Learning Opportunities

This one-day session prepares educators to lead the KAIROS Blanket Exercise, a powerful teaching tool to foster truth and reconciliation.

The Blanket Exercise is based on participatory popular education methodology and the major themes and findings of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. The goal is to build understanding about our shared history as Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada by walking through pre-contact, treaty-making, colonization and resistance. Everyone is actively involved as they step onto blankets that represent the land, and into the role of First Nations, Inuit and later Métis peoples. By engaging on an emotional and intellectual level, the Blanket Exercise effectively educates and increases empathy.

Bringing the Blanket Exercise to your students
The Facilitator Training begins with experiencing and debriefing the Blanket Exercise. You are then led through the various steps of preparing to facilitate the activity, which includes:

• Compiling the necessary supplies;
• Ensuring the safety and adequate preparation of students;
• Appropriate adaptations;
• Preparing for the unpredictable;
• School-wide approaches;
• Introduction to the Blanket Exercise Edu-Kit;
• Suggestions for follow-up.

The KAIROS Blanket Exercise is being successfully used by hundreds of educators across the country with grades 5 and up. It is cross-curricular and appeals to many different learning and teaching styles. It builds relationships, breaks down stereotypes and generates meaningful dialogue and action toward decolonization.

We acknowledge that we are on Treaty 6 territory, a traditional meeting grounds, gathering place, and travelling route to the Cree, Saulteaux, Blackfoot, Métis, Dene and Nakota Sioux. We acknowledge all the many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit whose footsteps have marked these lands for centuries.

Target Audience

Grades 5-12 Teachers and Administrators