Unlearn16: Class is in Session - The One Where I Use Truth To Get To Reconciliation

00:00:00.000 classes in session 16 classes in session today you just get me by myself and today i'm going

00:00:08.840 to do something a little bit different differently sometimes i never put the ly in a word little

00:00:14.900 differently today um it's really important to me and i thought i would share it talk it through

00:00:20.440 with you see what you guys have to say maybe maybe see if this gets put out into the world

00:00:26.900 in a way where I get some sort of inspiration or connection coming back. So let's see how this

00:00:34.140 rolls out, shall we? All right. I live in Toronto, Ontario in Canada. And every year at the end of

00:00:42.700 September, we honour, especially within the educational world, also in the world in general,

00:00:50.640 we honour something called Truth and Reconciliation Day. Now, a lot of people outside of Canada don't

00:00:56.640 know what that is. So I'm going to explain it. Our history, Canadian history with our

00:01:03.540 indigenous peoples is much like a lot of other nations. It's filled with fighting. It's filled 0.99

00:01:12.140 with colonization. It's filled with oppression. It's filled with genocide. And within Canada,

00:01:19.860 although there were deaths, Canada and our government perpetrated a much more sort of,

00:01:27.260 in my opinion, insidious cultural genocide rather than waging a direct war.

00:01:35.420 When we became a nation and before we became a nation, we relied heavily. And I mean heavily. I

00:01:41.940 mean, there would be no such thing as French settlers. There'd be no such thing as British 0.97

00:01:47.340 settlers had it not been for the alliances made with indigenous peoples and for the lessons

00:01:54.960 and survival techniques that they then taught us. Unfortunately, what we did with that

00:02:02.760 is many leveled. And I'm not going to go into a huge history lesson. I think I need to go into

00:02:09.720 a small one. The French and the English decided to fight over this land, where, by the way,

00:02:16.720 there were approximately already 300,000 indigenous people of many different nations

00:02:21.280 living here. When the French and the English got here, they fought over the land. Of course they

00:02:26.100 did. And so they chose allies, indigenous allies, in order to bolster their side, both of whom made

00:02:35.100 promises to their allies in order to take care of them if and when they won. Fast forward a little

00:02:42.900 bit, not to get to the end of the story, but the British win. And when the British win,

00:02:49.880 what they do is they very, very quickly throw out every agreement, every treaty,

00:03:01.240 every contract that was made with the indigenous peoples, both pre-war, during war, and post-war. 0.90

00:03:09.200 as soon as they had their footing, as soon as they had their power, as soon as they knew

00:03:15.220 where they stood, all those contracts and all those treaties were thrown out.

00:03:22.100 Now, as we progress through history, it's not nearly enough, apparently, to throw out those

00:03:29.920 contracts, to create versions of reserves, to isolate, to pit one against the other,

00:03:38.600 to strip them of resources and mobility rights, to change their political structure, to change

00:03:45.260 everything about them we tried to attack. And at some point, our government

00:03:52.760 decided that the best way to destroy these nations, and I do say nations, a lot of people 0.95

00:04:01.720 group all indigenous peoples together, the best way to destroy them for our government was to 0.99

00:04:08.820 destroy their children. And so what did they do? Well, they created residential schools. 1.00

00:04:15.380 And these residential schools were built in order to house Indigenous children from 6 to 16, hundreds of miles away from their families and their people and their language and their culture.

00:04:33.080 We did this in order to sever the tie between their indigenous ancestry, their language, their families, and the children, so that these children would then grow into being, quote-unquote, Canadianized, liberated. 0.79

00:04:58.220 whatever asinine language the government was using of the day. 0.63

00:05:04.820 Horrible language was used, talking about how to civilize the savage. 0.99

00:05:10.420 It's absolutely disgusting. 1.00

00:05:15.180 A lot of these indigenous people didn't want to send their kids, 1.00

00:05:18.460 so what did the government do? 1.00

00:05:19.400 They took them.

00:05:21.140 So make no mistake, this story starts with our government

00:05:24.700 kidnapping children and forcing them into boarding school.

