On October 2, 2023 the UNBC BEd Block 1 students had participated in a blanket exercise led by Dr. Daniel Sims.
The blanket exercise had gone through the history of Indigenous people in Canada. Every person had represented a percentage of Indigenous people and when someone would read a card (either Sims, Christine or a member of the class) a certain number of people would be instructed to get off of the blanket. This represented the number of Indigenous people who died due to that circumstance. This version of the activity had included things such as disease, residential schools, and the 60s scoop.
The blanket exercise had been a very emotional and draining experience. After this exercise most of the class had been quite and we had spent some time soaking in what we had participated in.
One of the things that had been mentioned in the talking circle following the exercise had been how much it affected people seeing people leaving the blankets. When looking at history we are often only given a number or a percentage, and then seeing this instead had really upset people.
Credit to Christine Ho Youghusband
I do recommend that everyone does some type of activity like this, though I do think that people need to be emotionally aware and mature for this activity.
There are different levels and age groups for this activity, which I think is good, though I do think that I personally would worry about putting this into a classroom setting. I know some teens (which I plan to work with) wouldn’t take this seriously and that may not go over well with other students in the classroom. I know that I personally would have to feel out the class and see if they would be able to do it.
