Reconciliation has always been an ambiguous term to me that I have had difficulty fully understanding. I first started hearing about it in my high school classes when learning about the Indigenous history in our Country and the residential schools. Although we did discuss the happenings of the residential school systems, we never reflected on how deeply it has impacted their culture to this day. In my school and the media, the discrimination towards Indigenous people seems to be brushed off, and their people seem not to be represented enough. Even myself, I noticed my ignorance of all of it and found myself not knowing much about what the journey toward reconciliation looks like. I now know that to start my journey toward reconciliation, I need to understand the calls to action, immerse myself in the history and pain caused for residential school survivors and reflect on how I, as a future educator, can help further the knowledge of reconciliation for prospective students.

The dark chapter of Canada’s history with the residential schools has been hidden from our Country’s eyes for too long. I slightly learnt about them in my school career, but we never went into grave detail about the events and how they still significantly impact Indigenous people today. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission created the 94 calls to action to acknowledge “the full, horrifying history of the residential school’s system” and create “systems to prevent these abuses from ever happening again in the future” (Reconciliation Education. 2022). The CTAs are divided into two main groups: “legacy” and “reconciliation.” The legacy section addresses the history of the residential schools and publicly addresses the cultural genocide that occurred and how it affected their entire culture. The reconciliation section expresses what change we can do in the future to change and help the lives of our Indigenous people. By following and understanding these calls to action, we can move forward to deconstruct the systematic racism within Canada. To help myself connect with these calls to action and know what they mean, I created a word art piece with words that represented these calls to action and the overall process of the journey towards reconciliation. The hands reaching towards each other represent our Country (the red hand) reaching to help the Indigenous people (the yellow hand), and the words within the hands express the different parts of the journey of reconciliation. I included terms that represent what the Indigenous people went through and felt but also ways we can help their people. I added the visual of the hands symbolizing a “helping hand” for them but also included how they are not directly touching each other to imply we are not at the end of the journey of reconciliation and still have much more to do to help.

While on my journey towards reconciliation, I realized I needed to entirely understand the impact this had on Indigenous people. I have read about others’ experiences with residential schools and came upon an inspirational residential school survivor named Geronimo Henry. Geronimo was in the Mohawk Institute Residential School in Brantford, Ontario, where he lived for 11 years. He labels the residential schools as a “genocidal process.” He expressed how the longer children stayed in the school, “the traumas are suffered more” (Henry, G. 2021). Geronimo now spreads his story across different schools and conferences to teach others about the terrible events and how they have affected him, his family, and other Indigenous people. He says he wants to share his stories to get justice and to tell the story of his friends that have already passed. Geronimo dreams of building a memorial wall on the institution’s old grounds to commemorate all the residential school students. “This is about humanizing people — residential schools, the Indian Act, all these things that have been going on and are still going on … have been about dehumanizing,” said Jodie Williams (Taekema, D. 2021). Geronimo spent 11 years of his life at the Mohawk institution and described it as a “prison for children.” He states, “We were just new to the outside world. We were imprisoned. That’s what I call it. It was a prison for children” (Taekema, D. 2021). Reading the stories of these survivors is a difficult thing to hear, but the spreading of their stories is so crucial for reconciliation. Reflecting on how it affected these people and sharing what they went through does not let it be ignored like it used to be. Our Country needs to take accountability for what it caused. As a privileged white Canadian, I need to recognize my privilege and not be ignorant of events that have happened around my Country. Knowing Geronimo’s story, I can share it with others and involve myself in helping these Indigenous communities by sharing donation sites and other Indigenous events.

The TRC booklet states that students in our classroom “will inherit the world from us, both the good and the bad that we have created.” This shows how they need to be ready to “deal with both the opportunities of the future and the challenges of the past on this journey of reconciliation” (Canadian Teachers’ Federation. 2016). As a future educator, I need to recognize these aspects of teaching and how what I share with my students will reflect how they view things. I also need to have that representation for Indigenous students, so they feel heard and respected in my classroom. I must share the history of the residential schools and the impact it has had on the Indigenous people and their culture. Reflecting on how I never was taught the after-effects of the events, I strive to be more educated on how it still affects their community today and share that with my future students. As I continue on this journey towards reconciliation, I have learnt more by reading other stories in the residential schools. I will use that knowledge of learning from others’ stories in my teaching. I will strive to get actual Ingenious representation in the classroom to share their stories and share ways my students can be helpful to their culture by giving resources to help them educate themselves.

Throughout this journey towards reconciliation, I have learnt to immerse myself within the Indigenous people’s heritage and culture to fully educate myself on the harms of the past and its effects. I have acknowledged my privilege and slight ignorance of the topic I have had and started to understand why we need to expose ourselves to this dark past in Canada openly. Reconciliation begins with acknowledging past mistakes and striving to move forward with a helping hand of truth, justice and effort to grow. As a future educator, I promise to continue this journey of reconciliation within the classroom and have Indigenous representation for my prospective students.