AUDIENCE: TEACHERS, ADMINISTRATORS, AND OTHER EDUCATIONAL STAKEHOLDERS WHO WOULD LIKE TO DEEPEN THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF INDIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL CULTURE, HISTORIES AND PERSPECTIVES.
Inuvialuit residential school survivor Margaret Pokiak-Fenton, and Fatty Legs author Christy Jordan-Fenton talk residential school history, Inuvialuit culture, resilience, and more.
This session will go into great depth concerning decolonized perspectives and why they are important to understand before teaching Indian Residential School (IRS), as well as intergenerational effects and what is meant by "it takes seven generations to heal".
The day will include photographs, a music video, readings from Fatty Legs and A Stranger at Home, augmented by storytelling from Margaret-Olemaun.
The focus of the day will include:
- Inuvialuit culture, IRS history,
- bullying and resilience,
- an introduction to decolonized perspectives,
- the intergenerational effects of IRS,
- other resources to explore (books, films, art, music), lesson plans, classroom activities, dealing with the problems that may arise from teaching about IRS history (from resistance from IRS survivor parents and guardians, to students who have experienced abuse and how they may be triggered, to teaching such subject matter in religiously affiliated schools, and much more),
- avenues of truth and reconciliation and how to involve students in those.