Page 66 - Restorative Journey: Indigenous Educational Wellness

Federal Indian Day Schools
The TRC report sporadically calls upon provincial bodies to implement some of the calls to action. As the Ontario College of Teachers’ contribution to this journey toward wellness, and with intent to create a clear delineation between injustices suffered
in Native communities under the guise of education, we will practice and encourage self-efficacy, critical leadership, and inquiry by implementing our objectives.
In 2018, the federal government announced a class action lawsuit on behalf of survivors of Federal Indian Day Schools16. A definitive number of applicants is not currently known, and the deadline for application is in 2022.
We remind members of the three areas we identified for critical reflection:
• Commemoration • Education
• Healing/Wellness
True reconciliatory actions must be meaningful. To be meaningful, they must be consistently infused into all aspects of our journey. We begin with commemoration.
In 1996, the last Federal Indian Day School named in the lawsuit was closed. In 2014, residential schools were removed from the Indian Act. As a result of the 2014 changes, we must acknowledge that the current Indigenous student population represents the first generation to not live under these policies. We also want to acknowledge that many of these students are intergenerational survivors of residential schools, Federal Indian Day Schools, or both.
16 https:/indiandayschools.com/en
58 Commemoration • Education • Healing/Wellness