Hi Friend,
Back to School: excitement. Trepidation. Uncertainty. What will that new teacher be like? What will the other kids say about your shoes?
Back to School: Excitement. Trepidation. Uncertainty. More time for parents and caregivers to work on non-kid-related work! But... what are the kids actually going to be learning - from textbooks, teachers.... and their fellow students?
Back to School: Excitement. Trepidation. Uncertainty. What stresses will this year bring for teachers and school administrators? Is the school going to be safe from (yet another) shooting? Is someone from the school board going to insist on banning books from the library? Is the school safe from predators? what’s up with local and national law enforcement?
Back to School: excitement. trepidation. uncertainty. What histories will the kids be forced to learn - and will 'our' story be reflected in those histories? Whose stories and experiences will be dis-membered? What body disciplines? And who will remember those kids who were (and still are) forcibly taken from their families of origin and put into boarding schools/deported?
The Back to School Season is, undoubtedly, an important season in our collective calendar, from students to parents to educational professionals. For homeschoolers and graduate students, and even online educators. Adults are far more likely to think about taking new classes in the Fall: that long-standing experience of 'start a new class in the fall' runs deep! As do so many other parts of our early formative educational experiences and our experiences of higher education.
Indeed, one of the things I love about the courses I teach (especially ReMembering) is how many people tell me that through taking our courses, they are finding ways to learn differently and to relate to learning differently. Including some folks who say that 'this is the kind of education that I always wanted to have!'
And with it comes all sorts of excitement, trepidations, and uncertainty. Amongst which is: safety.
What kids (if any) are safe at school? From school shootings to the histories of Indian Boarding Schools - histories which are, even now, being actively erased - we know that school is not always safe. For some, school might even be the safest place in their life. It might be the only place where they get regular meals (though funding for school lunches has recently been dramatically decreased) and can learn identities that carry them through life.
Education is both a weapon of the colonizer and a liberatory tool for the oppressed. We can learn forms of liberating ourselves as well as forms of perpetuating harm.
It's always odd to me how someone can spend so much energy talking about how important their own children are, and then totally ignore the importance of making amends for, say, indian boarding schools.
As if: your child matters, but someone else's child does not?
Speaking of which: at the end of this month, Sept 30, is Orange Shirt Day.
Orange Shirt Day, also known as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, is observed annually in Canada on September 30th (and also for many in the US) to commemorate the survivors, their families, and the intergenerational impacts of Canada's former residential school system. It came out of a sharing by Phyllis Webstad (Northern Secwpemc (Shuswap) from the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation (Canoe Creek Indian Band) shared how her new orange shirt was taken away on her first day at a residential school at the Mission in 1973. For her, and since then, for many, many people, the start of the school season brought with it terrible experiences. The orange shirt became a powerful symbol of the cultural stripping and loss of freedom experienced by Indigenous children in an ‘educational’ setting. Wearing an orange shirt on this day demonstrates support for healing these histories (You can read more about her story here on the Orange Shirt Day website).
In July of 2024, the U.S. Department of Interior released its second volume of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Final Report this July. In this preliminary accounting of the number of American Indian children forcibly taken from their parents to “attend” the 451 federal boarding school sites located across 37 states or territories between 1819 and 1969. The Department of the Interior estimates that about 18,624 Native children attended these schools. The report also noted that at least 973 American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children are known to have died at these facilities. The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition estimates these numbers are much higher: that more than 60,000 children may have attended these schools.
Over the past few months, the current administration has withdrawn all federal funding from research on boarding schools, which is effectively contributing to the consistent erasure and denial of this experience; an action that does not support anyone’s healing. Including the healing possibilities of healing for the US government itself for initiating those horrific spaces.
This past week, Krissy ordered our Orange Shirts for this year.
She tried to do so through the original Orange Shirt Society (O.S.S.) website to support the creators of this movement.
However, due to the tariffs, the OSS is no longer shipping to the US.
If you are in Canada, or outside of the U.S., you are lucky enough to be able to place your order directly through the O.S.S. and thus support an organization that has a played a critical role in the US, Canada, and further afield.
If you are in the U.S., you can find Orange Shirts at:
National Native American Boarding Schools Healing Coalition
Tuscarora woodworks: the Every Child Matters Tee
Wherever you are in your relationship to education and to the historical and contemporary misuses of education, I hope you find pathways of peace, healing and deeper learning this Back To School Season!
- Sara Jolena
