Do Better When You Know Better

At PE McGibbon we have video announcements which means there is a lot of media. The student announcement team uses video, images, audio recording, and music to share information. At the end of our announcements we always have the land acknowledgment followed by O Canada.

One day as I was listening to a student's voice read the land acknowledgment over an image of the Canadian Flag and I thought to myself, "This doesn't seem right." I wondered if there was a more appropriate and authentic way to share the land acknowledgement with our staff and students. When I sat and reflected on what the land acknowledgment really said, it made me think about Treaty 29. My school is on Treaty 29 land and it seemed like the only time we talked about this was during Treaties Week. I know we could do better.

I talked to Gretchen about the idea of making some land acknowledgment videos with images of Treaty 29 and Aamjiwnaang. The purpose would be to acknowledge the indigenous groups who lived in the Sarnia area before the treaty, the treaty itself and the current Aamjiwnaang community. She agreed it would be a good learning opportunity and I got to work making some new videos.

Below are some of the examples we created to share with our staff and students. We created these videos using Apple Clips.

A Morning at Bkejwanong

Chi-Miigwech to Minogiizhgad for sharing Ojibwe language with us related to our experience this morning.

What a privilege.
This morning, Jen, Ally & I were invited by Gretchen and Minogiizhgad to his home at Bkejwanong in hopes that jigaa ninaatigo waaboo (the sap is dripping). We were joined by Language Consultants and Ojibwe Language Teachers from the the Lambton Kent District School Board. We began with a walk through the ninaatigo kaan (maple tree bush) while Minogiizhgad shared stories of Nanabush (or Nanaboozhoo) and the his discovery of maple sap as another form of Mother Earth's medicine for her people.

We even had an opportunity to explore, feel, and choose a tree to tap ourselves.

What humbled me most is realizing what makes the Anishinaabe culture so beautiful is that in everything there is meaning. All practices and interactions are done so with intent and purpose. As Jen and I taste tested the maple sugar that was created after skagamezigeng (the process of boiling sap), Minogiizhgad looked at Jen and I with a smile and said, "those smiles on your faces, there is the medicine".

We ended our morning inside one of the most intricate structures I've experienced, the Bkejwanong Teaching Lodge. The physical work that went into the Lodge is evident in every log, branch, and hand-stripped piece of bark that brought to life a design that was studied and recreated by a piece of film discovered of a Potawatomi family building their own lodge in the 1930's. An Ojibwe Language teacher who took part in the building of the Bkejwanong Teaching Lodge shared that the experience gave the Bkejwanong men a sense of purpose and community that will forever connect them to one another. The Lodge is used for ceremonial purposes and has become a prominent setting for the people of Bkejwanong to gather, embrace, and share. 

Chi-Miigwech Minogiizhgad and Gretchen as well as our fellow learners this morning for an experience the deepened my understanding, admiration, and gratitude. 

Visit from Joanne Robertson

On February 5th the junior students at A.A. Wright were so lucky to have Joanne Robertson visit us.  Joanne is AnishinaabeKwe and a member of Atikameksheng Anishnawbek.  She is the founder of the Empty Glass for Water campaign to bring attention to the drinking water crisis in Indigenous communities across Canada.  Joanne is also the author of the book "The Water Walker".

This is a fantastic true story about an Ojibwe grandmother (nokomis) named Josephine Mandamin and her love for water (nibi) and the need to protect it for our future generations.

Joanne spoke with us about the importance of fresh water and the water walks that she has been on in an effort to raise awareness of this cause.  Our students were so taken by the distance that Joanne, Josephine, and the other Water Walkers walked in an effort to spread their message.  They were also excited to learn that the Water Walker's visited Walpole Island and prayed for the St. Clair River a couple of years ago.  To learn more about the Mother Earth Water Walk you can visit their website HERE.

Not only was Joanne a fantastic presenter with a great message for us she also was gracious enough to help us out with our Words of the Week videos for February.  Our team decided to pull words from Joanne's book to focus on.  To access these videos and PDF word wall cards click HERE.

Also, as we know water is a theme that weaves its way through each grade of the Ontario science curriculum.  To learn more about how to incorporate this learning into your lessons, as well as watch a fantastic book review of "The Water Walker", please check out Gretchen's blog post HERE.

Family Event: Shaker Making at A.A. Wright

As a result of the Calls to Action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission we have been working on inviting community members from Bkejwanong (the First Nation closest to A.A. Wright) into our school to share Indigenous ways of knowing and learning in meaningful ways.  Recently, we invited Cecil Isaac to come in after school and lead some of our families in shaker making.

We started our event by sharing a meal together.  This is always a great opportunity to share, chat, and build a sense of community with our families.  After we had finished eating Cecil began to walk us through the process of creating our deer hide shakers.

The first thing that we needed to do some soak the hide overnight the night before so that it would be pliable and ready to sew on shaker making night.  We cut the hide out in advance to save the students and their families the hassle on the night of.  We used a leather punch to create holes around the edges and then our students and their adults used sinew to sew the two pieces of hide together.  Once this was done the kids packed their shaker with sand to give it shape as the hide dried.  The last step for the evening was to put the dowel handle in and wrap sinew around it to keep it in place while the hide dries.

It was so fantastic to see some of our families coming together, working on a common task, and creating a traditional Anishnaabe instrument.  We are all looking forward to night two where we will come back to together remove the sand, and fill our shakers with beans.  After we fill our bellies with another shared meal first, of course.

Check out the pictures below from shaker making night 1!

Ojibwe Word of the Week: March

This month we continued to focus on words from Joanne Robertson's book "The Water Walker".  Some of the words in the book are spelled differently in our local communities. We talked to area Ojibwe speakers and decided to use local spelling.

Ojibwe Words of the Week: March

Chi-Miigwech - Thank You Very Much, Big Thank You

Migizi - Eagle

Gimaa - Leader or Chief

Click here to access the Ojibwe Words of the Week PDF