Si
Tallahassee Community School.
I know of three schools in my province
that have changed their names.
One of them is mine, and it got me thinking,
what's in a name anyway?
This is
You might have heard that schools across Canada
have been ditching their old names in favour of new ones.
For example, Sir John A. Macdonald.
The first prime minister of Canada, Macdonald has been
celebrated as an important national figure.
But he was also very involved in the residential school system.
Tapisa Kilabuk, an Inuk advocate in Calgary,
says that John A. Macdonald's name might be
celebrated by some Canadians, but that for
Indigenous members in the community...
That name doesn't actually resonate with us.
It doesn't resonate, it doesn't create
a healthy relationship between us and the school.
Indigenous educator Sara Mai Chitty
says changing a name can...
Show that the school is aware of its problematic history.
Reconciliation, according to Chitty,
means acknowledging those harms
and doing meaningful actions to repair them.
The repair work requires all community members,
Indigenous and non Indigenous, to be a part of the process.
So how have these name changes come about?
In many cases, people have raised their voices
and demanded change.
One kid who raised her voice is Aimee Dorsey.
Back in 2020, when Amy was in grade eight, she found out
about the troubling history of the namesake
of one of the local schools in her neighbourhood.
Turns out the man Dan Knott School was named after
wasn't just a former mayor of Edmonton.
His election was celebrated by the Ku Klux Klan,
AKA the KKK, a racist hate group.
Aimee created a petition and it got almost 8,000 signatures.
In April 2022 the school was given a new name.
Man:
and that reflects one of our seven teachings of kindness
and the act of being kind.
While this was a big win,
the experience affected Aimee's mental health.
Not going to lie. It's kind of been like
one of the worst experiences in my life.
Isabelle:
members of the public who didn't agree with the move
to change the school's name.
[emotional] Like, I'm still hurting a lot from, like,
[voice quivers] everything that happened.
So, does she recommend kids get involved
with this sort of activism?
I don't know. This is a really hard question because
I feel like if someone had the supports that they need
to, like, do that and like, they're in an OK place
to deal with the backlash, then I think that they should.
But like, I know that I wasn't.
Tapisa Kilabuk's advice for young activists...
Try and focus on
the positive impact that they're making for themselves,
making for -- making -- like,
the positive impact that they're making for their ancestors
and the positive impact that they're making for their
like, their kinship, their community.
All right. But why do people get so upset and even angry when
the issue of removing a name and
replacing it with a new one comes up?
I think people don't like change.
[laughs]
Canada is a great country for a lot of different reasons,
but we sort of pretend like a lot of things didn't happen.
The experts we spoke to said that confronting the negative
parts of history can be challenging for some people.
People are forced to recognize that maybe what they've known
their whole lives isn't as true as they thought it was.
I think we need to remember that
renaming things is how history works.
History isn't written in stone.
It's constantly changing and evolving as we
understand new information about the past.
Isabelle:
the public could suggest names.
Names like City of Lakes and Woodlawn made it on to
the final list which then the community could vote on.
Woodlawn High won.
Other name suggestions like Poggers High School
and Kermit the Frog School did not make it on the list.
In Edmonton, kisêwâtisiwin was chosen to replace Dan Knott
in consultation with an Indigenous naming committee
and community engagement sessions.
Even after the name is chosen and announced,
the work only just begins.
Signs, logos, school mascots, and uniforms
all need to be changed, and that can take time.
Many kids, including myself, will be starting off
the school year off with a brand new name this fall.
Some schools across Canada are reconsidering
their names right now.
Is your school one of them?
E-mail us at cbckidsnews@cbc.ca.
All right, that's it for
For
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