Supporting Reconciliation in Saskatchewan Schools

Over the past year, I have had the privilege of working with my colleagues at the Ministry of Education to conceptualize an online resource for educators to assist them in teaching about the legacy of residential schools in Canada. This project was developed as part of the Government of Saskatchewan's response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 Calls To Action.

After consulting with educators and Elders, our team determined that there were already many resources that were available for learning about residential schools. Although new resources are still required, we wanted to help save educators time by bringing those resources into one area online that was easy for everyone to access. In the end, we decided to house our site on Blackboard and developed an online organization called Supporting Reconciliation in Saskatchewan Schools.

The purpose of this online organization is was to support educational professionals to work together to expand their understanding of truth and reconciliation as well as the legacy of residential schools. We decided that this site would house tools and learning resources that would help to facilitate truth and reconciliation conversations amongst school staff. By using our provincial LMS, we could also provide a collaborative online space for educational professionals to engage in province-wide discussions and to work on joint-initiatives that support reconciliation. We also wanted to start collecting provincial stories on reconciliation and created a section to highlight Saskatchewan-made resources and projects to help inspire others to act.

Here is a walk-through of the site:

I hope that this site will help teachers and communities start the important conversation about reconciliation. This will be a long journey that we all must embark on together. The intent is to have this site grow and evolve overtime so I hope you will be willing to join the organization and begin to contribute to the discussion.