00:05:29.400 And within these schools, within these residential schools, they systematically taught, controlled, 0.75

00:05:38.500 manipulated, coerced, threatened indigenous children to cut all vestiges from their past 0.76

00:05:46.680 life. 0.92

00:05:47.280 For example, they would enter the school and if a boy would have long braided hair, they

00:05:53.780 would cut it.

00:05:54.700 They would change their clothes. They would immediately change their names.

00:06:00.680 They would teach them either French or English. That's the language they are going to learn.

00:06:05.660 And if they were caught speaking in their indigenous language, their native tongue at any

00:06:11.000 given moment, they would face severe consequence. And severe consequence was a lot of physical

00:06:17.360 punishment, including, but not only, they would take straight pins. And if you're caught speaking

00:06:27.140 in your indigenous language, Cree, Mohawk, they would put a straight pin right through your tongue 0.94

00:06:32.020 and make you stand there until you learned better. You weren't allowed to go see your family. You

00:06:38.820 weren't allowed to speak in your native language. And what they hoped, and for a good chunk of it,

00:06:46.200 what they accomplished was a disconnect between these children and their families. So when they

00:06:54.360 were allowed out at 16 years old and they were reunited with the family, they would have nothing

00:07:00.580 in common anymore. No common language, no memory of culture or tradition or ritual or practice,

00:07:10.900 no spirituality connection. They would be Christianized and taught. 0.91

00:07:18.560 And this happened for generations. And by the 1960s, I guess we decided, 0.76

00:07:27.500 in our infinite wisdom, that this wasn't okay anymore. So what ends up happening is they turn

00:07:33.440 these schools, these residential schools, over to former students. So the government no longer

00:07:39.300 is in charge of enacting. But let's be honest, they turned them over to former students who were

00:07:47.080 very carefully, systematically indoctrinated into believing what the government doing was right,

00:07:55.280 into believing that their Canadianized version of who they were was better, bigger, more important

00:08:03.740 than anything they had before. And they started sort of enlisting and indoctrinating to the same.

00:08:12.220 Now, again, we stopped stealing children out of their homes in that capacity. But what did that

00:08:19.360 lead to? Well, it led to something called the 60s scoop. So when our government stopped taking them

00:08:23.600 to boarding schools and forcing them to live there. And by the way, in those residential schools, 0.87

00:08:27.820 I don't want to get too graphic, but we are talking about all forms of abuse, emotional,

00:08:35.540 physical, sexual. We are talking of forced encounters of all kinds. We are talking about

00:08:43.760 pregnancies in order to create a more, a whiter offspring of a race. That's how disgusting it got. 1.00

00:08:55.680 We know this is true, by the way, because not too long ago, there was a court case in which it was very easily provable and won.

00:09:06.820 But in the 60s, since the government no longer took kids out of their homes and took them there, they took them out in a different way.

00:09:14.920 So it's called the 60s scoop. 0.82

00:09:16.500 So the 60s scoop, the government would use CPS, Child Protective Services, in order to go into Indigenous homes, predominantly at astronomical rates, determine that their home life wasn't good enough, wasn't safe enough, wasn't healthy enough, and take those kids out of those homes and place them with white families across the country. 0.79

00:09:39.320 this was just yet another way of separating children from their parents but more importantly

00:09:50.220 destroying cultural linguistic spiritual ties to their family if they can't speak to their family

00:09:59.440 if they can't connect with their family their culture will die if their culture dies then all

00:10:05.580 of the treaties and the promises and the contracts that were made with those peoples for generations

00:10:12.400 would be null and void because they would dissipate. This is what they've hoped. 0.87

00:10:20.340 In my opinion, a lot of our government for a very long time has hoped that those nations

00:10:27.860 would just cease to exist in whatever way that happened. So they are impoverished. There's

00:10:36.940 areas without access to clean drinking water. We ensure that the land that they're living on

00:10:43.700 is horrific. We barely give them enough sort of access to healthcare and education and

00:10:50.540 traditional ways, all of that goes. So a few years ago, we had the Truth and Reconciliation

00:10:59.420 Commission that came after this very significant civil court case in which all of the surviving

00:11:07.260 members of residential schools in the Sixties Scoop got together in order to create a civil

00:11:12.380 lawsuit in which they won. They won next to no money, but they won. And the amount of money they

00:11:20.100 They were granted for having their lives, for having themselves stolen, their lives

00:11:29.140 destroyed, and years upon generations of violence bestowed upon them, the amount of money, I

00:11:35.500 would say at the most, $40,000, absolutely disgusting.

