Middle School Indigenous Studies: Part 2

In the first blog post about my adventures in making an equitable Indigenous Studies unit for my class that a) covered the Social Studies Curriculum (it does) and was honest and representative of Indigenous voices (I am trying),  I decided to start with this case study about the Beothuk.

Who are the Beothuk? Or rather, who were the Beothuk?  The Beothuk was a First Nation that lived in what is now Newfoundland that no longer exists.  And when I would resources about it, the Beothuk were consistently referred to as a "lost" culture, which is not the whole picture.  So with some research, I came up with this:


My students and I did some reading and found out that the Beothuk were targets once the settlers moved onto Newfoundland.  Since food was scarce, many Beothuk were shot at if they tried to get food on usual trapping lines-- that they taught the setters to use!  Many were killed by disease also, for which they were not immune due to their isolated nature.

Once we read about the Beothuk, we watched an interesting documentary about using Forensic Science to trace the history of the Beothuk, with some dramatic reenactment about a court case in which a Beothuk leader was murdered.  It is available on YouTube in two parts, it is called Stealing Mary.  My students were very interested in the documentary.

In order to teach this critical thinking reading and writing activity, there are some terms that students will need to be familiar with.  The biggest one is "genocide" since the final questions asks whether the Beothuk can be considered a "lost culture" or a victim of genocide.  Some of my students were reading a book about a boy who was trying to escape from the Holocaust, which lead to a discussion about the holocaust and genocide as a term.  So my students were a little familiar with the concept.

Another opportunity in this lesson is to talk about the origin of the racial slur "Red Indian," and "Redskin."  The settlers were mocking the Beothuk practice of using red ochre on skin and clothing for spiritual purposes.  Then, that term became used for all Indigenous people.  Reducing the variety of the First Nations was/ is a racist practice.  It helps with the erasure of the cultures.  More, it gives more authority to the European colonizers description about the Beothuk than their own self- identification.  Some of my students extended- "Is that why people are mad about the Redskins Football team?" Yes.  Yes it is.

This sparked a lot of discussion in my class as the opinion was split about whether we can count the loss of the Beothuk as a genocide.  Now, I'm a tricky teacher, who wants my students to think about this questions early... Because as we get more into Canada's treatment of the Indigenous people, we will see this theme of genocide come up again, and again...

What do you think of the Beothuk?  "Lost culture" or victim of genocide?

Middle School Indigenous Studies

I am struggling.

Not with teaching social studies, but with the materials that are available commercially for teaching about the history of European colonization and contact and trade.  One resource stated that, "[o]verall, trade between First Nations and European Settlers was mutually beneficial." However, this is not exactly true.

Trade and markets were not introduced to First Nations people by the Europeans. There was a well established trade and market system in between First Nations groups long before Colonizers set foot onto North America. (Source: Le Dressay, André; Lavallee, Normand; and Reeves, Jason, "First Nations Trade, Specialization, and Market Institutions: A Historical Survey of First Nation Market Culture" (2010). Aboriginal Policy Research Consortium International (APRCi). 72.) This trade was very beneficial to the First Nations because it was based on mutual respect and need.

Early trading between First Nations and the first Europeans may have been mutually beneficial-- but as the relationship progressed, and competition for European made good grew, those relationships were exploited; and the trade deficit grew with First Nations providing furs and survival and navigation knowledge for tools and other items. Even though these items the Europeans traded were convenient, they could not equal in value to what the First Nations people provided.

In short, its complex, and the relationship changed over time, but I can't agree that overall trade benefited both groups equally.

So I wrote I made my own resource.


I wanted to have something that included information on beads (because they were important to early trade), and at least one example of why they were important.  I also wanted to use more precise language.  I'm posting it here because maybe you may want to use it.  If you do, click on the preview window above and you can download it.  I also created a worksheet activity to go with it:


It has some reading comprehension questions, and one critical thinking question for the long answer portion. Because I know that grade 6 is EQAO year, this counts as reading response questioning and my students would be expected to use the format we have been learning. It would make a good social studies assessment too. I'm going to be using this as a follow up to a Trade Game that I made for the class. I'll be sure to post how that turned out.

Let me know if you find this useful!  Have you ever struggled with the messaging in some of the resources you have found?

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to Equity EDU!  If you are visiting from my other education blog Bonne Idee, thanks for deciding to pop over for a visit.  Since my change in assignment from French teacher to Homeroom middle school teacher, I've been thinking of creating a place for the lessons I do in the new subjects I teach: Language Arts/ English, Math, Social Studies, Health and Drama.

The difference between this and some other (and equally awesome) education blogs, is that all the lessons and resources on this blog will be devoted to social justice, equity and character development.  The quote pictured is what drives my pedagogy: next to the curriculum, I think that education's main role is to help students grow into good people.  Educators have a uniquely powerful position, in that, next to a child's parents and guardians, they are the adults that help to shape a child into the person they are to become.  I take that responsibility very serious, and work to help my students develop the kindness and empathy towards others in hopes that they will become thoughtful, kind, critical thinkers.

And so, this is why I decided to share my resources here, for free.  One of the things I love about teaching and education today, is the opportunity to share our work and ideas on the internet.  I've been in love with the idea of free idea exchange since university (which was some time ago for me!) and I love a blog's ability to provide that idea exchange and opportunity to share.

What you will find on this blog:

• Lesson plans in Language, Math, Health, Drama and Social Studies that have social justice woven through them or as the topic, that will be available for you to print/ use in your own classes
• Printable worksheets and plans
• Printable posters and signs for your classroom
• Reviews of topical books and resources that are created to introduce topics of equity to students
• Reflections from me about how my lessons worked (or why they failed)
• And anything else that I think wold be interesting!

I hope you will consider checking in on this blog once in a while so that you can join me and infuse some social justice learning into your classroom.  I also hope that you will join the discussion in the comments sections and share your ideas and thought too!