Kanamu Kobayashi/Staff reporter
Residential schools and the past relationship with the Indigenous people are a dark history for Canada. To honour the children who passed away because of residential schools, Truth and Reconciliation Day was made.
Finnegan Price, grade 10, a student in Gleneagle stated that “I felt that it is especially important for us to have Truth and Reconciliation Day because of how we would need to learn about the past and remember.” He also said “It would give people who were abused a platform to speak out and acknowledge what the country has done.”
Another student in Gleneagle, Zoey Liu, grade 10 a student in Gleneagle, stated that she believes that it is important for us to have Truth and Reconciliation Day as much as other days such as Thanksgiving Day or Remembrance Day and that we have a day off to honor this day and she felt that this day should be on the same level of importance as Remembrance Day and Thanksgiving Day.
Price believes that the schools right now do not provide enough education, because of how in most of his classes he never had a full-on discussion regarding the topic. He also claims that since Truth and Reconciliation Day was stated, they have not had a real conversation or a lesson about the topic and he felt that it is not enough. Liu also believes there is not enough education on Indigenous history because she felt that more than 80% of Canadian history is formed by Indigenous people, as they have been living in this territory for thousands of years and perceive Indigenous history because it is part of Canadian history.
Gina Gianakas, English teacher teaching on call (TTOC), stated that since she was a resident of Ontario and has only been in BC for the last few months, from her perspective, it is hard for her to know what BC is doing. Though she knows in Ontario, they integrated more of Indigenous education like history into the curriculum as well as workshops. The curricular in Ontario has been improvised to acknowledge and make sure that the students are leaning about our Indigenous ancestors.
Gianakas felt that it is necessary for us to have Truth and Reconciliation Day because she believes that it is important for us to acknowledge, and to remember or to reflect on trauma that was imposed on these people and that Canada needs to honor and listen to them, as they should have a Day which is about them.
Liu believes that residential schools are both morally and legally unacceptable, as the kids were taken away from their homes and family and treated without any respect and the biggest thing, she felt was the most unacceptable was the fact that the schools didn’t teach them of the importance of their own culture, and that they were not able to eat their own traditional food and were not allowed to talk in their own native language that is perceived as inequality of their culture. As she felt that it is very idiotic for some people to think their own culture is better than the other, as the importance of every culture is the same.
Price also stated something like this, He stated that, “there was no such thing as residential schools being good, as there were many children who were abused and taken away from their homes, their families, and their culture was stripped away from them and this went on for years and years,” and he claims that “there was nothing good from them.”
Gianakas believes that schools should educate children as soon as they can, like grade 1, though you are not going to teach them with the same capacity as what you would teach in high school but she believes that they should be exposed to this right from the beginning, because the education is part of getting us to recognize and to make sure that we do not have certain prejudice and stereotypes on groups of people.
There were many people who participated in the events of Truth and Reconciliation Day, including Price, “On Truth and Reconciliation Day, I went to the Lafarge Lake event, drumming for the children who were lost to residential schools and for the survivors.” said Price, “Then I stayed home and contemplated all the atrocities that happened there.”
There are many other ways people spend the Day, but on this Day, Liu was studying and reflecting on Truth and Reconciliation and its history. Gianakas spent her Truth and Reconciliation Day by going through the news to hear how various parts of Canada celebrated this Day, she also said that she went to a local park where they were having a get together.
Pictures:
Truth and Reconciliation Day Logo
Children in Residential schools
Teachers wearing orange for Truth and Reconciliation
National Day of Truth and Reconciliation Day
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