“It stayed with me”: learning the legacy of Canada’s residential schools through the Indigenous Teaching Through Art programme

In response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada report, the McMaster University Department of Family Medicine developed Indigenous Teaching Through Art, an experiential, arts and place-based programme for faculty, clinicians and staff to address knowledge gaps pertaining to historical injustices experienced by Indigenous Peoples in Canada, particularly related to the residential school system. Focus groups and individual interviews were conducted to understand participants’ experiences of the programme and their awareness of the legacy of residential schools. This study employed the Two-Eyed Seeing approach to data analysis to guide a reflexive thematic analysis that combined Indigenous and Western ways of knowing. Two-Eyed Seeing was paramount in making meaning of and reconciling the data. Four major themes emerged: (1) experiencing; (2) reflecting; (3) meaning making and (4) acting. These themes fall directly in line with the Experiential Learning Cycle for Indigenous Learners. Although the cycle suggests an ordered progression through each element, analysis of the data showed that participants entered the programme at diverse stages of this cycle, some navigating through its entirety, while others traversed through various points within the cycle. The programme’s intention was to be a starting point for all participants, the majority were settlers, to journey toward learning and reconciliation. Based on participant data, the programme achieved this goal. Providing space for participants to learn would increase awareness and offer new knowledge and, in this journey, consider their individual responsibility to respond to what they learnt and how to provide more equitable and culturally appropriate care, education and service for Indigenous Peoples.