Teaching and Continuing Education

As educators, we have an obligation to ensure students of all ages understand the history and ongoing impacts of the residential school system. Participating in reconciliation also requires your own learning and unlearning. On this page you will find teaching resources including lesson plans, teaching guides, and assignments about residential schools (for all ages and levels) as well as opportunities for continuing your own learning journey.

Image via Natural Curiosity

Toolkits, Lesson Plans, and Teaching Resources

Orange Shirt Society: Residential Schools and Reconciliation For Teachers
Lesson plans, study guides, and activities for students K-12.
Assembly of First Nations: Residential Schools Toolkit
The 6th module in AFN's Plain Talk series teaches about the history of residential school system, and it impacts on Indigenous people.
Assembly of First Nations: It’s Our Time Education Toolkit
"The Assembly of First Nations has developed the It’s Our Time First Nations Tool Kit as the basis of a comprehensive strategy to reach out to First Nations students, teachers, schools, communities and the Canadian public at large. The resource is designed to bring together First Nations and non-First Nations people and foster a spirit of cooperation, understanding, and action." Includes 22 modules on the impact of first contact, treaties, the Indian Act, residential schools, cultural competency, and more.
National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation: Education
"A part of our mandate at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) is to raise awareness of the history and creation of the residential school system, its ongoing legacy, and how it has shaped the country we live in today. The teaching resources and educational programming we offer make it easier for the public to learn the truth about this tragic history. The NCTR works closely with educators from a variety of sectors including the K-12 school system, post-secondary institutions, public service and professional sectors to provide access to materials and resources that can aid Canadians of any age to learn about and participate in reconciliation."
Project of Heart: Investigation Into the History and Legacy of Indian Residential Schools in Canada
Project of Heart is an inquiry based, hands-on, collaborative, inter-generational, artistic journey of seeking truth about the history of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people in Canada. This six-step teacher guide provides discussion questions, activities, and actions to create a meaningful learning experience in the classroom.
Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre: Healing and Reconciliation Through Education
This open educational resource, created by The Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre (SRSC), is focused on teaching the history of the colonial legacy of Residential Schools, with an emphasis on exploring the unique history of the Shingwauk Residential School which operated in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. The SRSC is an integration and consolidation of two major initiatives of Algoma University (AU) and the Children of Shingwauk Alumni Association (CSAA): the Shingwauk Project, founded in 1979; and the Residential School Research, Archive and Visitor’s Centre, founded in 2005.
Natural Curiosity: Educator Resources
Natural Curiosity (NC) is an environmental and land-based inquiry program that helps teachers address a critical link between environmental and Indigenous education. NC provides professional learning opportunities for educators across Turtle Island, including webinars, workshops, walking tours, and communities of practice, to support them on their journey of centering Indigenous perspectives in children’s environmental inquiry.

Secret Path: Lesson Plans and Artwork
Inspired by Chanie Wenjack and the works of Gord Downie & Jeff Lemire’s Secret Path album and artwork, respectively, educator Mitch Champagne worked with first-year Teacher Candidates at Trent University’s School of Education, to develop lesson plans inspired by Secret Path album tracks. The lessons in this document are meant to be a base to further inspire learning, to adapt to your own social justice goals, and to begin or continue a conversation about reconciliation.

Continuing Education

First Nations Child & Family Caring Society: Reconciling History
The Reconciling History initiative invites people to learn from the past in the spirit of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its Calls to Action. By learning about the complete and true story of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada, we can all have a better understanding of how we can contribute to reconciliation in meaningful ways. Reconciling History provides an opportunity to learn about Canada’s treatment of Indigenous children and families in a way that links lessons of history to contemporary injustices.
Where Are The Children?
118 framed archival photographs, text panels, maps, original classroom textbooks and historical government papers selected from nine public and church archives, and depicts the history and legacy of Canada’s Residential School System. Where are the Children? spans over 130 years and contains photographs and documents from the 1880s to present day.
The Residential School System, UBC Indigenous Foundations
Indigenous Foundations is an information resource on key topics relating to the histories, politics, and cultures of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. The website was developed to support students in their studies, and to provide instructors, researchers and the broader public with a place to begin exploring topics that relate to Aboriginal peoples, cultures, and histories. Indigenous Foundations was developed by the First Nations Studies Program at the University of British Columbia, located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people.
Assembly of First Nations: Education
The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) is a national advocacy organization representing First Nation citizens in Canada, which includes more than 900,000 people living in 634 First Nation communities and in cities and towns across the country. They advocate for education systems that support growth and lifelong learning for First Nations.
Indigenous Canada - A MOOC by uAlberta
Indigenous Canada is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) that explores Indigenous histories and contemporary issues in Canada. From an Indigenous perspective, this course explores key issues facing Indigenous peoples today from a historical and critical perspective highlighting national and local Indigenous-settler relations. Indigenous Canada is for students from faculties outside the Faculty of Native Studies with an interest in acquiring a basic familiarity with Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal relationships
iPortal, uSask: Residential School Articles
The Indigenous Studies Portal (iPortal) is a database of full-text electronic resources such as articles, e-books, theses, government publications, videos, oral histories, and digitized archival documents and photographs. The iPortal content has a primary focus on Indigenous peoples of Canada with a secondary focus on North American materials and beyond.

Orange Shirt Day | National Day for Truth & Reconciliation

Books & eBooks

In-class Activities

Online Resources