Looking back on this project, the most powerful thing I learned was that residential schools weren’t originally meant to be evil terrible places. They were created with the idea of helping Indigenous children gain more knowledge and bring them closer to Europeans to build a “better” future for North America. But many government officials had other plans to eradicate (cultural genocide) indigenous culture and assimilate them into “well behaved”Europeans.

The hardest part of this project was how unfamiliar it all felt at first. We’ve never really gone into this much detail about Indigenous history or culture before, and the learning wasn’t easy—it was sad, emotional, and heavy. At times it was hard to keep going because every story revealed more pain that people went through. But working through that challenge helped me understand the importance of facing the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. Watching videos and listening to stories directly from First Nations people helped me learn through their voices, not just from a textbook.

I think the biggest skill I developed was learning to see the world from a different perspective. In school, history is usually told from a European or government point of view, but this project introduced me to the idea of “Two-Eyed Seeing,” which means understanding things through both Indigenous and Western ways of knowing. It changed how I think about history, community, and reconciliation. It’s not just about remembering what happened—it’s about recognizing that these stories belong to real people, some who might even live in our own neighbourhoods. The heart of this project, for me, is realizing that reconciliation starts when we choose to listen, understand, and act with empathy.