EXSHAW – The Stoney Nakoda Heroes Project at Exshaw School recently engaged Grade 4 students to delve deep into their own family histories to recover stories from the past.
The journey was not an easy one, as students from the Stoney Nakoda First Nation began to explore who their ancestors were and their past experiences, before and after the residential school system was established.
The students were challenged to uncover their lost family history, in the context of a system designed to destroy their culture and way of life.
Only relying on the power of conversation and spoken work, students and elders from Morley worked with one another to piece together their own individual family trees.
“It was hard to find any written information, but thank goodness we had the elders and they are such experts. The memories they have are just amazing,” said Kayla Dallyn, Grade 4 teacher at the Exshaw School.
Since there were very few formal paper records of Indigenous history, the students had to rely on the knowledge of their elders. Students spent about four days conversing with elders, as they both worked towards recovering their past, with the goal of sharing those stories through art and an art show at artsPlace.
“A lot of people in Indigenous communities because of residential schools kind of lost their family history because children were removed from their families, lost their language and culture … so many of the students in my class and their families haven’t had opportunities to hear these stories and to get this information,” Dallyn said.
After the research phase of the project, students were able to create their own family trees. The students ended up going back five to six generations. Then they chose a hero from their family line and sculpted a bust.
The project was inspired by One Hundred Heads by Christine Wignall, who helped the Exshaw students with the project. Wignall sculpted busts of heroes from her childhood for the One Hundred Heads project.
“It’s really given them a sense of pride and identity and they are really excited about it,” Dallyn said. “They got to work with a real-life artist and Christine has come to work with the children and it’s just been a really empowering experience for all of them. You can just see all of them light up as they talk about it.”
As part of National Indigenous Peoples Day celebrations, the Exshaw Grade 4 students will be displaying their hero sculptures for the first time next week. The Stoney Nakoda Heroes Pop-Up Exhibit will take place at the artsPlace on June 25 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
