Students learn about National Truth and Reconciliation Day at Beechwood Cemetery

Rocks painted by students for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation at Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa on Sept. 30, 2024. (Kimberley Johnson/CTV News Ottawa)

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is a day of learning and confronting hard truths, and some schools in Ottawa attended the Beechwood Cemetery on Monday to understand the legacy of residential schools.

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Painting in her pink heart carefully, 11-year-old student Sophie Killough says it’s a simple message.

"Everyone should know that every child is special," she said. "No matter what they look like or who they are."

Sophie and her classmates at École au Coeur d’Ottawa are just a few of the dozens of students at the cemetery on Orange Shirt Day.

When the painted rock leaves her hands, it will lay in the Children’s Sacred Forest, a monument dedicated to the children who never returned from residential schools.

"I just thought it would be a good idea to show that every child matters," she said.

In the residential school system, more than 150,000 children were taken from their families and at least 6,000 children died during that time, according to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.

On Monday, the difficult topics are approached through a stop-motion film, and painting the rocks and messages, in the hopes that the young generation take it beyond one day, said Jennifer King with the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society.

"These kids are going to come, they're going to learn about some of these truths that we have in Canada," she said.

"And then they're going to go back to school and talk about it with their peers, talk about it with their families. And hopefully building that movement to a more equitable future."

The students are also learning about Peter Henderson Bryce, a doctor who blew the whistle on the conditions of the residential school system. His tombstone at Beechwood helps connect the students to the past.

"The story of Doctor Bryce, I think, is important, because it really cracks open that national myth that we have that people of the time just didn't know better," said King.

"People did know better and people had solutions and people tried to speak up. And I think being able to visit Doctor Bryce's, spot makes that real."

It’s not the first time Grade 6 student Ava Gerard has heard about the topic. She says it’s an important one.

"Even though we can't fix what happened, it's still important to learn," she said.

Her classmate Sophie, agrees.

"So that it won’t happen again."