Going into the Winter Exhibition, I expected the usual; parents walking by nodding politely but not really engaging. But one man surprised me. He stopped, listened intently and even asked me questions on how to learn more. It was the first time I felt like someone truly wanted to learn about what I was presenting. This made me realize reconciliation starts with a simple real conversation, and there’s a lot of power behind that. His interest gave me hope people actually do care and are willing to go out of their way to reconcile. His enthusiasm made this entire experience much more meaningful to me, and I’m very grateful for that.
My topic on reconciliation was called “Indigenous Led Film, Media and Literature”, and my group members were Magnus, Kadin, and Callum. We explored indigenous voices in books, shows, movies and radio, and how important it is to help preserve history and educate others. The driving question for this project was:
How might we engage in meaningful Reconciliation?
If you had asked me this question before this project the answer would have been simple “apologizing for our mistakes”. But through research, I realized that reconciliation is about much more than saying “I’m sorry”. What I think is an important aspect of reconciliation, maybe even the most important, is proper education. Instead of ignoring the mistake or refusing to accept its existence, we must share the information and analyze what we can do better in the future. Repeating past failures is the opposite of reconciliation, as well as avoidance, ignorance, and lack of proper education.
What do I mean by “proper” education? Proper education involves unbiased lessons that utilize direct sources instead of filtered or altered versions of history. It amplifies indigenous voices rather than speaking on their behalf. Additionally, it encourages open conversations instead of shying away from challenging topics. To begin this project we started by finding reliable sources to properly educate ourselves, my collection of information looked like this: RESEARCH📚 I had trouble at first finding accurate and trustworthy sources, which just shows how easy it is to consume false information. Eventually, I found sources that came directly from Indigenous voices or had a reliable source in the source itself.
The final product of this project was the ReconciliACTION Winter Exhibition. I presented how Indigenous people are inaccurately represented in media, how they actually express themselves, and what reconciliation looks like to us. To help show how Indigenous represent themselves I used educational Indigenous books, art, and games. Here is one piece of media I used to portray how Indigenous people are unfairly being represented, to show the contrast.
The curricular competency for this project was “Questioning” which focuses on if I can ask questions, research information and share ideas. During this project we followed that like an outline, we started by having an open conversation. We talked about the topic and learnt crucial information like provincial and federal government policies that affect First Nations people, colonialism, and the 94 Calls to Action report. Due to a lot of these topics being new to me I asked many questions to learn more and more deeply. We were then asked important and thought-provoking questions like what is reconciliation and what is not. To answer these questions properly I had to do research and reflection on what I know. Finally we ended by choosing different categories of reconciliation and creating presentations on them by sharing our ideas for the winter exhibition. These categories included:
– Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action
– Days of Recognition
– Federal and Provincial Land Acknowledgments and Agreements
– Language Revitalization Efforts
– Funding for Residental School Survivors
– Indigenous Cultural Revitalization Projects
– Indigenous Led Film, Media, and Literature (mine)
The core competency for this project was “Personal and Social”. To me those words are all about awareness, being aware of yourself, your actions, and how you impact other people. During this project we learnt a lot about tragic experiences that real people had to endure, living through these events was unimaginable to me before. While learning about other people’s history we had to be respectful, and aware of our comments, thoughts, and accidental judgments or presumptions. Personally, I focused on “personal and social” by opening up my knowledge of the world to see it from a different angle. I absorbed different media from First Nations cultures, did research on their history, and found different sources of information I usually don’t read or listen to.
Today I learned about the word “umwelt”, do you know what that means? It’s a German term for how different species perceive the world. It’s each individual’s surroundings and what they are used to, but why do I mention this? It made me think about how every culture, every individual, sees life through their own unique lens. Understanding other’s umwelt, especially Indigenous communities, is a crucial step towards reconciliation.
This project changed how I see reconciliation. It’s not just about government policies, land acknowledgements, or apologies its a communal and continuous effort. Its about listening to Indigenous voices, challenging misinformation and fostering a genuine commitment to understanding and respect. True reconciliation requires not just awareness but active participation, engagement, and advocating for change. Every ones reconciliation path starts somewhere, even with a simple conversation at a winter exhibition.