Wow. This book is amazing.
I'll tell you why in a second, but first, here's a little info about what my class did for Orange Shirt Day this year:
This year we are having virtual assemblies (covid) and each cohort - so two teachers and their classes - has to organize one. My teaching partner and I did the first one, it was a little
"let's get this over and done with early" meets "oh god what did I just sign up for" but it went really well. My kiddos and I did some learning about residential schools, we read When I was Eight and Not My Girl, both amazing books based on true stories and written by Christy Jordan-Fenton & Margaret-Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton. I should do a blog post on these books one day... I'll get on that.
Anyway, we read and discussed those books, went through the inquiry process we use, called the Question Formulation Technique (also more on that later), and one of the burning questions my students kept wondering was "why?". As in, why did the Canadian government create residential schools? I tried to explain assimilation. I tried to explain that the Europeans stole this land then tried to make the Indigenous people disappear. I tried to explain that the goal was to get rid of a group of people. That kind of thing is very hard to explain to little people. We went on to do an absolutely amazing assembly. My students spoke from their hearts and explained to their school community why the new National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (also known as Orange Shirt Day) was not a day for hanging out at home and doing nothing, this was a day to "to remember the bad things that happened at residential school and how unfair it was, that way we can be sure that something like this never happens again" - Grade 3 student in my class. Even with that amazing sentiment and the deeper understanding the majority of my students were able to express following our assembly, I still didn't feel like I had answered their why question well enough. And they agreed, they continued to ask it even after Orange Shirt Day had come and gone.
I had this brilliant idea. I got them into a big circle (this involved A LOT of furniture moving and coordinating and social distancing) and we did a little drama activity that I made up while lying awake in bed the night before, where different students helped me act out a timeline from creation to colonization to today. It was interactive and I was able to answer that burning question, but some of my less involved students were a little checked out and it was certainly not the best way to teach these way too difficult concepts for 8 year olds. I figured I would just have to keep thinking and looking for resources and one day I would find the way to teach this concept.
Well "one day" came sooner than I expected! Muinji'j Asks Why by: Shanika MacEachern, Breighlynn MacEachern (Muinji'j) is the perfect resource to have that "why" conversation. It is extremely well written in a way that is easy for children to understand while still telling the message. Death is mentioned and abuse is carefully touched on without going into too many details. I think that touching on death and abuse in early elementary can be appropriate when handled in a very particular way and I have found a few residential school picture books go a little further than I am comfortable with, especially because Orange Shirt Day is so early in the school year. Don't get me wrong, every Canadian needs to know that there was significant physical harm done at these schools, but how we approach that with young children needs careful consideration. This book has just enough detail to make kids realize this wasn't just a boring school that was away from home, this was a place were unfortunately a lot of people died. The author uses the terms "sickness", "not cured" and "unkind things", definitely age appropriate for young elementary students. I would say this is a perfect k-5 resource. The book also mentions treaties, reserves and indigenous cultures pre- and post-colonization so there are lots of tie ins or opportunities for further exploration with your class.. I can’t say enough how great I think this book is, if you’re a Canadian elementary teacher, you need this book.
I am so appreciative of Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book for free in return for an honest review. Even though I got a copy for free I definitely plan on buying copies for my classroom library and have already recommended it to other teachers. You can find your own copy and read more about it here: https://goodminds.com/collections/featured-new-releases/products/muinjij-asks-why-the-story-of-the-mikmaq-and-the-shubenacadie-residential-school-jan-10-22