Advancing Reconciliation in Education
Introduction to the Toolkit - Webinar
Join us for a 1.5 hr online webinar where participants will:
Be introduced to the Advancing Reconciliation in Education toolkit
Hear our approach and lessons for each age group
Be provided meaningful approaches to youth voice and participation in schools
Learn skills and processes to honour Indigenous knowledge in the classroom
Connect with a community of educators committed to Advancing Reconciliation in Education, and engage in dialogue about best practices
In 2016, the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights engaged in a collaborative pilot project with five schools in Edmonton Catholic and Edmonton Public School Boards. The program applied a reconciliation through a human rights-based lens, exploring a variety of topics including the history of Residential Schools, the Blanket Exercise, Treaty, Worldview, Indigenous Language, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and Children’s Rights. After the first exploration, Advancing Reconciliation in Education facilitated the participation of students in a process of building their own calls to action. Those calls to action were captured in art forms, videos, documents, a zine, and concrete actions that affected their school communities in positive ways. Permanent displays featuring student learning and messages to survivors of residential schools and a treaty recognition poster contest are some of the school-wide initiatives that students have moved forward on.
This project inspired the creation of a pedagogical resource directed to teachers and community trainers with a full curriculum (lessons, activities, etc) to provide teachers across the province with a meaningful process to educate on reconciliation. The relevance of this toolkit is strengthened by the fact that it was built with community and student participation and based on the experience of Human Rights educators who piloted the sessions in schools with the support and guidance of local indigenous knowledge holders and elders. https://www.jhcentre.org/reconciliation-in-schools/