00:11:40.040 Just an embarrassment, in my opinion. 1.00

00:11:44.400 All of this being true, I would say in the last maybe 10 years, you've seen an Ontario Indigenous

00:11:55.540 Studies working its way into the Ontario curriculum, which is amazing, absolutely amazing.

00:12:00.920 And you see it working its way in, in different capacities, at different levels, in most of the

00:12:06.220 courses, social science courses I teach. And then you see the establishment of this day,

00:12:11.280 truth and reconciliation. Some schools do big things. Some schools don't. Some businesses do

00:12:17.580 things. It really depends. But every year, I feel a greater sense of obligation to do something

00:12:25.620 better, more thoughtful, more expansive, more impactful than I've done the years prior. And

00:12:37.480 the years prior I've done, always it involves my entire school. I don't just want the kids in

00:12:43.700 social sciences to be talking about this. I want every single kid to understand this. I have a lot

00:12:48.360 of kids that come to me, come to my school in grades 11 and 12. They never have to take any of

00:12:54.600 my courses. They might not ever speak about Canada's indigenous history and the damage and 1.00

00:13:01.620 the destruction that we've caused, which means they can't be aware of what still goes on today

00:13:07.040 Because I think that's incredibly important. This notion that it's a distant, it's an ancient history is absolutely ridiculous. All of that ancient history has very real life, very current, very future laid weight that is now put upon those communities as they struggle and they're doing it, they're doing it beautifully. 0.95

00:13:32.580 but as they struggle to regain the things that were stolen. So my question becomes, as a teacher,

00:13:41.940 I don't teach at an indigenous school. To my knowledge, I don't teach any indigenous students,

00:13:47.380 but to educate my job, if my job is truth and reconciliation, which I believe that is my job,

00:13:57.160 indigenous ideals and this issue or not. Truth and reconciliation means this. You first have

00:14:05.260 to learn the lesson. We first have to talk about the uncomfortable truth. We have to put it all

00:14:13.800 on the table, no matter how morbid, no matter how heavy, no matter how painful, it all needs to be

00:14:22.340 laid out. Number one. And that's happening in a lot of ways. And I want that to happen more.

00:14:30.300 And I'm going to explain to you what I think I want to do with this day this year.

00:14:33.600 And then there's the reconciliation part. And the reconciliation part, and I think it's having

00:14:38.900 bigger and bigger meaning every year, because I'm seeing in the United States, all of this pushback,

00:14:44.380 not necessarily against indigenous people, but like, let's be honest, they're thrown in there

00:14:48.160 too all this pushback of like we're not talking about this anymore there's no more racism all

00:14:54.240 this woke mentality and there's all this pushback and what they're pushing back and make no mistake

00:15:00.800 is on the reconciliation because they don't want to have to own it anymore they don't want to have

00:15:06.960 to be responsible for it and i'll tell you this i may not be responsible for what happened in 1907

00:15:14.880 but I sure as hell am responsible for what's going on right now. And that's the ramifications

00:15:19.880 of 1907. So if I'm responsible for right now, if I need to reconcile that, what do I do as a

00:15:28.000 teacher? What do I do, obviously, as a white person? What do I do as an individual that's

00:15:32.480 not a part of that community with the access points that I have? And so what do I do with

00:15:40.600 this day at Metro Prep. Well, I build it into a pretty big day. Now, last year, just to give you

00:15:48.560 a heads up, we did a school-wide art piece with puzzle pieces and quotes. And we had big discussions

00:15:56.440 as the kids worked on this in the entirety. We talked about what it meant. We talked about the

00:16:02.340 connections that needed to be made. We talked about how the indigenous community themselves,

00:16:06.700 All these different nations are slowly, using the puzzle piece as a metaphor, building their

00:16:12.060 lives back together, drawing on pieces of their past, of their history, of their ancestry

00:16:17.280 in order to build and relive.

