Day 4: Giant Canada Map in Jr High

Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3

Day 4 saw the Giant Canada Floor map with Junior High classes at South Central High School. I found out the night before that all classes chose to do a Residential School lesson; this was a bit of a surprise but doing the same lesson repeatedly does simplify planning.

With class sizes varying from about 14 to 35, the tone of each lesson was certainly different. We started by asking what students knew about about residential schools. There were a few students in each class who knew some parts. I filled in details to create an atmosphere fitting for the seriousness of the subject matter.

Each class then got divided into 8 groups; each group got a stack of uniquely coloured paper (thanks to Angela Hazell at Foremost School for this idea) and a map of all the residential schools that have existed in Canada. Working in their groups, students were asked to place a tent-like folded piece of paper to represent every residential school in their assigned region. We finish off by asking a student or teacher to place the single sheet of paper in the Atlantic region.

We then have the groups sit back and take in the creation. This is a powerful visual. Every time.

I read a section from the 1894 Indian Act that explains what happens to parents who don’t send their students to residential schools (fine or imprisonment). Students are asked to think of an “I notice…” statement, or and “I wonder….”. Observations and questions were quite similar:

• the West has more residential schools
• Alberta has the most residential schools
• why does the Atlantic region have only one?
• surprise at the number of schools in the north
• schools in the Arctic are all located next to the ocean
• how were they able to build schools so far up north in the Arctic

We discussed reasons and answers as much as time would allow. Check out this site for info about the history of residential schools around Canada.

This activity is impactful, even without the Indigenous Peoples themed floor map.