Full of student-friendly resources that teachers can use in their classrooms to teach kids about Residential Schools, Orange Shirt Day, and the importance of embracing a proactive teaching approach to these subjects while curriculum regulations catch up to present-day educational needs regarding Indigenous realities.

News article that discusses companies profiting from selling orange shirts and using the “Every Child Matters” logo for profit. Andy Everson goes into detail about why profiting off of Residential School Survivors is wrong and disrupts reconciliation.

Birdie is the outstanding debut novel by Cree law professor and activist Tracey Lindberg. A member of the As’in’i’wa’chi Ni’yaw Nation Rocky Mountain Cree she has a doctoral degree in law as well as law degrees from the University of Ottawa, Harvard Law School and the University of Saskatchewan. She was awarded the Governor General’s Gold Medal, the most prestigious award given to a doctoral student in humanities. Currently at Athabasca University, where she is Chair of the Centre for World Indigenous Knowledge and the Canada Research Chair of Indigenous Traditional knowledge, Legal Orders and Laws, Professor Lindberg has published many legally based Arcticles in areas related to Indigenous law and Indigenous women. In addition to writing stories for literary journal this remarkable author is also a blues singer. The story main character is a big, beautiful Cree woman with a dark secret in her past, Bernice (“Birdie”) Meetoos has left her home in northern Alberta to travel to Gibsons, B.C. She is on something of a vision quest, looking for family, for home, for understanding. She is also driven by the leftover teenaged desire to meet Pat Johns--Jesse from The Beachcombers--because he is, as she says, a working, healthy Indian man. Birdie heads for Molly’s Reach to find answers, but they are not the ones she expected. With the arrival in Gibsons of her Auntie Val and her cousin Skinny Freda, Birdie begins to draw from her dreams the lessons she was never fully taught in life. Informed by the lore and knowledge of Cree traditions, Birdie is a darkly comic and moving first novel about the universal experience of recovering from tragedy. At heart, it is the story of an extraordinary woman who travels to the deepest part of herself to find the strength to face the past and to build a new life.

From the authors: "Decolonizing Gender: A Curriculum is a guided reflection on gender identity, race, and colonialism. Designed for both individuals and groups, this zine asks deep and probing questions about why the gender binary is seen as the "norm", despite people who choose to exist outside of the binary having existed forever."

Award-winning Indigenous author Monique Gray Smithlink bases her published work Every Child Matters: Reconciliation Through Education on the Seven Sacred Teachings. It is directed towards students in grades 5-12 and is available in French and English. Produced in collaboration with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. Each chapter teaches about Residential Schools, Treaties and histories of past and current relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

An incredible list from Historica Canada of resources for Truth & Reconciliation Week. This extensive list is organized by day, with 5 days' worth of diverse resources having to do with Treaties and Land, Language and Culture, Truth and Reconciliation, Reconciliation and Me, Knowledge Sharing, and so much more.

From the creators: "We join forces with two amazing Indigenous writers and scholars who are making waves in the literary scene with their poetry, prose, and fiction. They weave words and worlds to help us see and understand queer indigenous identities and bodies, the ways that settler colonialism has disrupted and distorted our relationships, and the power of asserting voice in spaces not meant for us." Interviewees are Joshua Whitehead (who is Ojibwe & Cree, from the Peguis First Nation, located in Treaty 1 territory, and is Two Spirit IndigiQueer) and Billiy-Ray Belcourt (who is from the Driftpile Cree Nation and is a PhD student in the Department of English & Film Studies at the University of Alberta); work from both of these authors is featured in this resource list.There is a small mention of sexual assault about halfway through the episode, so teachers should listen through first, warn their classes and be prepared with resources for survivors.

This book examines the history of the Indian Residential Schools established in Canada and the effects of colonial education on contemporary native cultures. The book recounts the history of colonialism in North America and the foundational beliefs that provided the underpinnings for the creation of the residential system. The author dedicates three chapters to the description of health, infrastructure and academic deficiencies that plagued the system, as well as the abuse of residential school students and the consequent long-term damage they experienced. In closing, Grant offers a perspective on the future of political and educational efforts being made to restore and maintain native culture.

Brought to you by The Manitoba Teachers Society is this collection of Orange Shirt Day lesson plans from kindergarten to grade 12. Lesson plans are in English or French and are full of insightful resources and further reading.

From the author: "This presentation will share an understanding of Cree traditional law and discuss its contemporary application in relation to gender and sexual diversity. I will offer a brief history of how the sexuality and bodies of Indigenous, specifically Cree two spirit (LGBTQ) people became regulated through governmental and church policy and discuss how the social movement Idle No More has validated traditional understandings and practices. Through research and examples, personal observations, stories and experiences, the meaning and importance of body sovereignty and gender self-determination and expression will be presented as necessary aspects of undoing systemic forms of oppression and revisioning as a positive ‘coming in’ process."