During the previous school year, at the\u00a0much beloved Maywood Community School, our Aboriginal Resource Teacher, Mary Hotomanie, led the staff for a professional development day, providing resources and first-hand wisdom in aid of an increased and nuanced understanding of how to approach the new provincial mandate for incorporation of First Nations traditional knowledge and ways of being across the curriculum, and an appreciation of why this was important and of value.<\/p>\n
After a very emotional morning spent under the tutelage of Elder Gerry Oleman, of\u00a0the St’at’imc Nation of Shalalth, BC, Mary led us through what is known as the Blanket Exercise<\/a><\/strong>. \u00a0Developed by the social justice organization Kairos Canada<\/strong><\/a>, the Blanket Exercise is described as “a teaching tool to share the historic and contemporary relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada.” \u00a0During the Exercise, blankets are used to represent the traditional lands of the First Nations of Canada. \u00a0Participants, taking the roles of the First Peoples, stand on these blankets as facilitators narrate the events<\/a><\/strong> of pre- and post-Contact and the impact these events had on the descendants of Canada’s original human occupants. \u00a0As events affect the nations and territories of the First Peoples, the blankets are folded and refolded, becoming smaller and smaller, and are sometimes removed entirely, to represent the effect treaties (written in English), lack of treaties, forced removal, disease, and various colonialist government policy had on the land and, by association, the peoples of the First Nations.<\/p>\n For our staff, it was a very moving and unsettling experience, and I knew that it was something that I wanted to bring into my class the next year. \u00a0As a sufferer of the curse of the ever-lifting bar of high standards, though, I wondered what could be done to increase the visceral impact the Exercise on students, so that it would live in their memories. \u00a0I wondered what would happen if, instead of blankets, students spent a term creating visual representations of the first nations, if they really developed an understanding of the land and its uses and its special places, so that when the “blankets” were folded, they would understand exactly what was being lost, changed, or impacted?<\/p>\n Luckily, Ms. Hotomanie\u00a0also works at Suncrest, so when this school year began, we were able to keep talking about this possibility.<\/p>\n The last piece fell into place when Ms. Papapanagiotou, who runs our sister 6\/7 MACC class at Capitol Hill, and I were working through our planning for the year together and the idea of the Blanket Exercise was raised. What if our two classes did the Exercise together? \u00a0What if we created groups with two partners from each class, and the two groups had to communicate electronically in order to create their nation maps, with each pair being responsible for one half of the map? \u00a0Not only would we be able to cover a lot of the Social Studies curriculum<\/a><\/strong>, but we would also be able to stress the importance of the Core Competency Communication<\/a><\/strong>:\u00a0by having to do the bulk of their planning and creation at a distance, students would have the opportunity to practice working in the “remote economy” – the idea being that if you had communicated well, when the two classes got together at the end of the term to join their nation maps the two pieces should fit seamlessly together, in terms of measurement and aesthetics.<\/p>\n This was followed by meetings and consultations with\u00a0Ms. Hotomanie and Brandi Price, Mary’s counterpart at Capitol Hill, and then our two classes got to work during Term 3.<\/p>\n In previous terms, our classes had been penpals – one of the highlights of each month was when the mail arrived and letters were dispersed; there is still nothing like receiving a hand-written letter. \u00a0In my class, the opening of mail was always followed, about five minutes later, by this request: “Can we write back right away<\/em>?”<\/p>\n At the beginning of this term, Cap Hill paid us a half-day visit, and penpals got to meet each other face to face for the first time.<\/p>\n