“My (Re)conciliation is… a public art dialogue” was opened on the eve of National Aboriginal Day. It’s on the boarding of the church on West Georgia st. (between Burrard and Hornby). It is a very courageous and great idea to have a public dialogue about this sensitive subject. Reconciliation needs to happen on both sides. Great design and people do generally write genuine thoughts about reconciliation and dialogue on there. Every day we go outside and monitor the writings to make sure nothing inappropriate gets written (which it always does). However, the majority seem to be genuine comments and remarks.
On National Aboriginal Day itself, the Gallery was the backdrop for a special Canadian Citizenship Ceremony. 30 new Canadians took the oath in this beautiful location. It made this special ceremony even more special in my opinion. I was so happy to be a part of this during my CFE. For me, having the Canadian Citizenship ceremony at the Gallery in the midst of the Northwest Coast artwork raised questions about the difficult relationship between First Nations and European settlers that is part of our mutual history and reconciliation. I think it shows that both parties are ready to work on improving the relationship while not denying the difficult past.
Since the Gallery was free to the public because of National Aboriginal Day, I didn’t write on my program, but helped out in the Gallery instead. I had a great discussion with one of the people working in the shop about their personal history, reconciliation and how it is such a long and difficult process to come to terms with. She also said it is such a personal process and that it is still taboo for some people, which makes it harder for the younger generation to get their parents or grandparents to talk about it. (This reminded me of the topic of WW II in Europe; my grandfather never spoke a word about what happened to him while he was forced to work in Germany during that time).
We had another school group come in on Thursday morning; a Grade 6 Late French Immersion. They participated in the Cedar Education Program. I was assisting as the group came in and put away their jackets and backpacks and had the chance to facilitate an activity. We had decided to try the Know-Wonder-Learn strategy in the Gallery. Before exploring the artwork, students were asked to think about what they already knew about Northwest Coast art and Bill Reid. Since the group consisted of 30 students, we had them talk to a partner first and raise their hand to provide ideas in the group after. They had some great ideas. Then, I asked them to think about some questions: what did they wonder? What would they like to know? Again, they had a minute to talk to a friend first before providing questions to be written down. They tried really hard to speak French despite the difficult vocabulary; by repeating what they said and correcting the French, we managed to write down the questions together. For me, the best part was when they came back to the list after the tour and were able to answer their questions and give many more details of what they had learned in this short time. It was great to see them realize how much they had learned during this Program. I think it might be a useful activity to include in the Program. I have included it as a possible pre-visit activity and as a possible activity to start off the Program in the Gallery.
On Thursday and Friday, I finished writing my Program. I’ve written it in English, which is kind of funny, because so far all my units have been in French. However, I’ve added handouts and references in French to provide resources for French Immersion teachers. This way, even if the facilitator at the Gallery doesn’t speak French, students can still use the handouts and the graphic organizers in French. I hope my activities will come in useful during school visits to the Gallery.
My Program is designed in such a way that teachers can use it as an as-is unit to use in the classroom and make the visit to the Gallery part of their unit, and that facilitators at the Gallery can select appropriate activities depending on how much prior knowledge the group has. It allows for a lot of flexibility and choice on the part of the educator and even the students. Several activities can be used at different stages of the unit and can even be added to over the course of the unit, so it allows students to monitor their learning. I have provided three possible performance tasks to check for understanding and transfer at the end of the unit. Being in the Gallery has allowed me to design authentic tasks, such as developing a new logo for the Gallery based on one of the pieces of art. Students would have to make mock-ups of the logo, a poster and/ or a postcard using the new logo, and have to include a letter to the Board explaining their choice of artifact and provide convincing arguments and examples to sway the Board to decide in favour of their proposal.