This interactive workshop allows participants to share what they know and what they think they know about 2Spirit and LGBTQ-Indigenous communities and topics. Folks will walk through the history of gender and sexual diversity that has existed on Turtle Island prior to contact and learn about the different roles of 2Spirit people prior to contact. Participants will also learn how colonialism and oppression has impacted 2Spirit people and how both have added to their erasure of roles, terminology and teachings. Participants will walk with tools and resources on how to become stronger allies and supports for 2Spirit and LGBTQ-Indigenous youth, people and communities.

Part 1: Participants will take part in the “Long Remembering” exercise, that walks through a timeline of government impact on our Indigenous peoples of Canada. While participating, we will analyze how we have been resilient and place courage at the core of who we are as Anishinaabe people.

Part 2: We will share strategies that create resiliency in students through land-based learning in an urban setting, and what does it looks like.  We will look at Comprehensive Input as a pathway in revitalizing Anishinaabemowin.  How do we incorporate traditional knowledge in our schools that builds resiliency and courage while navigating in an urban setting.  We will also share what it means to Anishinaabe students in calling back our spirits to land, language, and traditions.

In this informative session, educators, teachers, and community partners will explore TVO's numeracy and literacy resources, with a special focus for grades 4 to 12. Education professionals, teachers, and community partners will have the opportunity to explore the following resources:

·         TVO Learn, access to 2000+ free Learning Activities for Kindergarten to Grade 12.  

·         TVO Learn Mathify, a resource where learners can access free live online 1:1 math tutoring sessions with Ontario certified teachers

·         TVO ILC, Canada’s largest online high school providing 140 courses available in English and French that fulfill all Ontario secondary school diploma requirements​

Join us to discover how TVO’s digital resources can support communities, classrooms, and families, enriching education and fostering collective growth. Together, let's unlock the potential of digital learning to empower indigenous educators and students across Ontario to enhance student learning outcomes and boost high school graduation rate.

Join us for an engaging session where we'll explore various free teacher resources offered through Connected North and Taking IT Global. Discover Fireside Chats, a treasure trove of over 300 interviews featuring First Nations, Métis, and Inuit role models, categorized by career or community focus. Many of these interviews come complete with Discussion Guides, making them ideal for sparking classroom-based conversations. Delve into Create to Learn, a dynamic online learning resource developed in collaboration with imagineNATIVE, featuring video tutorials on digital skills and traditional knowledge presented by First Nations, Métis, and Inuit artists and media creators. Additionally, explore the innovative Whose Land app, designed to help you learn about the territory in which your home or business is located, facilitate land acknowledgments, and provide insights into the treaties and agreements that shape Canada's history. Don't miss this opportunity to enrich your teaching toolkit and deepen your understanding of Indigenous perspectives and cultures.

A workshop for any educator who has little or no experience with music to show them that everyone has the ability to make and share music with their students. Throughout the workshop we will demonstrate straightforward yet effective teaching methods that include playing an instrument or singing with students as well as how music can be used to teach a variety of subjects. There will be interactive demonstrations of methods we have found particularly effective for different age groups of students. We will show how different instruments can be incorporated into the curriculum and how powerful singing can be as an educational tool. For educators who have some experience with music we can demonstrate how to structure music programming in a manner that is progressive, effective and fun. Central to our philosophy is making music together and how it enriches our connection to music and each other. We hope that this workshop will excite any educator who has the interest to start singing and playing with their students daily!

Join John from Ed-Digenous Traditions to make a Pouch Bag. Natives of Northeastern North America use bags and pouches to contain many of life’s necessities around the home site and for travel. As Native American clothing did not incorporate European- like pockets, pouches of all shapes, sized and materials served this purpose. European explorers of North America in the early 1600’s observed that Natives “Always carry with them all their goods, as well as their food and green tobacco.” (de Laet: 1967) Pouches and bags were commonly fastened to a belt around the waist. Smaller pouches may have been worn around the neck or on the wrist. Bags that were not woven were traditionally made from tanned leather, animal bladders, and all types of furred animal hides from the mole to the bear. Pouches could contain food-stuff, smoking supplies, medicine, fire-starting equipment, ammunition, and other small tools and supplies used by men and women.

Matawa Education and Care Centre (MECC) and The Critical Thinking Consortium (TC²) are transforming education. We are bridging cultural divides and championing Indigenous students' futures by merging traditional perspectives through curriculum to empower youth. Our collaborative project is the result of an effective and growing partnership that is continuously developing innovative ways to meet the needs of our Indigenous youth. The project grew out of a profound need to address the barriers that exist for Indigenous students’ success and lack of suitable resources available to assist in their individual learning. Our vision focuses on developing resources that MECC students can identify with and that reflect their life and ways of knowing. We designed courses that personalize students’ academic journey and support those who are coping with various disparities and have been disengaged from school for periods of time. All of the developed courses are designed around a robust critical inquiry framework while prioritizing input of Matawa community members, who were critical in determining valuable traditional content and learning themes. We are also creating an inviting portal to house these resources that we hope will support and inspire educators across Canada and around the world in their efforts to intentionally improve learning resources and decolonize the curriculum.

The presentation “Putting Knowledge into Practice: Community Through Kinship and Allyship” will contribute to engaging Indigenous knowledge systems, oral histories, protocols, and connections to the land in a good way. This will be embodied through both a kinship and an allyship lens to engage best practices that have shaped by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators, administrators, policy makers, and parents. This presentation will provide an interactive opportunity for participants to engage with direct knowledges and will provide a framework to recognize the connections and histories of all our relations. I am an Assistant Professor who specializes in Indigenous Education, Curriculum, and Policy. I am also a certified teacher (good standing) with the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT). The target audience includes educators, administrators, policy makers, and parents. As an educator and scholar, I recognize how critical it is that we work collectively to dismantle oppressive anti-Indigenous curriculum and instead work collaboratively to forge a better future for students on their personalized academic journeys.

Join us for an experiential session where we will explore how you can bring participatory, child friendly, art + nature based approaches into your practice. We will share our experiences integrating arts-based and inclusive approaches into the design of outdoor public spaces, including parks, ravines, school grounds, and childcare centres. We’ll focus on ideas that are inexpensive, scalable, replicable, and temporary. In the spirit of building relationships and learning from each other, we’ll ask participants to share their own experiences of projects where children or young people have played integral roles in community projects. Participants will have the opportunity to work together on an art project which they can adapt for their classrooms and students. Participants will leave with an artistic creation representative of their school community, and tools and approaches to help students transform their outdoor spaces. Child participation lies at the heart of creating more connected communities and climate resilient public spaces, and is an essential part of ensuring a truly equitable and inclusive stakeholder approach. Let’s come together to reimagine our spaces and support building inclusive, vibrant and climate resilient places for children.