Indigenous Inclusivity Resources
Improving Indigenous Student Experiences and Outcomes [PDF]
Thank you to David Logue for supplying this resource
Blackfoot and First Nations Metis Inuit Protocol Handbook
Approved: October 7, 2013 General Faculties Council
(June 12, 2013 Aboriginal Education Committee)
This handbook is meant to share information and serve as a guideline for university faculty and staff
who are hosting university events that incorporate recognition of Blackfoot and First Nations Metis and Inuit (FNMI) cultures
and/or hosting Blackfoot and other FNMI peoples at the University of Lethbridge.
University of Lethbridge Territorial Statements (Updated Feb 2022)
It is anticipated that individuals at the University will open each University meeting and gathering with an acknowledgement of the Blackfoot Confederacy territory. Further, individuals may, at their discretion, use either the long or short statement for opening remarks in University gatherings. These statements are presented as examples to use in acknowledging the Blackfoot people and their territory
Long Statement for large institutional meetings or small public events:
Oki, and welcome to the University of Lethbridge. Our University’s Blackfoot name is Iniskim, meaning Sacred Buffalo Stone. The University of Lethbridge acknowledges and deeply appreciates the Siksikaitsitapii peoples’ connection to their traditional territory. We, as people living and benefiting from Blackfoot Confederacy traditional territory, honour the traditions of people who have cared for this land since time immemorial. We recognize the diverse population of Indigenous Peoples who attend the University of Lethbridge and the contributions these Indigenous Peoples have made in shaping and strengthening the University community in the past, present, and in the future.
Sample Short Statement for opening remarks at small, internal events/meetings:
Oki, and welcome to the University of Lethbridge. Our University’s Blackfoot name is Iniskim, meaning Sacred Buffalo Stone. The University is located in traditional Blackfoot Confederacy territory. We honour the Blackfoot people and their traditional ways of knowing in caring for this land, as well as all IndigenousPeoples who have helped shape and continue to strengthen our University community.
Sample Statement for Calgary Campus to be used at events/meetings at the Calgary Campus:
Oki, and welcome to the University of Lethbridge. Our University’s Blackfoot name is Iniskim, meaning Sacred Buffalo Stone. The University of Lethbridge is located on the Bow Valley College Campus located in traditional Niitsitapi territory in the City of Calgary. We honour the Blackfoot people and their traditional ways of knowing in caring for this land, as well as all IndigenousPeoples who have helped shape and continue to strengthen our University community.
* Siksikaitsitapii (Sik-si-kay –tsida-be) is Blackfoot for Blackfoot Confederacy
** Blackfoot Confederacy comprises the Kainai, Piikani, Amskapiipikani, and Siksika First Nations
*** Niitsitapi is Blackfoot for “Blackfoot-speaking real people”
**** Blackfoot Elder Bruce Wolf Child named the University of Lethbridge “Iniskim”
Why Acknowledgements are Important
Some Indigenous Protocol Examples
Joseph
https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/some-indigenous-protocol-examples
retrieved September 2021
Reading List
This list was compiled by Mike Bruised Head and staff from the U of L Bookstore
Residential Schools and Reconciliation: Canada Confronts Its History
JR Miller
Since the 1980s successive Canadian institutions, including the federal government and Christian churches, have attempted to grapple with the malignant legacy of residential schooling, including official apologies, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). In Residential Schools and Reconciliation, award winning author J. R. Miller tackles and explains these institutional responses to Canada’s residential school legacy.
This Benevolent Experiment: Indigenous Boarding Schools, Genocide, and Redress in Canada and the United States
Andrew Woolford
At the end of the nineteenth century, Indigenous boarding schools were touted as the means for solving the “Indian problem” in both Canada and the United States. With the goal of permanently transforming Indigenous young people into Europeanized colonial subjects, the schools were ultimately a means for eliminating Indigenous communities as obstacles to land acquisition, resource extraction, and nation building. Andrew Woolford analyzes the formulation of the “Indian problem” as a policy concern in the United States and Canada and examines how the “solution” of Indigenous boarding schools was implemented in Manitoba and New Mexico through complex chains that included multiple government offices, a variety of staff, Indigenous peoples, and even nonhuman factors such as poverty, disease, and space.
