These teachings are shared with permission from the Elders of the Nłeʔkepmxc and Syilx peoples. Elders have encouraged Robyn and I to bring these stories into schools so students can experience the beauty of Indigenous culture. Note: specific ceremonies (e.g., blanketing, food offerings, birth/death practices and more) vary by Nation and should always be taught by local Knowledge Keepers and Elders.

The Medicine Wheel 
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The Medicine Wheel — Our Circle of Balance
Where Emotional Intelligence Meets Indigenous Wisdom

The Medicine Wheel-- or Sacred Circle-- isn’t just a symbol--It’s a mirror.

It shows us where we’re out of balance and reminds us what it means to be whole.
Across generations, Indigenous Peoples have used the Medicine Wheel to understand the harmony between the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual parts of life.

Each quadrant teaches something essential:

• Physical (North): caring for the body, movement, and the world around us.
• Emotional (East): nurturing relationships, empathy, and emotional truth.
• Mental (South): growing wisdom, curiosity, and reflection.
• Spiritual (West): honouring intuition, identity, and our connection to all living things.

When one quadrant dominates, imbalance follows, in people and in schools.

That’s why the Emotional Schools Framework is built upon this circle.
It reminds educators that emotional intelligence isn’t just a skill; it’s a balance in motion.
It’s the harmony between head, heart, body, and spirit.

By walking with the Medicine Wheel as our guide, we honour Indigenous wisdom and practice reconciliation in action, creating classrooms where every learner, every teacher, and every leader can find their place in the circle.

→ See how the Medicine Wheel brings Truth and Reconciliation to life through the Emotional Schools Framework.

The Sacred Circle — Living the Framework

When Balance Becomes Culture, Not Curriculum
The Sacred Circle sits at the heart of the Emotional Schools Framework, not as an image to study, but as a way to live.
It transforms emotional intelligence from a concept into a culture, guiding how schools think, feel, and act every day.
Where the Medicine Wheel teaches balance, the Sacred Circle builds it into the system, weaving Indigenous wisdom through the structures, spaces, and relationships that shape school life.

• In classrooms, emotions are not managed; they’re understood.
• In leadership, decisions are guided by humility, not hierarchy.
• In the community, learning flows both ways, from Elders to educators, from students to systems.

Each quadrant of the Circle breathes through the Framework:

• Emotional: our approach to relationships and belonging.
• Mental: how we organize learning and problem-solve.
• Physical: how we design spaces that calm and restore.
• Spiritual: how we build meaning, connection, and purpose into the rhythm of school life.

This is where the Emotional Schools Framework becomes reconciliation in action.

By living through the Sacred Circle, schools don’t just “teach” Indigenous perspectives, they honour them.
They move beyond compliance toward connection, creating environments where wellness, learning, and culture grow together as one.

→ See how Truth and Reconciliation are woven through every layer of the Emotional Schools Framework.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action

• From Policy to Practice, from Awareness to Action
  In Canada, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action challenge us to confront a brutal truth, one that continues to shape every classroom today.
  Residential schools didn’t just remove children from their homes; they fractured language, culture, and identity.
  The impact wasn’t historical; it’s generational, living in the systems we inherited.
  
  

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That’s why reconciliation can’t live in binders, lesson plans, or a single PD day.
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It has to live in how we teach, lead, and relate, every day. The Calls to Action ask us to:

• Teach the truth about residential schools, Treaties, and Indigenous contributions to Canada.
• Build intercultural understanding, empathy, and mutual respect into every grade, K–12.
• Create curriculum and learning resources that reflect Indigenous voices and histories with honesty and dignity.
• But truth without practice is just theory.
  The Emotional Schools Framework brings these Calls to Action to life, not as a checklist, but as a living process of reconciliation in motion.​

Through the Medicine Wheel, we balance the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual aspects of learning.
Through the Sacred Circle, we build systems that are grounded in relationship, humility, and healing.
Through truth, we create space for stories that were once silenced, and through reconciliation, we foster a space for connection to grow again.

This work isn’t about guilt; it’s about responsibility. It’s about ensuring that every student — Indigenous and non-Indigenous — learns in a school that reflects truth, empathy, and a sense of belonging.

→ Next: See how the Emotional Schools Framework fulfills Indigenous Education and Truth & Reconciliation mandates through living practice.

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Living Reconciliation Through the Emotional Schools Framework
When Truth Meets Practice, Transformation Follows

Every school in Canada is called to engage in Indigenous education, but real reconciliation goes far beyond a checkbox or a one-day workshop.

It asks us to rebuild the system itself, to bring balance, humanity, and heart back into how we teach, lead, and live together.

That’s exactly what the Emotional Schools Framework does.

It’s reconciliation in motion, a living system grounded in the Medicine Wheel and Sacred Circle, designed to meet both the spirit and intent of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action.

Here’s how it fulfills Indigenous Education and TRC expectations:

• Curriculum Alignment:
  Integrates Indigenous perspectives, local teachings, and emotional literacy into daily learning — not as an add-on, but as part of every subject and space.
• Professional Learning:
  Provides teachers and leaders with the knowledge, tools, and confidence to embed Truth and Reconciliation meaningfully into their practice.
• Cultural Responsiveness:
  Builds understanding of colonization, intergenerational trauma, and the ongoing effects of residential schools — balanced with the strength, beauty, and resilience of Indigenous cultures.
• Healing and Connection:
  Creates emotionally safe spaces where empathy, relationship, and belonging replace compliance, control, and fear.
• Systemic Balance:
  Uses the four quadrants of the Medicine Wheel — emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual — to guide every policy, classroom routine, and leadership decision.​

When schools operate within this framework, policy becomes practice and reconciliation becomes a cultural norm. Truth is honoured, relationships are restored, and learning becomes a shared journey of growth and healing.

​This isn’t a program, it's a FRAMEWORK. It’s a new way of being, one that honours Indigenous wisdom, meets national education mandates, and brings emotional intelligence and reconciliation together in one balanced circle.

→ Reconciliation lives here... in every classroom, every hallway, and every heartbeat of the Emotional Schools Framework.