Orange Shirt Day is recognized on September 30 each year and is part of a larger movement in the country to provide opportunity for First Nations, governments, schools and communities to unite in a spirit of reconciliation and hope for generations of children to come. The Orange Shirt Day movement is a legacy of the St. Joseph Mission residential school commemoration event held in Williams Lake, B.C., in 2013. It grew out of the account of a young girl having her new orange shirt taken away on her first day of school at the mission. Orange Shirt Day was first proclaimed in Saskatchewan in 2016, in response to a resolution passed by the province’s trustees at the SSBA Spring General Assembly.
Orange Shirt Day is “an opportunity for First Nations, local governments, schools and communities to come together in a spirit of reconciliation and hope for generations of children to come.” (Saskatchewan School Boards Association (SSBA)
Since Saskatchewan’s Orange Shirt Day falls on a Sunday this year, all staff and students of École Traditions Elementary School are invited to wear an orange shirt to school on Friday, September 28th, 2018.
On Friday we had our monthly assembly, this month we focused on reconciliation. The students watched the video below explaining why we honour residential school survivors and those that didn’t survive by wearing an orange shirt every year on September 30th. We discussed the importance of this day and why we need to remember our history and help those who attended Indian Residential Schools continue to heal from their traumatic experiences. We also listened to the book, When I was Eight. This book is about a young Indigenous girl from William’s Lake, BC who attends an Indian Residential School. She talks about how they cut off her braids and changed her name to Margaret. The story explains the awful experiences this young girl had while away at school and how through it all she was resilient.
Unfortunately, our assembly was near the end of the school day so we didn’t have much time to debrief in class afterwards. This week in our class I will read some other age appropriate books that share experiences of those who attended residential schools and discuss them as a class afterwards.
If you are interested in talking about Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day with your children at home I have a list of some books that can help with that below as well as the video we watched at our assembly.
Books:
- Shi-shi-etko.Nicola I. Campbell
- Shin-chi’s Canoe. Nicola I. Campbell;
- No Time to Say Goodbye: children’s stories of Kuper Island Residential School.Sylvia Olsen
- Fatty Legs: a true story.Christy Jordan-Fenton & Margaret Pokiak-Fenton
- A Stranger at Home: a true story. Christy Jordan-Fenton & Margaret Pokiak-Fenton
- The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book. Gord Hill
- Ends/Begins.David Alexander Robertson;
- The Pact.David Alexander Robertson;
- As Long as the Rivers Flow.Larry Loyie with Constance Brissenden
- Goodbye Buffalo Bay.Larry Loyie with Constance Brissenden
- When I Was Eight. Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton
- Speaking Our Truth: A Journey of Reconciliation. Monica Gray Smith
- I Am Not a Number. Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer
- Not my Girl. Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton
- The Orange Shirt Story. Phyllis Webstad