Behind Closed Doors: Stories from the Kamloops Indian Residential School (NEW EDITION)
Angus Jack (EDT)
Behind Closed Doors features written testimonials from thirty-two individuals who attended the Kamloops Indian Residential School. The school was one of many infamous residential schools that operated from 1893 to 1979. The storytellers remember and share with us their stolen time at the school; many stories are told through courageous tears.
Based on a viral article, 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act is the essential guide to understanding the legal document and its repercussion on generations of Indigenous Peoples, written by a leading cultural sensitivity trainer.
The Sleeping Giant Awakens: Genocide, Indian Residential Schools, and the Calleng of Conciliation
David B MacDonald
Confronting the truths of Canada’s Indian Residential School system has been likened to waking a sleeping giant. In this book, David B. MacDonald uses genocide as an analytical tool to better understand Canada’s past and present relationships between settlers and Indigenous peoples. Starting with a discussion of how genocide is defined in domestic and international law, the book applies the concept to the forced transfer of Indigenous children to residential schools and the "Sixties Scoop," in which Indigenous children were taken from their communities and placed in foster homes or adopted.
Indian School Road: Legacies of the Shubenacadie Residential School
Chris Benjamin
In Indian School Road, journalist Chris Benjamin tackles the controversial and tragic history of the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, its predecessors, and its lasting effects, giving voice to multiple perspectives for the first time. Benjamin integrates research, interviews, and testimonies to guide readers through the varied experiences of students, principals, and teachers over the school's nearly forty years of operation (1930-1967) and beyond. Exposing the raw wounds of Truth and Reconciliation as well as the struggle for an inclusive Mi'kmaw education system, Indian School Road is a comprehensive and compassionate narrative history of the school that uneducated hundreds of Aboriginal children.
Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada,Volume One: Summary: Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
This is the Final Report of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its six-year investigation of the residential school system for Aboriginal youth and the legacy of these schools. This report, the summary volume, includes the history of residential schools, the legacy of that school system, and the full text of the Commission's 94 recommendations for action to address that legacy.
A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System
John S Milloy | Mary Jane Logan McCallum
Critical Studies in Native History # 11 (series)
For over 100 years, thousands of Aboriginal children passed through the Canadian residential school system. Begun in the 1870s, it was intended, in the words of government officials, to bring these children into the “circle of civilization,” the results, however, were far different. More often, the schools provided an inferior education in an atmosphere of neglect, disease, and often abuse.
Broken Circle: The Dark Legacy of Indian Residential Schools: A Memoir
Theodore Fontaine
Theodore (Ted) Fontaine lost his family and freedom just after his seventh birthday, when his parents were forced to leave him at an Indian residential school by order of the Roman Catholic Church and the Government of Canada. Twelve years later, he left school frozen at the emotional age of seven. He was confused, angry and conflicted, on a path of self-destruction. At age 29, he emerged from this blackness. By age 32, he had graduated from the Civil Engineering Program at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and begun a journey of self-exploration and healing.
The Education of Augie Merasty: A Residential School Memoir
Joseph Auguste Merasty (Augie) | David Carpenter
A courageous and intimate memoir, The Education of Augie Merasty is the story of a child who faced the dark heart of humanity, let loose by the cruel policies of a bigoted nation.
They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School
Bev Sellars
In this frank and poignant memoir of her years at St. Joseph's Mission, Sellars breaks her silence about the residential school's lasting effects on her and her family—from substance abuse to suicide attempts—and eloquently articulates her own path to healing.
The Reconciliation Manifesto: Recovering the Land, Rebuilding the Economy
Arthur Manuel | Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson | Naomi Klein
In this book Arthur Manuel and Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson challenge virtually everything that non-Indigenous Canadians believe about their relationship with Indigenous Peoples and the steps that are needed to place this relationship on a healthy and honourable footing.
Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-Up Call
Arthur Manuel | Naomi Klein | Grand Chief Ronald M Derrickson
Unsettling Canada is built on a unique collaboration between two First Nations leaders, Arthur Manuel and Grand Chief Ron Derrickson
Both men have served as chiefs of their bands in the B.C. interior and both have gone on to establish important national and international reputations. But the differences between them are in many ways even more interesting. Arthur Manuel is one of the most forceful advocates for Aboriginal title and rights in Canada and comes from the activist wing of the movement. Grand Chief Ron Derrickson is one of the most successful Indigenous businessmen in the country.