00:16:22.020 And I think it was successful.

00:16:25.100 I think it was powerful.

00:16:26.960 But this year I have a question.

00:16:30.540 I want to do different things.

00:16:32.720 But one of the things I'm really interested in doing is this.

00:16:36.700 So I want it to be a little bit more interactive. I've recently watched, again, the blue-eyed

00:16:45.380 experiment of Jane Elliott, in which she teaches very young kids about racism and in what some

00:16:51.140 might say a very, very sort of harsh manner. My question is this. Do you think there'd be value,

00:16:59.220 and please, anybody listening to this, I would love your opinion. Specifically, I would truly

00:17:04.220 love the opinion of people in indigenous communities of nations across Canada. I talk like

00:17:15.560 this and I'm doing whatever I can, but I really would love as many of those indigenous voices

00:17:22.340 to be in my comments or on Twitter or wherever it is that I post this for you to give me

00:17:26.580 this feedback. What I want to do is a little bit of not an experiment, but let's say an interactive

00:17:35.900 workshop in which I will get sections of my school. We will do them in different groupings

00:17:43.200 because I only can handle so many at one time. Big classrooms full of kids in which I will give

00:17:51.140 them a taste, a soft taste, obviously, of what it is to be in that type of environment, to watch

00:18:01.600 somebody want to erase who you are, who your connections are with, and what your culture is

00:18:09.500 based on. For example, all the kids that come in, maybe I have shirts that they all have to wear,

00:18:17.260 so they all look the same because it's about erasing their identity. Maybe they all have to

00:18:22.980 wear hoods. Maybe I have hats for them all. I take away anything flashy. If they have jewelry,

00:18:28.140 I set it aside. You can't have that here. Their cell phones, they can't have them. There's no

00:18:32.280 connection to the outside world. I teach them wrong things quite purposefully. I teach them

00:18:40.380 things that are counterintuitive to what they've been taught, what they have learned, what those

00:18:44.900 connections are, I do it. And when they challenge me, I quiet them. I create maybe a language,

00:18:52.000 maybe a written language or a verbal language that I make them buy into. And if they speak

00:18:57.820 in their original language, there are consequences. Now, again, there is no way that this exercise

00:19:05.280 comes even in the same hemisphere, the stratosphere of what it was like.

00:19:14.900 Because there's no way I could possibly want to or ever do that.

00:19:20.360 However, if I can do this in a real way, and as I'm organizing them, and as I'm putting

00:19:27.700 them in their place, and as I am stripping them of every piece of identity and connection

00:19:32.440 they could possibly have, and I'm teaching them the wrong thing, and I'm telling them 0.98

00:19:35.980 they have to speak in this other language, and I'm amping up that kind of fervor, and 0.87

00:19:41.580 then behind me, I will show images or video footage of actual residential schools, of

00:19:52.000 actual interactions, of actual children who have gone through the horrificness of that

00:19:58.780 cultural genocide. And I don't want to leave them with that, but I feel as though

00:20:06.040 there is an aspect of trying to put yourself in somebody else's shoes that maybe that will

00:20:16.880 connect to. Now, also understand this. I will explain this to the students. Not all students

00:20:24.160 are going to feel comfortable doing this. That's okay. Because I will have different

00:20:29.400 sections going on that day. I will still do an art piece. I will still, I think I want to really

00:20:37.780 very much include traditional music and what that feels like and what that sounds like and some

00:20:44.040 dialogue surrounding that. So I want to include these other elements. So it's not just about what

00:20:49.360 happened. It's still, it's about what they're building and who they are and how powerful the

00:20:54.420 Indigenous community has been through this and continues to grow and continues to be. I think

00:20:59.480 it's all important. But I really would love if you, and especially anybody from the Indigenous

00:21:08.500 community, would possibly give me feedback, would possibly give me an idea, you know,

00:21:16.240 or anybody in general. Some people might say, Joe, you're pushing it too hard.

00:21:21.320 too much in the paint, too, too hard. Now recognize there will be significant limitations

00:21:28.820 on the ways in which I address all of this. But I really feel as though some of the best lessons

00:21:40.280 my students have ever learned is when we are deep in story. And when you're deep in story

00:21:47.740 and you're engaged in this kind of, albeit acting or performative space,

00:21:53.820 trying to understand what that would feel like.

