Over the past decade, Mountain View School Division (MVSD) has been on a journey of learning to support our educators in growing into their role of embedding Indigenous Education within our school communities. In 2018, under the direction of our Indigenous Education Steering Committee, MVSD developed an Indigenous Education Framework, in partnership with local Indigenous communities and stakeholders.
The Framework supports the teaching of Indigenous perspectives and outcomes through the provincial curricula in appropriate and culturally relevant ways for all students. MVSD recognizes that everyone can benefit from Indigenous Education, as it can enrich the experiences of all learners represented within the Medicine Wheel, while also supporting academic success for Indigenous learners. The Medicine Wheel philosophy of wholism applies here also in terms of the principle, “it takes a village to raise a child.”
Many Canadians never received the true history of Indigenous peoples within the public education system – we believe it is important that we educate community members alongside their children within our communities. When Canadians learn the true history of Canada and Indigenous Peoples, the reaction always seems to be the same: “What can I do? Where do I fit in this?” Umbay Nagamon (Come Sing) was born under those intentions: “What role does each of us play moving forward with Truth and Reconciliation? Where am I within reconciliation? What part do I have to support my children, my family, my community?”
Umbay Nagamon is a multi-media workshop that supports this partnership within our communities. Our goal is to create a safe, welcoming space where we can share and discuss our history as Canadians and engage in conversations of the many past and current policies that affect us all today. Within our workshop, we assist the participants to examine their role within reconciliation. Through a five-year Teacher Idea Fund grant, MVSD will be providing this workshop across the Division’s seven communities and 16 schools.
The workshop begins with an opening Drum song that welcomes participants to sit in circle. This assists participants to feel the Drum, the heartbeat of Mother Earth, the first heartbeat that all human beings experience within utero. We contemplate our lives within the complete lifecycle: child, youth, adult and Elder. We examine our history collectively and are honoured to have an Elder share their personal experience within the residential school policy. Embracing drumming, singing and music allows our participants to move their emotions through the music.
Next, participants move into a lunch-and-learn setting, where time is provided to discuss anti-racism education, systemic racism, and the importance of having these conversations together. As community members, we still struggle with talking about racism and its negative impacts in our homes, schools, systems, and communities. Our workshop aims at helping us to sit in the messiness, the uncomfortableness, and work through it.
Within MVSD, as in many other school divisions, we were heartbroken to hear the findings of our 250 children discovered on the former Kamloops residential school on Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation in Kamloops, BC. The Truth that was unfolding in terms of our Canadian history within the residential school policy catapulted our organization to develop ways to assist all of our schools and communities with reconciliation, enabling community members, students, and staff to understand the deep impacts of intergenerational trauma that our Indigenous families – and ultimately each and every one of us – were facing.
Many of us may think, “This does not affect me; this does not have anything to do with me.” However, the reality is that Canada’s true history affects all Canadians across this country. Canada was founded on a partnership between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Moving forward within Canada today, our partnership is critical and the concepts of equity, inclusion, diversity, kindness, and basic respect between All Peoples is imperative.
MVSD is embracing reconciliation as we are very aware of the high priority for this work to be done. It is imperative for every child, every family, every school to continue to work together in partnership in a healthy way. Umbay Nagamon, an invitation to action, please join us.