I Promise from Shaughnessy Park on Vimeo.

“During English Language Arts, the grade 8 students of Shaughnessy Park School learned about the Residential Schools.  With the help of an education resource called the 100 Years of Loss, the students learned the History and the Timeline of the Residential School System.  Students read heartbreaking Survivor stories and the class had emotional discussions throughout the unit.

At the end of the unit, the students wrote persuasive essays that were to be placed in a “time machine” and sent back to the beginning of the Residential School System.  The students tried to convince the government that Residential Schools would not work, by sharing the Survivor stories and the devastating statistics.

 Still, the students felt as though they needed to do more.  They came up with the idea of making a video.  They wanted to share what they learned, their wishes, their apologies and their promises.  They wrote the script and helped with the video taping and editing.  With the support of one of Shaughnessy Park School’s staff members, many of the students filmed most of the video.  The video was shared with the community at our Multicultural night here at the school.  All of the grade 8 students are proud of what they accomplished with the video.  It was an honour to hear cheers from the audience when the video finished playing.

They are now excited to share the video to different communities in Winnipeg with the use of the Winnipeg School Division Website!”