Some Windsor, Ont., high school students sit during O Canada to bring attention to Indigenous issues

Some high school students in Windsor, Ont., are taking a stand on Indigenous issues by remaining seated during playing of the national anthem in the classroom.

"A lot of students sit down quietly and are being pulled out of class, and I don't think that's right at all," Grade 11 student Guinevere Mickle said.

"A lot of students aren't comfortable with standing during something that they know the history of Canada and everything with the Indigenous Peoples." 

The Greater Essex County District School Board told the CBC that similar acts have taken place at Walkerville Collegiate and a couple of other schools in the southwestern Ontario district over the past few months.

Scott Scantlebury, a spokesperson for the public school board, said there has been an increase in the number of students choosing to stay in their seats since Sept. 30, the first National Truth and Reconciliation Day, to honour the lost children and survivors of residential schools, their families and communities. 

Scantlebury said the board supports students' voices, and if any students saw being pulled aside for not standing as punitive, it was "certainly not the intent, and if it was perceived that way, we apologize."

"We've been providing more education for those students who may choose to be sitting and students generally, and why they would, and how to be a real ally" to Indigenous people, he said.

"We really do appreciate their efforts and their passion to be allies, and we want to encourage them to do so, but really from an informed position."

At Walkerville Collegiate, that education has been coming from Adrian Klein, a First Nations, Métis and Inuit student support worker for the board who has spoken to about 10 classes at the school.

"It's good the students are recognizing what was done was wrong and they are willing to support their friends or Indigenous communities in general," Klein said, adding he agrees sitting during the anthem can be seen as a hollow gesture and maybe even not welcome by some Indigenous students.

Klein said he's encouraging students to continue to learn and find more meaningful ways of showing support.

"To show that allyship in a genuine way, so it is not just performative. You know, it's not something you're doing because others are doing it, because that can take away from the reasons that an Indigenous student would sit."

The symbolic act of not standing for O Canada has sparked a debate among students. Each one at Walkerville Collegiate makes a personal decision on what to do during the anthem.

"I personally am standing because I also agree with the Indigenous teacher, and I find it as performative activism and we should be talking about the issues," said Riley Thibert, who's in Grade 11.