Every Tuesday we have been going to schools for observational practicums for EDUC 390. The most recent school I went to is the high school here in Prince Rupert. While at the school I visited the grade 12 social justice class. There I got to partake in a wonderful Wap Sigatgyet presentation by the teacher, two Indigenous teachers who are experts on the subject. The presentation is called the blanket exercise where the presenters lay down a few blankets on the floor and ask the students to stand on them. The blankets offer enough space for everyone to stand comfortably. The presenters hand out a couple white papers, yellow papers, and reading papers to random students. The presentation starts explaining that the students represent Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island (North America in colonial terms) and the blankets represent the land. The teacher represents the government of Canada/colonizers when they come to the land. They introduce them selves and take a spot on the blankets. Throughout the presentation the teacher begins to sign treaties and reduce the size of the blankets, forcing the students to move closer to each other. Then the speakers will say “anyone with a yellow card raise your hand. You have died of disease brought by the settlers, please step off the blanket.” I was handed a blanket by the teacher while the speakers told the story of how the government used blankets to spread smallpox to indigenous communities. I was then asked to step off to the side as I and a few other students represent all those who died of the smallpox epidemic. The students with white papers were asked to move to a blanket on the furthest side of the room, they represented children sent to residential schools. One was moved off to the side as they represented the countless deaths at those schools, the other student was asked to rejoin the main blankets but had to sit down as that represented the lack of cultural knowledge and loss of traditional language. More blankets were removed until the remaining students were cramped together. The speakers then talked about the many amazing things being done to reclaim identity. With each mention the blankets became bigger again. The presentation ended with the students looking around to see the displacement of other students around the room (Wap Sigatgyet, personal communication, October 21, 2025). The teacher for this class is white, and they only do this presentation along side the two indigenous speakers to ensure an authentic voice. I have never seen this type of presentation before for this content and I loved it. It made it much more memorable than just reading about it in textbooks. It showed how useful Pragmatism can be in a classroom for certain situations (Raymond, 2025). This type of hands-on learning will stick with me longer than any textbook will. I would love to have this kind of presentation in my own classroom if I have an older class in the future. I too would only do this if I had the help of experts.
One of our EDUC 393 classes we had the privilege having Kate Lyon be a guest speaker in this class. She is a primary teacher who is a master of explicit instruction. She talked about a few things that I found extremely useful. One of the things she brought up was to make sure kids are always speaking in full sentences (Lyon, 2025). When I had my own class, I found the thing I struggled with the most was teaching literacy. It is something many of us take for granted after we have learned it. I did not realize how difficult it is to break it down again for youth. My grade 2-3 class I had a couple years ago struggled to write in full sentences. I found my self trying to work one on one with most of my class to write full sentences in their journals. I never thought about getting them to always speak in full sentences to get that into their long-term memory in easier format than writing (Lyon, 2025). Another thing she brought up was the power of read aloud. Not only is it a great way to fill time in the classroom, but it is also amazing at engaging children to the content. This is a great way to engage learners who struggle in class as this requires little cognitive function to listen and imagine. The final thing she talked about that really amazed me was the syntax project. It was first started in Australia, but Canada has adopted it (Lyon, 2025). The syntax project beaks down literacy to kids in such a fantastic way. Kate’s example was a slide with a picture of an eagle on it. Beside the picture it says “What: What doing: and Sentence:” (Lyon, 2025) where students will answer what is it? An eagle, what is it doing? Flying, now make a sentence. The eagle is flying (Lyon, 2025). She uses local pictures and animals to tie it into what students from Prince Rupert would know. Like pictures of deer crossing the street or people chopping wood in their backyard. I wish I knew about this when I was teaching my class as I feel this would have engaged my students minds better than me saying “What can you think of to write about.” In a world where most media, educational lessons, and online entertainment is created far away, I think it is brilliant to make lessons local to better engage youth from here.
In EDUC 446 we were required to watch a Ted Talk for homework. The Ted Talk we watched was Etuaptmumk: Two-Eyed Seeing presented by Rebecca Thomas. One of the things Rebecca talks about is how language situates perception. Her example is how English speakers would describe a photo of a man on a bicycle and how German speakers would describe the same photo. English speakers would describe it as a man riding a bike, where German speakers would describe it as a person on a bike riding to a location, like the supermarket or park (TEDx Talks, 2016). Now English and German stem from the same language tree and are closely related, so what happens when we compare a language that is vastly different. She says that Indigenous languages amplify this difference in meanings. A word in an indigenous language could mean many things in English or near impossible to translate over to English. Attempting to at least understand some of the words can help aid teachers living in their respective territories to bring in a better world view to their classes. The main thing Rebecca talks about is the Mi’kmaw view of Etuaptmumk, translated as “Two-Eyed Seeing” (TEDx Talks, 2016). This is the idea that many people only see the world through one lens, the lens they were born and raised with. Two-eyed seeing is when see the world through two lenses, two perspectives. Her example is seeing the world with a Eurocentric perspective along side an Indigenous perspective. Take the strengths of both worlds to better oneself. “It’s not Canada or Turtle Island, its both at the same time” (TEDx Talks, 2016).
When I was going to school in Prince Rupert there was little to no Tsimshian culture or language in my schools. I grew up with a very Eurocentric class structure and content. Once I graduated and came back to the schools to work as an Educational Assistant or TTOC, I found that the schools had started to implement Tsimshian culture and make Sm’algyax language mandatory up to grade 5. This is fantastic as I have learned so much more about the community I grew up in due to this. With two-eyed seeing in mind I feel that I can became a very effective teacher by bettering my world view. I want to continue to learn more about the culture and language here so I may continue to develop a stronger more holistic view to bring into my teaching career.
References
Lyon, K. (2025) Building Background Knowledge and Vocabulary [PowerPoint]. https://www.canva.com/design/DAG11R4E5hA/MHIbhnmza3DlHKmXc-0ewA/edit
Raymond, M. (2025) Key Philosophical Terms & Concepts From Western Philosophy [PowerPoint]. https://www.canva.com/design/DAFuvpRg- 9o/yRLkdCwKsXYplKG6jISCUQ/edit
TEDx Talks. (2016, June 13). Etuaptmumk: Two-eyed seeing | Rebecca Thomas |
TEDsNSCCWaterfront [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA9EwcFbVfg