One thing that I think is really important and isn’t talked about enough in school is the importance of the history of First Nations in Canada. The amount of knowledge that I had before Friday didn’t do justice to the people who have lived in this land for thousands of years. We are always told about the main parts in socials, like the early years of Native and colonial relations and residential schools but never given details or a visualization on how bad it was. 

On Friday myself and a bunch of other grade 10s went to the library during last block to take part in the blanket exercise. The exercise is supposed go into detail on the history of the First Nations in Canada and the troubles they’ve faced throughout it. 

We were all supposed to bring blankets to the exercise but I forgot it was last block and didn’t end up bringing one. When we got there we were all told to lay the blankets out on the ground in the middle of the room in order to make a big square. This square was supposed to make up Canada before the Europeans arrived.

Over the next hour they told the story in detail of the colonials and how they moved through Canada up until where we are now. As they did this certain events would kill off groups of people and they would leave the mat or the land would be taken and split down the middle by the settlers. 

Lots of us also got small scrolls detailing personal accounts, story’s and views of what was happening during these events. I can’t really detail everything but a lot of it, especially the residential schools stuck out to me. I always knew that it was bad I just never knew the true extent of how bad the history is and it shocked me. 

I think that I learned a lot from the exercise and can really see it’s significance in the education system. 

I have no photos to insert from the event so this post will just be text.