Surviving Canada: Indigenous People Celebrate 150 Years of Betrayal
Myra J. Tait | Kiera Ladner
Surviving Canada: Indigenous Peoples Celebrate 150 Years of Betrayal is a collection of elegant, thoughtful, and powerful reflections about Indigenous Peoples' complicated, and often frustrating, relationship with Canada, and how--even 150 years after Confederation--the fight for recognition of their treaty and Aboriginal rights continues.
Power through Testimony: Reframing Residential Schools in the Age of Reconciliation
Brieg Capitaine | Karine Vanthuyne
Power through Testimony documents how survivors are remembering and reframing our understanding of residential schools in the wake of the 2007 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, which includes the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a forum for survivors, families, and communities to share their memories and stories with the Canadian public.
Finding My Talk: How Fourteen Canadian Native Women Reclaimed their Lives after Residential School
Agnes Grant | Marlene Starr
When residential schools opened in the 1830s, First Nations envisioned their own teachers, ministers, and interpreters. Instead, students were regularly forced to renounce their cultures and languages and some were subjected to degradations and abuses that left severe emotional scars for generations.
Truth and Indignation: Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools
Ronald Niezen
The original edition of Truth and Indignation offered the first close and critical assessment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as it was unfolding. Niezen used testimonies, texts, and visual materials produced by the Commission as well as interviews with survivors, priests, and nuns to raise important questions about the TRC process. He asked what the TRC meant for reconciliation, transitional justice, and conceptions of traumatic memory.
A Knock on the Door: The Essential History of Residential Schools from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
Phil Fontaine | Aimee Craft
“It can start with a knock on the door one morning. It is the local Indian agent, or the parish priest, or, perhaps, a Mounted Police officer.” So began the school experience of many Indigenous children in Canada for more than a hundred years, and so begins the history of residential schools prepared by the Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). Between 2008 and 2015, the TRC provided opportunities for individuals, families, and communities to share their experiences of residential schools and released several reports based on 7000 survivor statements and five million documents from government, churches, and schools, as well as a solid grounding in secondary sources.
Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling, and Reconciliation in Canada
Paulette Regan | Taiaiake Alfred
In 2008, Canada established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to mend the deep rifts between Aboriginal peoples and the settler society that created Canada’s notorious residential school system. Unsettling the Settler Within argues that non-Aboriginal Canadians must undergo their own process of decolonization in order to truly participate in the transformative possibilities of reconciliation. Settlers must relinquish the persistent myth of themselves as peacemakers and acknowledge the destructive legacy of a society that has stubbornly ignored and devalued Indigenous experience. A compassionate call to action, this powerful book offers a new and hopeful path toward healing the wounds of the past.
From Bear Rock Mountain: The Life and Times of a Dene Residential School Survivor
Antoine Bear Rock Mountain
In this poetic, poignant memoir, Dene artist and social activist Antoine Mountain paints an unforgettable picture of his journey from residential school to art school—and his path to healing.
Canada's Residential Schools: Reconciliation: The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada,
Volume 6
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
McGill-Queen's Native and Northern # 86 (series)
Residential Schools: Reconciliation documents the complexities, challenges, and possibilities of reconciliation by presenting the findings of public testimonies from residential school Survivors and others who participated in the TRC's national events and community hearings. For many Aboriginal people, reconciliation is foremost about healing families and communities, and revitalizing Indigenous cultures, languages, spirituality, laws, and governance systems.
Canada's Residential Schools: Missing Children and Unmarked Burials: The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 4
Truthand Reconciliation Commission of Canada
McGill-Queen's Native and Northern # 84 (series)
Canada's Residential Schools: Missing Children and Unmarked Burials is the first systematic effort to record and analyze deaths at the schools, and the presence and condition of student cemeteries, within the regulatory context in which the schools were intended to operate. As part of its work the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada established a National Residential School Student Death Register.
Canada's Residential Schools: The Metis Experience: The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 3
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
McGill-Queen's Native and Northern # 83 (series)
Canada's Residential Schools: The Métis Experience focuses on an often-overlooked element of Canada?s residential school history. Canada's residential school system was a partnership between the federal government and the churches. Since the churches wished to convert as many Aboriginal children as possible, they had no objection to admitting Métis children. At Saint-Paul-des-Métis in Alberta, Roman Catholic missionaries established a residential school specifically for Métis children in the early twentieth century, while the Anglicans opened hostels for Métis children in the Yukon in the 1920s and the 1950s. The federal government policy on providing schooling to Métis children was subject to constant change.
