Noah Bousquet and Ana Paulin, grade four students at Ecole Barrie WIlson Elementary, with vice-principal Rhonda Eidem (left) and Red Deer Public Schools' First Nations, Metis and Inuit coordinator Hayley Christen. (rdnewsNOW/Josh Hall)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

remembering

Red Deer schools honour Orange Shirt Day

Sep 30, 2019 | 5:45 PM

It was 1973 and six-year-old Phyllis Webstad had just picked out a brand new orange shirt for the dawning school year.

What happened next is now recognized annually by Canadians on Sept. 30 in the form of Orange Shirt Day.

In Red Deer on Monday, school divisions marked the day with various activities and ceremonies. However, education is ongoing throughout the school year related to the atrocities that took place in the same residential school system that Phyllis Webstad was a student in.

“It’s kind of like a remembrance day. It’s not something to be happy about, but it’s good to remember” said Noah Bousquet, a grade four Metis student at Ecole Barrie Wilson Elementary.

“I know you had to speak a certain language, and if you spoke yours, you’d be punished.”

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Classmate Ana Paulin, who is Mi’kmaq, added, “When she got to the residential school, she was changed into a uniform so that everybody looked alike. The teachers and the nuns at the residential schools wanted the First Nations to be like the white people.”

Barrie Wilson vice principal Rhonda Eidem, who is also Metis, explained why history isn’t sugarcoated for students.

“They realize that this is part of our heritage, and an embarrassing part of our culture that I certainly didn’t learn about in school; and I had family members that attended, but I still didn’t know. I had no idea about the harm that was done, and the separation that happened,” she admitted. “Of course there’s also the lifelong trauma and generational trauma that comes with this, and the hope with any education is that we don’t repeat those mistakes.”

In addition to an Orange Shirt Day presentation, students at Barrie Wilson also created medicine wheels to go up around the school.

Meantime, Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools held a special ceremony at River Bend Golf Course on Monday to welcome Indigenous students and their families who are new to the division.