Journey to reconciliation: My visual representation shows the journey to reconciliation it has a past, a present and a future. For my visual representation I choose a box with slates to symbolize the residential schools and its correlation to a prison like environment. I painted it black to represent the depression and darkness that the Indigenous children experienced and felt. The items that are attached to each string symbolize the Indigenous culture and traditions today. The string represents the connection between the past and the future. It also symbolizes the importance of educating the youth today on their past in order to create a future of trust and reconciliation.
Journey to Reconciliation should be a shared interest among all individuals. My journey to reconciliation started during my placement when Elder Frank came into the classroom to share his experiences and way of life. He taught me what we can do to help welcome all different cultures and to be accepting of differences. I feel I grew up in a secluded area, it was not very diverse or had many different cultures. My classmates and I shared pretty much all the same interests and when we talked about Indigenous peoples we did not go into much depth. I have really learned a lot over this past year in my ECS 100 class about reconciliation. Every lecture and seminar we would talk about the importance of reconciliation and why it is important to learn the land.
We got to watch a documentary called “muffins for granny” not only did I learn about the abuse in the residential schools I got to feel how it was. I felt sad and remorse for the children that had to go through that. I do not even want to imagine how the Indigenous peoples felt being taken from their families and how the government disrespected them by stripping them from their culture. The white children would leave behind muffin wrappers and the Indigenous peoples would go and eat them. I learnt about how the white people felt they had a dominate culture and demanded the Indigenous peoples to be isolated from there families and homes which created lots of damage and harm. The documentary showed that reconciliation is an ongoing individual process. The first step to reconciliation is to learn about it and then act on it. I feel its important to learn how we as individuals can be friendly again, in that case we need to learn about our Country’s history, our land and about residential schools. As a future teacher I want to show the documentary Muffins for Granny every year so, my students see how serious residential schools were and to make sure history does not get repeated.
Residential school trauma is still an ongoing struggle to the Aboriginal culture. The past will always be connected to the future we can fix it but, we can never erase it and lot of people need to realize that. Residential schools are never going to be something “to get over” it was an abusive, mistrust and cruel time for many people. Even though the last residential closed its doors in 1996, Indigenous peoples still face discrimination, abuse and being mistreated everyday. My journey to reconciliation was full of emotions, learning and how to be able to come together as one. I learned that I can not do it alone but, my hope is wholeness. I will teach the younger and older generation that it is never to late to change.