Your Name (How people know you)
- State Your Family Names (The families you are connected to
- State Your Community or Communities you are connected to
- State Your Nation or Ethnic Background.
Learning about each other enables people to see the commonalities and not feel so impersonal or detached.
I have included my Anishinaabe Protocol Greeting so that students can hear what it sounds like in Anishinaabemowin. - Ms. J. Bercier
|
|
September 29th 2023 - LSSD ORANGE SHIRT DAY
1. Write Your Own Land Acknowledgement
You've been thinking about the land and your connection to it. Also, you've been thinking about how you can show your commitment to reconciliation. It is now time to take ReconciliACTION.
Writing a meaningful land acknowledgement: (Amnesty.ca)
Name which Indigenous territories you are currently onFor some of you, this might be an easy step so we urge you to take some time and learn more. If you do not know whose territories you are organizing on, we have included some resources below that may be helpful, and we encourage further research.
Traditional Territory, Lanugage & Treaties Map
You can view a traditional territory, language and treaties map created by Native Land Digital, a registered Canadian not-for-profit organization. You can use the map by entering your address or navigating and clicking around on the map.
Explain why you are sharing a land acknowledgement
Take the time to reflect on why it is important for you or your group to acknowledge the land and what your relationship is with the territory you are on (are you Indigenous, are you settlers, have you come here as a refugee?). Explain why you find it important to acknowledge the land.
Address the relevance of Indigenous rights
Even if we are organizing on issues that are seemingly separate, the struggle for Indigenous rights is deeply connected to all human rights work. Take the time to reflect on these systemic connections. If you find it hard to capture the relationship between the issues you are working on in words, you can also speak to how you and your group will continue to support Indigenous rights in your ongoing activist work.
Put the answers together as a statement
Use your answers to the questions above together as a statement. It does not have to be in order if that helps the flow of your land acknowledgement.
A Meaningful Land Acknowledgement Example
“I would like to acknowledge the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish First Nations on which we are learning, working and organizing today. I think it’s important to acknowledge the land because growing up as an immigrant here, I never heard the traditional names of the territories. Indigenous people were talked about in the past tense and all the struggles they faced were in the past tense as well. It is easier to deny Indigenous people their rights if we historicize their struggles and simply pretend they don’t exist. As an activist, I would like to take this opportunity to commit myself to the struggle against the systems of oppression that have dispossessed Indigenous people of their lands and denied their rights to self-determination, work that is essential to human rights work across the world.”
Feel Free to use the template below and fill it out so that it doesn't seem so generic. This is just to get you thinking and help you out.
1. Write Your Own Land Acknowledgement
You've been thinking about the land and your connection to it. Also, you've been thinking about how you can show your commitment to reconciliation. It is now time to take ReconciliACTION.
Writing a meaningful land acknowledgement: (Amnesty.ca)
Name which Indigenous territories you are currently onFor some of you, this might be an easy step so we urge you to take some time and learn more. If you do not know whose territories you are organizing on, we have included some resources below that may be helpful, and we encourage further research.
Traditional Territory, Lanugage & Treaties Map
You can view a traditional territory, language and treaties map created by Native Land Digital, a registered Canadian not-for-profit organization. You can use the map by entering your address or navigating and clicking around on the map.
Explain why you are sharing a land acknowledgement
Take the time to reflect on why it is important for you or your group to acknowledge the land and what your relationship is with the territory you are on (are you Indigenous, are you settlers, have you come here as a refugee?). Explain why you find it important to acknowledge the land.
Address the relevance of Indigenous rights
Even if we are organizing on issues that are seemingly separate, the struggle for Indigenous rights is deeply connected to all human rights work. Take the time to reflect on these systemic connections. If you find it hard to capture the relationship between the issues you are working on in words, you can also speak to how you and your group will continue to support Indigenous rights in your ongoing activist work.
Put the answers together as a statement
Use your answers to the questions above together as a statement. It does not have to be in order if that helps the flow of your land acknowledgement.
A Meaningful Land Acknowledgement Example
“I would like to acknowledge the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish First Nations on which we are learning, working and organizing today. I think it’s important to acknowledge the land because growing up as an immigrant here, I never heard the traditional names of the territories. Indigenous people were talked about in the past tense and all the struggles they faced were in the past tense as well. It is easier to deny Indigenous people their rights if we historicize their struggles and simply pretend they don’t exist. As an activist, I would like to take this opportunity to commit myself to the struggle against the systems of oppression that have dispossessed Indigenous people of their lands and denied their rights to self-determination, work that is essential to human rights work across the world.”
Feel Free to use the template below and fill it out so that it doesn't seem so generic. This is just to get you thinking and help you out.
Participate in Truth and Reconciliation Events happening in Selkirk, MB on September 30th. Remember to Wear Orange!