When Niigaan Sinclair visits schools, he always asks, “How many of you have an orange shirt in your closet that you pull out at least once a year?”
He considers it progress that nearly every hand goes up these days.
“I’m seeing more conversations, more curriculums, and probably most important of all, the change in school culture,” said the author and indigenous studies professor at the University of Manitoba.
Ten years since the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)’s final report, more students are marking Orange Shirt Day each September. Also known as Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, many spend at least part of the day learning about residential schools, where Indigenous children were forced into government-funded, church-run schools to strip away their culture.
Yet Sinclair, also a former high school teacher, notes it’s just one day set aside to talk about the impact of residential schools.
“Can we do it for the other 364 days?” he said from Yellowknife.
Teaching K-12 students about residential schools is just one step toward reconciliation, according to Sinclair and other educators.
Sinclair believes many areas with a high Indigenous population — across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Northwestern Ontario, for instance — absolutely understand working together to achieve the TRC’s recommendations, which spell out ways to address the legacy of residential schools.
It’s students who are leading conversations about truth and reconciliation, says Niigaan Sinclair, but we need more to move schools past a single day of talk or a solo curriculum reference.
Yet “in many corners of the country, we’re still having a conversation about the why, not about the how,” said Sinclair, whose father was the late Murray Sinclair, the judge and senator who chaired the commission.
“Virtually every school district in Canada has in some way or another adopted principles of reconciliation. Whether they’ve committed to the calls to action is a little bit different.”
In 2023, the Yellowhead Institute, an Indigenous-led research and education group, reported that only 13 calls to action issued by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had been addressed in the nearly 10 years since they were introduced. Rose LeMay, CEO of the Indigenous Reconciliation Group, says all 94 need to be addressed ‘within a generation.’ Also, Isabella Kulak, 14, shares the origins of Ribbon Skirt Day and talks about what the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation means to her and her family.
Theme of education
The theme of education runs throughout the recommendations, from calling for federal support to eliminating educational gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
For K-12, the TRC called upon federal and provincial governments to collaborate with Indigenous groups and educators to develop mandatory, age-appropriate curriculums about residential schools, treaties and Indigenous contributions, plus training for teachers.
While all provinces and territories do include residential schools in their overall curriculum now, exactly where it appears, how deeply, and whether it’s even compulsory varies across regions. According to non-profit group Indigenous Watchdog, which tracks progress of the calls, none of the education-related calls are fully complete.
Still, progress inches forward at individual boards and schools.
Building intercultural respect and understanding among K-12 students, for instance, is a part of Call 63 that resonates northwest of Toronto at the Peel District School Board, Canada’s second largest and with one of the most diverse student populations.
Hundreds of PDSB students, staff and community members gathered Friday at the board’s Maawnjiding Wiigushkeng Centre for Indigenous Excellence and Land-Based Learning in Cheltenham, Ont., for its second annual powwow.
Students spent a glorious spring day taking in dancers in vibrant regalia, drum circles and cultural pavilions that ranged from storytelling and traditional animal hide preservation to street art and Indigenous DJs.
For some attendees, the joyful event built on what they learn every day.
At SouthFields Village Public School, Indigenous perspectives are blended into different subjects and school-wide events. Students learn about residential schools, but also the value of time outdoors in nature and saying “thank you to what nature has given us,” said Grade 4 student Ryka Gill.
“Some people [who] are Indigenous, in the past, their culture was taken away,” she said. “In this generation, I think it’s important to learn about Indigenous culture.”
Gill’s teacher, Laura Gibson, says educators today must “carve out spaces for voices not my own.” Seeking ongoing training and development means she’s more able to bring Indigenous voices to her students and spark connections.
She and her colleagues incorporate Indigenous learning across different spaces. Attending the annual powwow is one example, but there are also school trips to a longhouse and Indigenous speakers regularly invited into their classrooms.
Experiences like this weren’t available to previous generations, according to PDSB’s Indigenous education lead Nicole Reynolds.
“That we can share this with students from various backgrounds and from diverse identities is really important…. They are learning with Indigenous people.”
‘An education system that includes us’
At Yukon’s First Nation School Board, engaging local First Nations has been a vital pillar of the new school authority, which started in 2022 following decades of Indigenous leaders decrying the “devastating” schooling of their children, according to Melissa Flynn, FNSB executive director.
“When the education system hasn’t been meeting the needs of our children … it’s not the family and the children that need to change, it was the education system and how it’s being delivered,” she said from the board’s head office in Whitehorse.
“It is changing the education system [from] a system that is happening to us as learners and families, to an education that includes us.”
That’s meant changes to how kids are taught, like adopting structured literacy for learning how to read, more trips out on the land and developing high school courses on more resonant topics, like food sovereignty. In just three years, Flynn is heartened to see improved literacy at the board’s 11 schools and every time a family reaches out to say their children now feel excited to attend school.
The involvement of nine different First Nations governments, as well as Indigenous elders and knowledge-holders, has been key, she said. They consult on everything from school growth plans to next steps after the latest literacy and numeracy data is gathered to building students’ sense of duty to the community.
“Every single generation has a responsibility in the education of our children,” Flynn said, adding that tapping into a traditional practice of multi-generational learning, mentoring and support benefits not only students, but teachers and staff, as well.
“How do we bring it back into the learning system where no one learns alone?”
Flynn has an eye to improve Indigenous language programs next, but feels confident overall that responding to what Indigenous students and communities need is the right approach to addressing the TRC’s calls to action in education.
“We all live on the territory of an Indigenous group. What a gift it would be for everyone across Canada to see this is what education looks like: It is guided by the people and the land that you live on.”
