On Monday I had my class complete a simple sticky note activity. Purple for "Things I Already Know" about Treaties, and pink for "Questions I Have" about Treaties. Below is a picture of what this ended up looking like.
As you can see we definitely had more questions than we did knowledge. It was also interesting to note that much of what "we already knew" was somewhat idealistic and not exactly accurate. I knew we were in for an eye opening week.
Tuesday we were lucky enough to have a guest speaker/presenter visit our junior classes to discuss treaties. Esbikenh taught us about the importance of provisions, wampums, and why it is important to learn about treaties. This was a great interactive experience for my students to take part in. Thank you so much to Gretchen for setting this up for us at A.A. Wright!
Throughout the rest of the week we had valuable conversations about how in Ontario we are ALL treaty people, our own ancestral backgrounds, and how many individuals in our class have strong cultural ties to the nations who are represented in our treaties here in Ontario.
At the school level there were announcements read each morning to give some background on Treaty Week and what that means living in Wallaceburg. These are the topics that were covered each day:
- Monday - General introduction to Treaty Week. Posed the questions what is Treaty Week? Why do we recognize it? What do you think you will learn this week?
- Tuesday - Unfortunately I was sick this day and an announcement was not read.
- Wednesday - Overview of the McKee Purchase and Treaty 2, which is the treaty area that we live in here in Wallaceburg.
- Thursday - Focused on Bkejwanong (Walpole Island) and how it is an exception to Treaty 2 since it is unceded territory. Quickly discussed what unceded means and why Bkejwanong is unique.
- Friday - Tied our Ojibwe word of the week initiative to Treaty Week by explaining we were honouring the Indigenous people in our area who were not treated fairly during treaty negotiations and respecting the language of the Indigenous people who continue to live in our area.
I also created a couple of short videos in Clips that could be showed in classrooms. You can check one of these out below:
Background information on the McKee Purchase and Treaty 2.
Staff members were also directed to our Program Department's blog to check out all the fantastic resources that Gretchen had curated for us to use! If you would like to check those out click HERE.
All in all, I think it was a week of rich learning for our students. I am hopeful that their increased knowledge of treaties in Ontario, and who was involved in them, will lead to a more in-depth understanding Indigenous perspective and history moving forward.
Thanks for reading!
- Allie
