Scarborough Centre for Alternative Studies, Teacher PD Day October 4, 2018
Art students designed hearts and we ran construction paper through the photocopier, (a print technique from Olivia Gude). Teachers were asked to “Find your heart!” on the way in. Two full tables of hearts were waiting to be claimed by sixty educators. The idea served two functions because we just got a whole bunch of new staff and I don’t know many of their names. It prepared educators for this learning journey while building community.
In addition to learning about the Niagara Treaty wampum promises, we watched the following interviews:
Melanie Cervantes – models how to follow protocol when you’re on someone else’s territory
Harlan Pruden – centering Two-Spirit voices to address Global Competencies and drawing knowledge from the traditional territories that we occupy to build equity models that will benefit all students
Pam Palmater: Child Welfare Unfair for First Nations – connected to all five criteria of genocide that Canada continues to perpetrate. How do we break our complicity with this?
Kanahus Manuel – Tiny House Warriors’ resistance to Trudeau’s pipeline with forward thinking technology.
Teachers were asked if they would want to go to the Art Gallery of Ontario and challenge themselves to make one lesson that connects with both the Anthropocene exhibit and the McLean Centre show, and that addresses our Niagara Treaty responsibilities. There seemed to be interest so I am hopeful about where our learning will take us this year.