Growing up I never had any First Nations students in class, in fact there was very few throughout the whole school. This was probably due to the fact that I lived in a small town in the middle of nowhere! This didn’t effect my learning on treaty education though. I’m not sure when or how it was taught in large schools, but as soon as we hit grade 8, it was incorporated into our Social and History classes. I feel now that I am learning more about treaty education in university I am grateful that I was taught the basics but realize that there is still so much more that I have to learn about.
Treaty Education is such an important piece of our history. It teaches us about colonization and the sharing of land. Without that background information, you miss out on a large chunk of history and the creation of our land. Treaty education also talks greatly about the promises made between the Europeans and First Nations people. This is still a large part of our country till this day and we still do what we can to make peace with the First Nations for our past actions. I personally don’t understand how a school system could work without the teaching of treaty education to our students. I truly feel that treaty education should be incorporated right into the curriculum from kindergarten through grade 12.
Logan Schmidt 