Canada's Residential Schools: The Inuit and Northern Experience: The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Vol. 2
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
McGill-Queen's Native and Northern # 82 (series)
Canada's Residential Schools: The Inuit and Northern Experience demonstrates that residential schooling followed a unique trajectory in the North. As late as 1950 there were only six residential schools and one hostel north of the sixtieth parallel. Prior to the 1950s, the federal government left northern residential schools in the hands of the missionary societies that operated largely in the Mackenzie Valley and the Yukon. It was only in the 1950s that Inuit children began attending residential schools in large numbers. The tremendous distances that Inuit children had to travel to school meant that, in some cases, they were separated from their parents for years.
Canada's Residential Schools: The History, Part 2, 1939 to 2000: The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 1
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
McGill-Queen's Native and Northern # 81 (series)
Canada's Residential Schools: The History, Part 2, 1939 to 2000 carries the story of the residential school system from the end of the Great Depression to the closing of the last remaining schools in the late 1990s.
Canada's Residential Schools: The Legacy: The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 5
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
McGill-Queen's Native and Northern # 85 (series)
Canada's Residential Schools: The Legacy describes what Canada must do to overcome the schools' tragic legacy and move towards reconciliation with the country's first peoples. For over 125 years Aboriginal children suffered abuse and neglect in residential schools run by the Canadian government and by churches. They were taken from their families and communities and confined in large, frightening institutions where they were cut off from their culture and punished for speaking their own language. Infectious diseases claimed the lives of many students and those who survived lived in harsh and alienating conditions. There was little compassion and little education in most of Canada?s residential schools.
Canada's Residential Schools: The History, Part 1, Origins to 1939: The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 1
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
McGill-Queen's Native and Northern # 80 (series)
Canada's Residential Schools: The History, Part 1, Origins to 1939 places Canada's residential school system in the historical context of European campaigns to colonize and convert Indigenous people throughout the world. In post-Confederation Canada, the government adopted what amounted to a policy of cultural genocide: suppressing spiritual practices, disrupting traditional economies, and imposing new forms of government.
Truth and Reconciliation in Canadian Schools
Pamela Rose Toulouse
In this book, author Pamela Toulouse provides current information, personal insights, authentic resources, interactive strategies and lesson plans that support Indigenous and non-Indigenous learners in the classroom. This book is for all teachers that are looking for ways to respectfully infuse residential school history, treaty education, Indigenous contributions, First Nation/Métis/Inuit perspectives and sacred circle teachings into their subjects and courses. The author presents a culturally relevant and holistic approach that facilitates relationship building and promotes ways to engage in reconciliation activities.
Suffer the Little Children: Genocide, Indigenous Nations and the Canadian State
Tamar Starblanket | Ward Churchill
Black Apple
Joan Crate
A dramatic and lyrical coming-of-age novel about a young Blackfoot girl who grows up in the residential school system on the Canadian prairies.
Torn from her home and delivered to St. Mark’s Residential School for Girls by government decree, young Rose Marie finds herself in an alien universe where nothing of her previous life is tolerated, not even her Blackfoot name. For she has entered into the world of the Sisters of Brotherly Love, an order of nuns dedicated to saving the Indigenous children from damnation. Life under the sharp eye of Mother Grace, the Mother General, becomes an endless series of torments, from daily recitations and obligations to chronic sickness and inedible food. And then there are the beatings. All the feisty Rose Marie wants to do is escape from St. Mark’s. How her imagination soars as she dreams about her lost family on the Reserve, finding in her visions a healing spirit that touches her heart. But all too soon she starts to see other shapes in her dreams as well, shapes that warn her of unspoken dangers and mysteries that threaten to engulf her. And she has seen the rows of plain wooden crosses behind the school, reminding her that many students have never left here alive.
Indian Horse
Richard Wagamese
Saul Indian Horse is dying. Tucked away in a hospice high above the clash and clang of a big city, he embarks on a marvellous journey of imagination back through the life he led as a northern Ojibway, with all its sorrows and joys.