00:21:58.700 I believe there'll be pieces of them, of my students,

00:22:04.700 who will understand it on a deeper level.

00:22:08.340 I also believe a lot of you guys will say,

00:22:10.580 why don't you have guest speakers?

00:22:11.700 Why don't you have these people come in?

00:22:12.960 Listen, all of that's amazing.

00:22:14.480 Um, you would, the amount of people that are booked for that day is incredible. Um, I want

00:22:21.320 guest speakers, but just also understand that I will have guest speakers. And if anybody has any

00:22:26.880 connection or ideas of guest speakers or people that would come in and do this as well, I don't

00:22:34.780 just do, uh, indigenous education on the last Friday of September. I do it, you know, eight

00:22:44.020 months of the year every year. So I welcome anybody who is an educator or is involved in

00:22:52.920 the Indigenous community or would like to guest speak or has something unique that they have to

00:22:57.400 offer. Please connect me, put your name in the comments. I would be more than happy to get

00:23:02.080 together with you and understand that it doesn't just have to be on this day, not in any way,

00:23:08.020 share perform. I will rally the school around amazing people and intelligent discourse

00:23:19.580 and important causes any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

00:23:26.080 I don't want it to be, it's funny, I oscillate. I oscillate it between it being a heavy day of

00:23:33.540 responsibility. Um, and then I, and then I kind of go, is it too much? Is it too heavy for these

00:23:41.220 kids? Is it, is it, you know, and then I recognize it's not about uplifting them on that day because

00:23:50.360 the art projects aren't about uplifting them. So when I do these other projects, either physical

00:23:56.440 art, I do some music stuff, or I'm going to do some video stuff, all of those other things

00:24:01.340 aren't about uplifting my students because my students have to carry it and understand it

00:24:07.140 so they can build from it. It's about them understanding, and I think this is important

00:24:12.680 for everybody, how powerful, how amazing, how it's been impossible to commit the genocide

00:24:26.340 The government wished to commit because of the strength and the resiliency of the indigenous nations across Canada.

00:24:36.640 The Cree, the Mohawk, the Algonquin, Ojibwe, all of them, they are still here.

00:24:44.940 They are still proud.

00:24:46.200 They are still connecting to their past and trying to pick up all of the puzzle pieces

00:24:51.700 that have been shattered generations prior, building their language, building their spirituality

00:24:59.500 back, building their cultural and spiritual ties.

00:25:04.640 And I want my kids to understand and respect how impressive and amazing

00:25:13.360 and honorable that is within those communities.

00:25:22.820 So, take a minute.

00:25:25.100 I hope you've heard a bit of what I've said,

00:25:27.700 but I really ask of you to leave a comment below,

00:25:33.000 to message me on whatever social media.

00:25:36.760 If you are from an Indigenous community within, you know, the Toronto area,

00:25:42.340 I would love to talk to you about speaking. I would love to talk to you about what qualities

00:25:49.220 or what ideas you could possibly bring to the table. I am very humbly asking, do you think

00:25:56.480 this idea of mine is in the realm of good? Do you think it's going too far? Do you think

00:26:02.960 I want, and I speak to people at school all the time, obviously, but I'm kind of asking the

00:26:09.280 community here? Am I going in a good direction? Do you feel as though this is going to have an

00:26:17.080 authentically powerful voice for younger generations to come? And again, I accept all

00:26:26.280 of that very humbly, very respectfully. Please be honest and contact me and let me know.

00:26:32.740 thank you guys so much for this particular podcast a little bit different i don't ask

00:26:39.520 usually ask so much of my audience but if you have taken time i appreciate you listening i

00:26:45.740 appreciate your comments and if you have anybody you can send this to so i can have more of sort

00:26:51.560 of an impact or a an idea coming from indigenous nations i would be very much grateful and until

00:26:59.700 then, I will see you guys next week. Same bat time, same bat station. Dismissed.

Unlearn16: Class is in Session - September 12, 2023

The One Where I Use Truth To Get To Reconciliation

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