Let's start at the Beginning...
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 perspectives) and what to leave to the Knowledge Keepers and elders (anything to do with culture).
We started planning our events and we were hoping to provide 1 learning opportunity a month to students and their families after school.
We conferenced with Cecil coming up with a list of possible learning events as well as people from Bkejwanong who could help us make this happen.
We decided early in this process that we'd need to provide a meal for participants and worked together to make soup, hot dogs, veggie and fruit trays.
As we planned for our first event we wondered how many families we'd have joining us. We'd soon see that there were MANY families at A.A. Wright that wanted to participate in our first event...
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 perspectives) and what to leave to the Knowledge Keepers and elders (anything to do with culture).
We started planning our events and we were hoping to provide 1 learning opportunity a month to students and their families after school.
We conferenced with Cecil coming up with a list of possible learning events as well as people from Bkejwanong who could help us make this happen.
We decided early in this process that we'd need to provide a meal for participants and worked together to make soup, hot dogs, veggie and fruit trays.
As we planned for our first event we wondered how many families we'd have joining us. We'd soon see that there were MANY families at A.A. Wright that wanted to participate in our first event...
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