A visit from Mrs. Waters!

We were very lucky to have Mrs. Waters, one of our school division's Indigenous Education Teachers, 

in our classroom for 3 periods this week.

Day 1

We started by taking time to get to know one another.

We passed around a rock and shared one thing about ourselves.

We then discussed what Indigenous means and learned all of the different Indigenous groups 

that live here in Manitoba.

Day 2

We started our class today by listening to Mrs. Waters read the story, "The Friendship" by Betty Lynxleg. 

Next, we learned about the process of how treaties were negotiated and signed.

We then worked in groups to write a list of what we felt would be important to ask for when signing a treaty. We included things like the promise of education, metal cooking supplies, land, seeds and health care. Mrs. Waters reminded us that even though we represented different tribes and would all have unique needs and requests depending on where we lived, all tribes had to agree to the same set of provisions as only one treaty would be signed. We would also not be reminded about things we may have forgotten to ask for.

Day 3

When we came together for our third visit, we started by reviewing what we discussed during our first two visits.
We then learned a little bit about Treaty 1.

Working in the same groups as before, we read through Treaty 1 to find the date it was signed, where it was signed, and what provisions were included in the Treaty.

We noticed that the Treaty was written in English using "lawyer language" (bigger, more complicated words). This would have made it very hard for all of the Chiefs to understand what they were actually signing since they did not speak English.

We noticed that there many things left out of the Treaty and that certain promises were not indexed to 'grow' with time. For example, back in 1871 each Indigenous woman, man and child was granted a gift of $3 and an annuity of the same amount. That amount - $3 - remains the same today.

We were very happy to have Mrs. Waters with us this week 

and look forward to having her back in our classroom again soon.