One person leading the way on Indigenous Education for Renfrew County’s Catholic schools says truth and reconciliation shouldn’t stop at just one day.
Cigi Manwell, an Indigenous Education Instructional Coach for the RCCDSB, says that, while expressions like wearing orange shirts or putting up signs to recognize the unjust treatment of the Indigenous peoples of Canada through colonialism are encouraging, her job is to help students begin their journey on a path to year-round understanding that many Canadians are only just starting to take.
She says today’s students are embracing the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation with open minds, but it’s still important to teach the history of residential schools and the impacts they have left behind and continue to have on Indigenous families in an age-and-trauma-appropriate way, considering how the last one closed as recently as 1997.
Manwell also believes that teaching Indigenous history should put a focus on Indigenous voices, bucking a long trend of teaching the subject from the perspective of European settlers by seeking out and providing a curriculum that includes First Nations, Metis, and Inuit voices.
The end goal is not only for non-Indigenous students to have a better understanding of something that is different from them, but also to have Indigenous self-identified students see themselves within the material being taught.
(written by Kasey Egan)