Benjamin: The blanket exercise

The exercise was a teaching moment, learning the true history of the Firsts Nations people from Nanaimo. All of us had to stand on a blanket, which represented land for the people. Sylvia walked around the room reading a paper and as she read that, we all has scripts that followed a sequence to go along with the story. When she read about the land being taken, she folded the blanket and we had to stand on the blanket. So the smaller is got , the closer the people on it had to be. That was showing us how the land was getting smaller and smaller for the tribes that lived there. We found out about how they took the children for families and forced for adoption, this was called the 60’s scoop. When the kids went to boarding school, they were beaten or yelled at for speaking their language.We learned how the land was taken from them and how hard it was for the people that needed to relocate. As the people relocated, deaths accorded. The people weren’t near their natural hunting grounds, many diseases, and hundreds were killed by the intruders. Soon after this the activity was over. At the end of the activity we all sat in a circle to talk about how the activity affected us. Many had very strong stories and had lots in tears because of it. This experience brought all of us closer to each other, we have bonded really well these past days. The activity makes me want to keep learning about my culture, learning the language, songs, and the truth. This trip has been really fun, learning new things everyday, meeting new people, and making new friends.