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EIPS students celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day

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Woodbridges Farm Elementary was a flurry of activity as the student body absorbed Indigenous lessons and culture as they celebrated Indigenous Peoples Day on Friday, June 21.

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Division-wide on Friday, students across Elk Island Public Schools learned about the past and present-day contributions of Indigenous peoples.

“It’s important to celebrate national Indigenous Peoples Day as a sign of our commitment to reconciliation and moving forward and learning from the wisdom of elders. It helps build that understanding with the next generation of kids,” stated Woodbridge Farms Elementary principal Andy Cunningham.

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The Indigenous games were a big hit with Woodbridge Farms Elementary students as part of the national Indigenous Peoples Day celebrations.
The Indigenous games were a big hit with Woodbridge Farms Elementary students as part of the national Indigenous Peoples Day celebrations. Photo by Lindsay Morey/News Staff

The school’s gym and outdoor field were filled with games, such as sticks in fist, rock in fist, stick and ring, a stick pull, tie up, sling ball, hoop and dart, and run and scream. The games come from a variety of Canada’s Indigenous peoples including Plains Cree, Cree, Assiniboine Sioux, Dene, Tewa, Inuit and Turtle Mt. Chippewa, Salish, Blackfoot, Dakota, and Northern Cheyenne. There was also craft making such as creating talking sticks and tea, bannock and cookie making with Elder Auger.

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“The games help them learn about the culture and various aspects of it,” noted Cunningham.

“It’s important to keep celebrating this day so we can know what they did and other people can get to know how they did things differently from how we do it,” noted Grade 4 student Dakota Lamabe, who enjoyed the stick and ring game.

“I’m excited because we’ve spent a lot of time learning about First Nations, Inuit, and Metis history and culture,” said Charndrika Radke. “The games are fun, the snacks are good and it’s important because it’s about celebrating our history and Indigenous culture.”

EIPS hired a consultant four years ago following the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s 94 calls to action. That individuals is taking the lead on the school board’s First Nations, Inuit and Metis Centre, which the main objective to engage all students about Indigenous Peoples’ history, perspective and traditions.

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“We started slow, we had to, the calls to action had just been introduced and there was so much we didn’t know yet,” explained Kyla Sorel, the EIPS First Nations, Inuit and Metis consultant. “Early on in the process, we discovered to create deep understanding and to tell these powerful truths, we had to access people’s hearts — and to do that, we needed to be in a relationship with Indigenous Peoples.”

That’s where the lessons from Elder Wilson Bearhead comes in. He is a member and former chief of the Wabamun Lake Indian Band in addition to the Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations and Alberta Regional Chief for the Assembly of First Nations. Over the past four years, he has helped bring to life Indigenous perspectives into the curriculum such as land-based learning, traditional oral histories, and the Seven Sacred Teachings of love, respect, courage, honesty, wisdom, humility and truth. Discussions has included the Project of Heart and blanket exercises and hearing stories from residential school survivors. All of this is being done in an effort to bring together non-Indigenous communities with Indigenous Peoples in dialogue in the hopes to find healing through shared experiences.

“That relationship is key,” said Cheryl Devin, a First Nations, Inuit and Metis consultant with EIPS. “When you’re in a relationship you’re talking about humanity, about people. We’re not talking about pages in a textbook or something on TV that’s removed. And, through relationship, students can make a connection between a story and a person they’ve grown to respect so that change can start to take place.”

lmorey@postmedia.com

twitter.com/LindsayDMorey

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