Thursday, April 3, 2014

Online "Idle No More" Resource

An interactive and evolving "Idle No More" textbook
Mr. Henderson: "Here is my attempt at creating an interactive and evolving Idle No More textbook for educators and students across the country. A major goal is to engage all in higher-order thinking and writing about this historic movement. As per my previous post, I find this a critical time to examine our collective history and see what we need to do to move on. With any issue, there are many perspectives and many which are ill informed. In order to think critically about any issue and to seek out what is significant, we need to have a basic understanding of the forces at work."

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Wab Kinew - 5 sterotypes

Wab Kinew on the Strombo Soapbox:




"Wab Kinew, host of the Doc Zone series 8th Fire, is also a CBC News Winnipeg reporter on CBC Television, and a hip-hop artist, named by the Winnipeg Free Press as one of the top artists to watch from Manitoba. Kinew has won an Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Award for his hip-hop and an ImagineNative Film and Media Arts Festival award for his journalism work for CBC News. He was also nominated for a Future Leaders of Manitoba award in 2010."

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"Graphic Education" - a tool for the classroom

Teaching Aboriginal History with Graphic Novels
Recording: http://ow.ly/eJn7b 
"Graphic novels are an increasingly popular and effective tool for the classroom. Students love them because they're visual, engaging, and simply "cool." Teachers love them because they exercise critical thinking skills, communicate complex ideas and issues, and can engage even the most reluctant of readers. Join David Robertson, author of the bestselling books The Life of Helen Betty Osborne, Sugar Falls: A Residential School Story, and the 7 Generations series, as he discusses how his graphic novels are being used in schools across Canada and bringing Aboriginal history to new audiences."

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Aboriginal History is Everyone's History - recorded webinar

Teaching about aboriginal issues for all learners

"In recent years, Canadian school curricula have started to offer high school Native studies classes focusing on Aboriginal history and culture. Ben Sichel (@bsichel), a Mi'kmaq Studies 10 teacher in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, argues that the material in these courses is important for non-Native students to learn as well, and offers tips for making it relevant to their lives. Non-native teachers can — and should — teach them how things like treaties, the Indian Act, and enduring racism and stereotypes about Aboriginal people play into the lives of all Canadians."

Transcript: LINK

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Indigenous Issues 101 | âpihtawikosisân

A series of resources that address the most prevalent myths

Great reading on a number of aboriginal issues and stereotypes:
"My focus is very much on what I call "myth debunking".  I have found it very difficult over the years to have discussions about anything related to indigenous peoples because so many bizarre beliefs get in the way.  ... For me, this is a time saving device.  A series of resources for myself and anyone else who wants them, so that some of the most prevalent myths can be quickly and clearly addressed, allowing a bigger conversation to (hopefully) happen."

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Wednesday, April 2, 2014

The Edge of the World: BC's Early Years

The events that shaped BC's early history

Watch this online at the Knowledge Network site. (50min)
"Vancouver filmmaker Erik Paulsson chronicles the events, people and places that shaped British Columbia's early history from its beginnings until the turn of the 20th century."

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First Nations must turn the page on residential schools - The Globe and Mail

"We can begin to move ... from the darkness into the light"
Shawn Atleo in the Globe and Mail, commenting on the close of the TRC:

"Through the pride of our culture and the strength of our ancestors, we can begin to move out from that embedded sense of trauma, move out from the darkness into the light of confidence in our future. Through the truth, we must free ourselves from the bonds of anger and hate. We will never forget. But we must not burden another generation with anger and pain. We can give them the strength of our spirit, our songs, our languages and our cultures."

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Monday, March 31, 2014

The Tyee – Aboriginal Affairs Coverage

Read interesting aboriginal-interest news stories

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Nanaimo students chip in to carve totem - Nanaimo News Bulletin

Carving a legacy for their school
"Students at Dover Bay Secondary School are carving out an exchange of ideas and cultures with help from one of Canada's most renowned artists. Dozens of students are chipping in an hour here, a study block there, to carve a legacy for their school from a section of a 280-year-old cedar tree. Leading the process is Bill Helin, a Tsimshian First Nation artist, jeweller and designer who's work literally found its way around the planet when he created mission uniform patches for space shuttle and International Space Station missions."

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