Building a Safe Space: Relationships as a Foundation for Reconciliation

As educators, we understand that learning goes beyond the curriculum. It's about creating a safe, respectful, and inclusive environment where students can bring their full selves and be respected and valued by everyone. In English courses like Contemporary First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Voices, we ask students to engage with difficult truths and stories that can carry significant emotional, cultural, and intergenerational weight.

Beginning with the End in Mind: Designing for Agency and Action

Using a trauma-informed approach helps our students safely confront the complexities of the world, while guiding them gently into, through, and out of these difficult truths with care, context, and intention.  For students, engaging with the stories of survivors, loss and the intergenerational impacts of colonization can feel profoundly heavy. Yet when students are given meaningful ways to express what they are learning, they are better able to process the emotions these heavy truths can provoke - anger, sadness and moments of helplessness - and transform them into purposeful action that honours Survivors and their families.  

This year, I aimed to expand that agency by having students choose to participate through designing and leading our school-wide activities for National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. 

Building Community & Connection

Before proposing this vision to the class, I was intentional in fostering a space where students could be curious, vulnerable, and where trust and community were firmly established. The first days of the course are dedicated to fostering relationships. My goal is to create a community of trust, safety and belonging before we begin engaging with difficult and complex truths. 

Our early activities focus on identity, story, community, and belonging:

• Identity Maps: Students explore how their identities are shaped by factors like culture, language, peers, and media. This helps them understand themselves and others which they then apply throughout the course.
• Classroom Contracting: Using Beth Strano’s poem “Untitled,” students write individually in their Idea Books and then collaboratively identify what they need to create a safe, engaging and meaningful learning environment.
• Richard Wagamese’s book, Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations: Each student takes the book home, selects a passage, and shares it at the start of the next class. This daily ritual reinforces a sense of belonging and community, honoring oral tradition and storytelling. It also starts our day in a gentle, reflective manner.

By intentionally building community in these ways, students are able to grapple with the learning, by openly sharing questions, reflections or perhaps even moments of vulnerability without fear of judgement and supported by their peers.

Communicating with Parents and Guardians

I send a note to parents and guardians, explaining my aspiration to create a space where students can explore the complexities of the world while centering their voices, reflections, and agency. This communication home also helps families feel connected to the work their teens are doing.

Scaffolding the Learning

Our first big inquiry question, from Stolen Lives: The Indigenous Peoples of Canada and The Indian Residential Schools is: How does language and culture affirm identity? 

I begin my teaching here to ground students in the wisdom and brilliance of diverse Indigenous voices first; this exploration also seeks to honour Indigenous languages, stories and ways of being. Creating this foundation is essential in a trauma-informed approach. Students grow to realize that people are more than their trauma and understand the profound impact of colonization on thriving, vibrant and complex communities. 

Two of the many resources I use to foster appreciation and connection to Indigenous languages and ways of being include:

• The Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address: Students listen to this in Mohawk, an act of decolonization. They journal on themes of respect, reciprocity, and interconnectedness, then create and present Found Poems in small groups. This helps frame our interactions and learning, emphasizing that reconciliation is an active process.
• Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants: Students read “Allegiance to Gratitude”, which shifts students' understanding of gratitude as a call to action, grounded in reciprocity and responsibility.

Exploring Language and Culture

Next, I plan activities designed to deepen students’ exploration of identity and culture through stories and community teachings.  Framing the learning in this way, creates space for students to reflect on their own identities, connect  with the stories they hear and builds understanding, empathy and agency.

• “Skywoman Falling”: We listen to Kimmerer narrate this story, reinforcing the power of oral storytelling. Students reflect on community, reciprocity, and personal responsibilities in their Idea Books.
• Stolen Lives: The Indigenous Peoples of Canada and The Indian Residential Schools: Students read about First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities and their relationships with language. Using Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop’s scholarship on "Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors”, they write their first blog post, connecting these themes to their own identities and new learning.
• Treaty Relationships: We study Lorrie Gallant’s webinar on The Dish With One Spoon Wampum and a video on the Guswenta, helping students understand our responsibilities as Treaty People. These lessons emphasize that being a Treaty Person is not passive, it comes with a responsibility to act with respect, care and reciprocity towards the land and each other. This lays the foundation for students choosing to participate, highlighting their sense of agency and providing them with a path to take their learning outside of the classroom. 

Cultivating Social Consciousness and Moving Toward Action

A pivotal moment came in my class when students listened to Jesse Wente’s 2016 interview on CBC’s Metro Morning, where he spoke about the impact of an imposed language on stolen land. Hearing his words moved students and sparked their social consciousness, providing an emotional connection to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action. This moment inspired students to transform their heavy emotions into a purposeful, reflective and collaborative plan for honouring the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation for our school.   

Students used their learning from a talk given by David A. Robertson where he shared a theory of change: Understanding → Empathy → Action to guide their planning behind each initiative:

• Bulletin Board: A group read Robertson’s 52 Ways to Reconcile and created a front-hallway bulletin board to raise awareness.
• Petition: Inspired by our discussions on language, a team created a petition to restore the Credit River’s name to Missinnihe.
• Language Posters: Others designed and placed Indigenous language posters throughout the school, intentionally "disrupting" the physical environment.
• Reconciliation Garden: Students researched Indigenous guests who had visited our school over the years and collaborated with the woodworking teacher to create stands for their biographies in our Reconciliation Garden.
• Moccasin Identifier Project: Another group partnered with the art teacher to complete the Moccasin Identifier Project in our Garden.
• Display Case: A display case was curated for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
• Morning Announcements: Students prepared morning announcements featuring stories of Residential School Survivors and examples of Indigenous brilliance.
• School Tour: A student-led school tour engaged classes in creating Found Poetry based on their learning.
• School-wide PA Service: Students planned and delivered a school-wide public address (PA) service that honored Residential School Survivors, included a moment of silence, and invited our school community to commit to truth and active reconciliation.

Inspiring a Collective Commitment to Truth and Reconciliation

Building a learning community grounded in trust, gratitude, reciprocity, and responsibility transforms what is possible in the classroom. By guiding students safely in, through, and out of complex truths and amplifying diverse Indigenous voices, students discovered in their classroom a space where they felt empowered to lead. Their initiatives extended far beyond our classroom, fostering a collective, school-wide awareness and individual commitments to truth and reconciliation.

Ultimately, reconciliation is about learning, reflecting, building relationships, and taking action together. With the aim of connecting families to the learning happening in our classroom and larger school community, I reached out to them to express my gratitude for the students' leadership and meaningful contributions.

By fostering these relationships and encouraging active participation, we can create more brave, inclusive and empathetic educational environments.