K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation happens annually on Sept. 30 and honours the children who endured residential schools, some of whom made it through and some of whom did not, as well as their families and communities.

In this, the fourth year of the national day’s existence, THE EQUITY reached out to Pontiac high schools to see how they are observing truth and reconciliation in their classes.

École secondaire Sieur-de-Coulonge

Sébastien Beaudoin teaches art at École secondaire Sieur-de-Coulonge (ESSC) in Fort Coulonge, and identifies as being of Algonquin descent. This year, he was in charge of supervising activities at the school for the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. 

He holds a certificate from UBC in reconciliation through Indigenous education, and has been using his knowledge to support his fellow teachers, who each organized activities in their own classrooms. 

Eight teachers at the school in subjects such as drama, history, French and arts organized activities for Truth and Reconciliation Day, or integrated the material into their curriculum throughout the month of September. 

He said some teachers focused on the loss of culture, others on the loss of language, but also stories of people who found these things again, including a young boy who reconnected with his culture via traditional dance. 

Beaudoin was happy with what the staff was able to put together: “At ESSC I’m proud of our team, and we have some incredible projects,” he said.

In his own classroom, Beaudoin set up a “babillard culturel,” or a cultural bulletin board, where students posted their research according to the topic Beaudoin chose: missing and murdered Indigenous women.

In 2015, the Canadian government launched an independent national public inquiry into the disproportionate violence experienced by Indigenous women and girls, as well as the systemic causes behind this violence. Indigenous women’s groups estimate the number of missing and murdered to be over 4,000. 

Beaudoin said he helped students find statistics online, and then contextualize them using stories of some of the missing and murdered Indigenous women. 

“I make available information like government statistics, but also to give them an idea of the reality of this issue in Canada,” he said.  

“We talked about the emptiness that it causes when a person disappears, in families and communities, and the fear that comes with it.”

He said understanding what happened is just one of the first steps toward reconciliation, and that these learning experiences can lead to deeper classroom discussions. 

“It’s to show the students how Indigenous women have been targeted,” Beaudoin said. “We also spoke about the lack of protection [ . . . ] we’re still lacking a lot of the tools to help the families.”

But even though learning is the first step, he said it can only go so far. He knows that the intergenerational harm caused by settler colonialism isn’t going to be unravelled overnight. 

“Reconciliation is going to take time. It could take generations. It’s a huge word; there are so many important aspects that we have to cover before discussing concrete reconciliation.”

But at the very least, he said, it is his duty to teach the history.

“We’re on Algonquin territory, and we owe them this. We owe them that respect. Doing our homework of educating ourselves and coming toward a reconciliation — we owe them that.”

Beaudoin said he hasn’t been able to bring in anyone from local Algonquin First Nations to speak to the students, but he is in consultation with them about how to teach this subject. 

“There are steps that need to be taken,” he said. “We’re working with them, and in the future I’m sure more things will happen.” 

Pontiac High School 

At PHS, it was the youth leading efforts to honour and remember the national day of remembrance. 

PHS teacher Matt Greer had a group of students in his leadership class run a series of events, including an orange shirt day on Sept. 30 and some activities the week prior.

Grade 11 students Jaxson Armstrong, Liam Mulligan, Alexander Burke and Katelyn Zimmerling all collaborated on a PowerPoint presentation explaining why it’s important to recognize the day, and presented it to the class.

Armstrong said it enabled them to go beyond what they learned about in the classroom and to do their own research. 

He was surprised to learn that the last residential school closed in 1996. “My parents were in high school then,” he said. “It’s something to think about.” 

He said learning about the history was a humbling experience, but he still feels good about how far we have come in recognizing it. 

“It makes you feel pretty guilty when you realize what our ancestors did to the Indigenous [people], but we’re in a different time now, in a better place. It’s nice to see how far we’ve come,” he said. 

Mulligan agreed that we’ve come a long way since then when it comes to recognizing past traumas, but he also acknowledged the effects of colonialism are long-lasting and not easily reversible. 

“You can never stop the intergenerational trauma,” he said, adding that there are likely many lasting impacts of colonialism that we don’t yet know about. 

Zimmerling is also glad that the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation is being recognized in schools, but said that more concrete actions are needed to arrive at reconciliation. “I feel like there’s only so much we can do,” she said.