"All of us have a duty to promote treaty because we are all treaty. We would all not be here if the Crown didn't sign treaty with the First Nations."
Deanne Kasokeo, the creator of Living Sky School Division's Treaty 6 education website, told division board members last week this is the message she, aboriginal storyteller Joseph Naytowhow and Living Sky Learning Consultant Sherron Burns have been sharing with schools on a treaty education tour throughout the division over the past several weeks.
"It's been a very rich experience and I am so grateful because the Creator put me here for you," said Kasokeo. "The Creator put me here to do this job, I know that. This is my place to be."
Superintendent of Schools, Curriculum and Instruction Brian Quinn described Kasokeo, Naytowhow and Burns as "remarkable individuals, who he said had been "sent" for this particular education initiative.
Naytowhow is an aboriginal storyteller and musician from Sturgeon Lake First Nation who has returned to the Cree way of worship and leads a ritual-based life.
Deanne Kasokeo is a member of the Poundmaker Cree Nation. She holds a degrees English and law, and is a practising residential school lawyer. Also a published playwright, her 1998 play Antigone, an adaption of Sophocles' Greek classic, recently roused controversy when the chief of Poundmaker tried to ban it from being performed on the reserve.
Quinn told Living Sky School Division board members, "I'm not sure they would have been received 10 years ago they way they are being received now. It's that adage that when the student is ready the teacher will appear. So these are the teachers that have appeared," said Quinn.
Of arts educator Burns' part in the project, he said, "This art lens is a very powerful way of connecting mind and heart."
Burns said, through a $30,000 lottery grant, they've been able to make "living histories" available to students, exposing them to artists, cultural leaders, elders, dancers and musicians and First Nations activities, such as powwows.
"Learning doesn't just happen. It happens when we meet 'real live Indians,'" Burns said, hugging Kasokeo. "And it happens when we make relationships, and we have fun together and we laugh."
"To be part of this project, to me," said Naytowhow, "is a challenge because a lot of Canadians in general sometimes haven't been taught about treaties. They don't know why they should learn about them. But this journey has opened their eyes. I've seen them open their eyes. it feels good, it feels really good in here," he said, pointing to his heart. "It's a beginning, it's a beginning."
In addition to taking part in the recent tour to division schools, Kasokeo has been working with Living Sky School Division as a digital resource co-ordinator. While funding changes at the Ministry of Education level might have put the process in jeopardy, Quinn said Director of Education Randy Fox and the division' financial officer were able to find the needed funding within the division's resources.
"Given where we are geographically and in history, this is not something you can start and stop," said Quinn. "It's something we need to make a commitment to."
Kasokeo said, "It's been quite the journey since I started working with Living Sky last year and was contracted out to work on the website and to go to all the schools and find out what resources are being used and hear the words of the administrators and some of the teachers that I met with. "
She found teachers looking for help teaching treaty in the classroom.
"It's quite the thing when you're not familiar with aboriginal issues," she said. "It's pretty overwhelming, and that's what I heard from a lot of our teachers, that the resources aren't there.
As she undertook her research, Kasokeo found there were hundreds of resources out there just on the Internet alone.
" I compiled all these resources and I took the ones that I thought were best and I put them on the website. There are unit plans, there are lesson plans, there are activities that teachers can use, so that's where I direct them."
Burns said the Treaty 6 Education website is a beautiful site.
"Deanne has done some amazing work on it," she said, adding that it is being held up at Office of the Treaty Commissioner training workshops as a wonderful new resource.
Kasokeo says, this year she would like to add more histories to the website as they pertain to the Living Sky School Division area.
"I hope that what we've started here continues to grow. And I think it's going to, because the demographics show, especially in our schools, in the next 10 years or so, it's going to be higher," she said. "By 2015 I think the population of Saskatchewan will be 20 per cent aboriginal."
She said she hopes the board takes it upon themselves to recognize the importance of treaty education.
Kasokeo would like to see Living Sky follow in the footsteps of some of the larger school divisions, although she realized they have larger budgets. Some divisions have made it possible for all their teachers to take the Office of the Treaty Commissioner workshop.
"I think it would be a real benefit to provide that [opportunity] because I know some of our teachers are not confident and overwhelmed trying to bring across these concepts they don't really understand."
Sharing some of her own life, Kasokeo said her own experience in the white school system wasn't always positive.
"I always felt left out. I never felt a part of the system."
What she learned in school was that there was always a negative connotation regarding First Nations or Aboriginal Peoples.
"I was at a point in my life that I denied my Cree ancestry because I was ashamed, because the system made me feel ashamed. Being called a 'savage' in Grade 12 at Cut Knife High School was an experience that really impacted me, and I thought, 'I'm going to become a lawyer and I'm going to do what's right.'"
About two years ago, while attending her mother's residential school hearing, she discovered the extent of her mother's sexual abuse at residential school, hardening her resolve to educate Canadians about treaty and to hold the government accountable.
"When we are talking about healing, this whole thing with treaty is a part of that reconciliation process that we need to do together, to be able to understand and co-exist with one another."
Kasokeo said, "This is my passion, to educate people, to make them more aware of who I am and where I come from." She said her great-great-grandfather, the legendary Cree leader Big Bear, would be proud of her today, because he really wanted the recognition of his people, and it never happened.
"So, 135 years later, for me to stand here today, it's a really a privilege to do that.
