“Basically, each hand represents courage,” said Brendan Flett, pointing to handprints on a small tipi.
Flett’s a grade nine student, and along with his First Nations classmates, he’s busy decorating Calgary’s Annie Gale School for a year-end pow-wow.
“It’s good to learn about your culture,” grade nine student Ashton Fiddler said.
Showing the cover of a miniature tipi, grade eight student Dorienne Proulx explained the significance of the animal image. “The buffalo means abundance, because at that time there were a lot of buffalo”.
The First Nations students are enjoying sharing their traditions with their classmates, especially those whose families have recently arrived in Canada.
“It’s cool to know what happened here before,” said grade eight student Amal Chaundhry, whose parents are from Pakistan.
But, for some, it involves coming together to heal the pain of the past.
“My grandma and great-grandma have been in residential schools,” grade eight student Michael Parenteau said. “They told me it was horrible.”
“It’s part of our past, right?” Flett said. “Not a good thing of our past, but it still is, and people should know about it.”
“It should be something we should be talking about,” Chaundry said. “Because we should learn from our mistakes”.