Blankets Reflect History and Empathy
Grade 8 students are designing pillowcase-sized blanket panels that reflect what they learned about Indigenous history and the impacts of colonization. It’s part of an English project that takes their Truth and Reconciliation learning to the next level. The students are guided by themes and asked to make independent artistic decisions, then justify their imagery in written reflections. As Middle School English teacher David Finkelstein explains, “their understanding is going to be reflected in the products that they create.”
The panels will be woven together to create customized blankets for future Blanket Exercises, an experiential learning activity led by the Waaban Nang Collective. In this activity, participants are guided through the impact of colonization and the resilience of Indigenous peoples. Blankets are placed on the floor, then rolled or folded, representing changes in land ownership and the devastating impacts of disease on Indigenous populations. First introduced to Crescent students in 2024, future iterations will now use the Crescent-created blankets for the exercise.
Middle School English teacher Leah Di Vincenzo, a strong advocate of Indigenous education at Crescent, emphasizes the impact of building upon previous educational experiences. “Starting with the Blanket Exercise in September opened the students to learning,” she says. That openness carried into the blanket-making project, where students demonstrated a depth of thought, empathy, and risk-taking in their ideas. “Even at the planning stages, their sketches exceeded what I had hoped they’d achieve.”
The project is intentionally forward-looking, inspired by the Indigenous concept of the “Seven Generations Principle,” that decisions made today should consider impacts on generations in the future and honour those in the past. “I've been emphasizing to my students that this is a living example of seven generations thinking,” explains Finkelstein. “Because they will never stand on their own blankets in the Blanket Exercise, but next year’s Grade 8 students will.”
