Remembrance Day was this week. The grade 7’s recited “In Flanders Fields”. I was really proud of them for working hard t memorize the poem and how seriously they took the assembly.

During the assembly I was filled with mixed emotions and many conflicting thoughts. The next day I posted this status to my Facebook page:  “While I respect that many Canadians gave their lives in the first and second world wars, I am painfully aware that all the First Nations soldiers were stripped of their Indian Status as thanks for serving their country. First Nations people volunteered in both world wars at a rate higher than their proportion of the population. They served a country that did not count them as citizens, that did not give them the right to vote, that had made their culture illegal. If they survived the war and returned home, Canada stripped them of their rights as Native people and refused them veterans services because they were Native. Lest we forget”

Reconciling my feelings about living as a Native person in a modern colonial country is difficult. I never expected to be faced with this conflict in practicum… Yet, on the first day of the very first thing that happened was the students stood, faced the Canadian flag, and sang O’Canada. I was confused and lost in that moment. Without knowing what else to do and not wanting to offend anyone, for the very first time in my life I stood up and faced the Canadian flag during the anthem. It felt so wrong but I just didn’t know what else to do.

Canada is a country that committed horrible atrocities against people I know and love. All four of my grandparents and all of my Aunts and Uncles were forced to attend Indian Residential Schools. The most fundamental ceremony of our culture was made illegal… My great grandfather was jailed for practicing his faith. The systems created by colonization continue to negatively affect my family to this day. The systemic issues of colonization are still very real in every part of Canadian society.

This week I moved through my feelings and thoughts. I never let on that I was disturbed by any of it. I only spoke my experience within safe circles, but I believe that it is important to bring into the light how broken the trust still is between Canada and First Nations people. That’s why I’m writing about this. The first step in  true reconciliation is acknowledging the hurt and broke nature of the situation. I hope that one day Native children and people will feel proud to be from Canada. That they will look back at all of the hard work of past generations and say “They were honest. They worked hard to repair the damage. They really did make it better for us.”

Now to switch topics, I taught four lessons this week. My first was in PE and I designed a lesson around traditional cooperative game. It went well. The students were engaged in the game and shared about their experiences in the debrief.

Next, I taught a Math lesson on the order of operations. This was the first time I ever taught a Math lesson. Getting through the instructing part was interesting… There were many opportunities to learn in that first part of the lesson, in particular, being more specific with my language. I was grateful for the feedback from my SA on the specifics. The second part of the lesson was a game called Havoc. I placed 12 PEDMAS problems around the room and the students had to work in pairs to solve as many as possible in the time limit. I was surprised at how engaged the students became the second it was a game where they were competing. They were rushing around the room  and working very hard on the problems. It was a 360 degree turn around in engagement from the start of the lesson to the second part. The next day my SA picked up and extended the activity where I had left off and we co-taught the next lesson. We didn’t plan this and she asked me out of the blue, but I’m always game for anything. She thanked me afterwards and told me “You could have said no. I know I didn’t ask you before.” It was a nice moment of turning something I wasn’t completely happy with into a learning opportunity.

My next lesson was Art. I took the students through two sketches, a wolf howling and a Spanish marlin. Then the students were able to customize their drawing. I used the document camera for this lesson which was a great way to teach sketching. The students loved it and by the end were more comfortable with some of the sketching techniques. I taped the erasers of all the pencils I handed out and at first some of the students were quite upset they weren’t allowed to erase, but as the lesson went on they became more comfortable with starting lightly and then darkening the lines they liked. Overall it was pretty successful.

Finally, I taught a Science lesson on ecosystems. The first activity was for the students to make an ecosystem web with string. Each student had one or two cards with an animal, plant, or non-living part of ecosystem on it (For example water). They then had to have at least two separate connections in the web. I split the class into two groups for this. One group was much quicker than the other but both completed the activity successfully. Next the students had to create a web on the paper of the connections they’d made with “live, eat, need” on the lines between the words. This was successful lesson with the students highly engaged and focused on how each item was connected. I think the social aspect of the first activity really helped with keeping them engaged. They had to work together and share knowledge to ensure everyone had two connections. I was thrilled to hear some of the questions they were asking and coming up with.