ATHABASCA – On Sept. 30, Canadians will be wearing orange in recognition of Orange Shirt Day and the growing awareness of the intergenerational impacts residential schools had on Indigenous communities nationwide.
Inside area schools, students and staff alike will be partaking in variety of different assemblies, presentations, and classroom discussions that grapple with the legacy left behind and how our country is working on moving forward.
“Until we can educate the new generation as to what the realities of residential schools were, I don’t think anything is going to change,” said Alma Swan, Aspen View School Division’s First Nations, Métis, and Inuit (FNMI) family-school liaison. “We still have people in our society that still don’t acknowledge the atrocities of residential schools. Unfortunately, there’s still lots of people that say we should just get over it.”
Orange Shirt Day is also the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a statutory holiday that honours the children who didn’t return home, and the survivors of residential schools.
In 2023, Aspen View had 2,635 students split between Kindergarten and Grade 12; of those, 25 per cent self-identify as FNMI students. Many have family members that attended a residential school — St. Johns was an Anglican-run school at Lake Wabasca that ran until 1966, and the Desmarais School was closed in 1973 following a student’s death. Nationally, the last residential school ceased to operate in 1996.
“I know lots of people my mom went to residential school with. It was really difficult thinking, how many of these women had children, or babies, that died, that were never brought home, that they were never able to mourn,” said Swan. “It’s getting better, but that was the first punch in the gut for me.”
Each of Aspen View’s schools handles orange shirt day differently. Some schools have hoop dancers coming in, who’ll perform and then talk with the students about the importance of the day. At Edwin Parr Composite School, the Kicking Horse Singers will be coming up from Alexander First Nation to perform, and at Smith School, this year’s Orange Shirt Day shirt was designed by a Métis student, who will share the meaning behind her design with her peers.
“There’s some sort of gathering, where there’s a cultural presentation, and then an opportunity to talk about the significant of the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation,” said Katherine Mann, Aspen View’s associate superintendent for curriculum. “
Part of the learning opportunity is learning how to have follow-up conversations with kids about what they’re learning in schools. Because of the nation-wide changes that have occurred since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report in 2015, students are learning a very different history of Canada than their parents did.
Swan encouraged parents to keep an open mind when those conversations take place and invited anyone wanting to learn more to attend an event – in Athabasca, the Native Friendship Centre is holding a ‘Walk and Talk’ on Sept. 30.
