Orange Shirt Day aims to build empathy around dark history of residential schools

By MO CRANKER on October 1, 2020.

mcranker@medicinehatnews.com@mocranker

Many students in the area went to class Wednesday in an orange shirt to commemorate the horrors of residential schools and to look forward to a better future.

In years past, schools would host assemblies and guest speakers to teach kids about residential schools. Large gatherings are still not allowed but schools still made the best of the day.

“Orange Shirt Day stemmed from the acknowledgement of Phyllis Webstad and her story, along with her Residential School experience,” said Medicine Hat Catholic School Board of Education First Nations, Métis and Inuit support co-ordinator Raevon Gehring. “The day allows us to identify what she underwent when she when she was at a Residential School and wearing an orange shirt. It also builds empathy for those who survived the Residential Schools.

“It gives the kids an understanding that every child matters.”

Grade 6 Connaught School student Avi Cowan wrote a paper on Residential Schools and says it is important to remember every year.

“It talked about why I wouldn’t want to go there and why I felt bad for the kids who did have to go there,” she said. “A lot of the kids were younger than me and it would feel so bad if I had to be taken away from my family.

“The paper talked about how I felt for the people who did have to go to the schools.”

Cowan says there were many things scary about the schools.

“They had to learn a new language and got punished if they didn’t,” she said. “They might not ever see their parents again after coming to a school. That was really scary.”

Grade 5 Connaught teacher Andrew Haddon says the schools are important to remember.

“It’s important to remember the Residential School system that existed in Canada,” he said. “All of the lessons learned from these schools are important to teach students. My understanding is that it hasn’t been very well taught in the past.

“It’s important that the kids understand what happened and why it wasn’t a good thing.”

Haddon encourages everyone to take the free online certificate course from University of Alberta called Indigenous Canada.

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