FNMI Ed Con't. Learning Activity

Another great way to address FNMI issues within the class is to have the class take part in the Activity which Andrew, Randy, and Myself came up with. I will provide a link to the activity for those who wish to view it, however, I will quickly summarize the activity.

http://bit.ly/1W3i1Mw

ACTIVITY
Separate the class into 3 groups. Provide each group with a puzzle, and designate each group as either Red, Blue, or Green.
The Red group will have to complete the puzzle without any verbal communication.
The Blue group will  have to refrain from touching any of the pieces or continuing to solve the puzzle every two minutes, for a minute.
Both the Red and Blue groups will be missing key pieces for the completion of their puzzle.
The Green group will have no obstacles, they will have all of the puzzle pieces and will be able to work uninterrupted.

The point of this activity is to demonstrate how residential schools operated, as well as how schools with a high number of FNMI students, or in a highly populated FNMI area are underfunded.

The missing pieces represent the lack of funding, the continuous stopping of the Blue group represents how Aboriginal students in residential school were only in the classroom for a few hours a day, and the rest of the time was spent doing manual labor around the school grounds. The lack of communication for the Red group represents how FNMI children were stripped of their culture, and lastly, the Green group represents the 'Normal' public school.

After the activity, speak to the students about their experience and if they thought it was fair. There are ample opportunities within this activity for further inquiry such as funding for schools in areas of high Aboriginal population, schools on reserves etc. In addition, there are also a number of different opportunities for cross-curricular integration within this lesson, such as history, geography, math and art.