Secret Path
Gord Downie | Jeff Lemire
Secret Path is a ten song digital download album by Gord Downie with a graphic novel by illustrator Jeff Lemire that tells the story of Chanie “Charlie” Wenjack, a twelve-year-old boy who died in flight from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School fifty years ago.
Other Reading
Peter McFarlane and Nicole Schabus
https://fpse.ca/sites/default/files/news_files/Decolonization%20Handbook.pdf
compiled by Dakota Swiftwolfe and others from the Montreal Indigenous Community Network
Retrieved September 2021 from:
https://bccampus.ca/projects/indigenization/actions-for-reconciliation-as-citizens-and-educators/
by Dr. Shauneen PeteUniversity of Regina
https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/aps/index.php/aps/article/view/27455/pdf
Retrieved in September 2021 from https://bccampus.ca/projects/indigenization/actions-for-reconciliation-as-citizens-and-educators/
Audio/Video Resources
Links
Mootookakio'ssin aims to virtually reconnect Blackfoot items in museums with Blackfoot people and assist in the process of knowledge renewal and transmission that occurs within the tribes.
Part of the Blackfoot Digital Library.
List of Indian residential schools in Canada
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_residential_schools_in_Canada
Retrieved September 2021
Courses and Learning
Vancouver Community College
http://www.fnesc.ca/first-peoples-principles-of-learning/
Because the First Peoples’ Principles of Learning represent an attempt to identify common elements in the varied teaching and learning approaches that prevail within particular First Nations societies, it must be recognized that they do not capture the full reality of the approach used in any single First Peoples’ society.
When making connections with the local First Nations community, teachers (or students) may therefore find it helpful to investigate how pedagogy is articulated and practised within that community.
This investigation is likely to happen incrementally over time, as the pedagogical approach articulated and practised within the local communities will not necessarily be set out in an easy-to-summarize form. Ultimately, one important conclusion for students to draw is that pedagogy in First Nations societies is both dynamic and culturally specific (i.e., grounded in a distinctive language and way of looking at the world).
retrieved September 2021 from https://bccampus.ca/projects/indigenization/actions-for-reconciliation-as-citizens-and-educators/
BC Campus Indigenization Guides (Reading)
Pulling Together: A guide for Indigenization of post-secondary institutions. A professional learning series.
Authors:Bruce Allan, Amy Perreault, John Chenoweth, Dianne Biin, Sharon Hobenshield, Todd Ormiston, Shirley Anne Hardman, Louise Lacerte, Lucas Wright, and Justin Wilson
https://opentextbc.ca/indigenizationinstructors/
Retrieved September 2021 from https://bccampus.ca/projects/indigenization/actions-for-reconciliation-as-citizens-and-educators/
Pulling Together: A guide for Indigenization of post-secondary institutions. A professional learning series.
Sybil Harrison, Janice Simcoe, Dawn Smith, and Jennifer Stein
https://opentextbc.ca/indigenizationleadersadministrators/
Retrieved September 2021 from https://bccampus.ca/projects/indigenization/actions-for-reconciliation-as-citizens-and-educators/
Pulling Together: A guide for Indigenization of post-secondary institutions. A professional learning series.
Ian Cull, Robert L. A. Hancock, Stephanie McKeown, Michelle Pidgeon, and Adrienne Vedan
https://opentextbc.ca/indigenizationfrontlineworkers/
Retrieved September 2021 from https://bccampus.ca/projects/indigenization/actions-for-reconciliation-as-citizens-and-educators/
Pulling Together: A guide for Indigenization of post-secondary institutions. A professional learning series.
https://opentextbc.ca/indigenizationfoundations/
Retrieved September 2021 from https://bccampus.ca/projects/indigenization/actions-for-reconciliation-as-citizens-and-educators/
Pulling Together: A guide for Indigenization of post-secondary institutions. A professional learning series.
https://opentextbc.ca/indigenizationcurriculumdevelopers/
Retrieved in September 2021 from https://bccampus.ca/projects/indigenization/actions-for-reconciliation-as-citizens-and-educators/
Pulling Together: A Guide for Researchers, Hiłḵ̓ala
A guide for Indigenization of post-secondary institutions. A professional learning series.
https://opentextbc.ca/indigenizationresearchers/
Retrieved September 2021 from https://bccampus.ca/projects/indigenization/actions-for-reconciliation-as-citizens-and-educators/