Engaging Families at A.A. Wright

Family Event: Hand Drum Making By Gretchen Sands-Gamble As a result of the Calls To Action recommended by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we at A.A. Wright are working with an elder from Walpole Island, Cecil Isaac, to do our part to bring indigenous ways of knowing and learning into our school in a meaningful way. We are focused on not only bringing new opportunities to our students, but also educating staff on appropriate ways to bring First Nations culture into the classroom. We want our students' experiences to be authentic and respectful. We also are focusing on getting more families into the school to experience these great learning opportunities. We are hoping to form more friendships and connections with the families of students who go to AA Wright, as well as make connections with people from the community who can come in and share their knowledge and expertise with our students. I sat with Cecil Isaac, and we came up with ways we can engage familie...

The starting of the project began as a small group of educators at A.A. Wright asking the question, "How can we increase our family engagement and how can we include more Indigenous perspectives and culture in our school?"   Our school neighbours a First Nation named, Bkejwanong also known as Walpole Island.  Many of our families at A.A. Wright have connections to Bkejwanong, and in the past, we have invited community members into our classrooms to share culture and knowledge. Our small group of teachers knew that in order to provide our A.A. Wright families with engaging events that share Anishinaabe culture we needed to reach out to an Anishinaabe Knowledge Keeper to guide us and to provide the teachings.   We reached out to Bkejwanong elder, Cecil Isaac to help us.  As teachers, we learned about appropriately honouring visitors who come to our school to share culture and knowledge, we learned what is appropriate to teach in our classrooms (history and...