NORTHWEST TERRITORIES/NUNAVUT
The inter-generational effects of the residential school system in the North are being examined in high school classrooms throughout the NWT and Nunavut this winter.
Former NWT premier Stephen Kakfwi is among former residential school students interviewed as part of new residential school courses mandatory for students to graduate in the NWT and Nunavut. - NNSL file photo |
The award-winning program, a core Grade 10 level course titled The Residential School System in Canada: Understanding the Past-Seeking Reconciliation-Building Hope for Tomorrow, was introduced in classrooms throughout both territories in the winter of 2013. The new class, which falls under the Northern Studies program in the NWT and the social studies program in Nunavut, is mandatory in order to graduate with a high school diploma in each territory.
Late last month, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment completed the in-service training of teachers in all NWT communities, according to John Stewart, director of school and instructional services.
"The intent is to help teachers and students and, in fact, parents to both understand the issues and begin to wrestle and move forward on them," he said.
The program is offered in every community in the NWT and Nunavut that offers Grade 10.
The NWT and Nunavut departments of education collaborated on the curriculum in 2012.
The teaching resources the two departments developed feature multimedia resources based on oral history recorded by former residential school students, including former NWT premier Stephen Kakfwi and former Nunavut premier Eva Aariak.
"We interviewed people from all over the NWT and Nunavut, and those interviews became the heart of the resource," said Stewart, who received an Indspire Guiding the Journey: Indigenous Educator Award this past fall for his work on the project. "The story of another person, especially of another child, is a very powerful way to move into the story, as opposed to, 'Here is the facts, here is the figures,' and another documentary clip."
Journalist and traditional knowledge keeper Paul Andrew, born north of Tulita in the Mackenzie Mountains, is among the residential school survivors whose voices are featured in the lesson materials. He was first taken from his family by floatplane to Grollier Hall in Inuvik in 1959.
"Residential schools were part of imperialism and colonization," he said. "The history of the NWT and particularly aboriginal people has to be told."
Other well-known voices in the audio, video and literary materials include Paul Andrew, John Amagoalik, Muriel Betsina, Nellie Cournoyea, Edna Ekhivalak Elias, Piita Irniq, Sarah Jerome, Maxine Lacorne, Millie Kuliktana, Rosemarie Meyok, Francois Paulette, Bob Sanderson, Jean Sanderson, Marius Tungilik and John B Zoe.
In Nunavut, the course literature was developed in English and Inuktitut.
In the past year, the course has been emulated by departments of education in other parts of Canada, including Yukon.
"One of the things we are encouraged by is we continue to receive calls - I would say about weekly - from other jurisdictions, other school boards, other universities who have seen the resource and said it's the best they've seen," said Stewart.
"And can they use it and borrow from it and if they want to, use it as a guide to help them develop materials of their own."
