Skaha Bluffs Provincial Park, Smythe Drive, Penticton, BC, Canada
In my last post I talked about Calls to Action and the education reforms needed to acknowledge and reconcile the dark history that lives on Canada’s land. Within the education system, settler narratives and identities are constantly being reproduced (Calderon, 2014). As I was sitting at the bottom of a rock climbing crag in Skaha Bluffs Provincial Park, I was thinking to myself how specifically to focus on ways to implement culturally appropriate curricula in the context of primary classrooms. I was reflecting on the Indigenous education course that our cohort took, there was an emphasis on storytelling, land-based education and reciprocity. Bringing these 3 things into our classrooms can help to educate students about the stories on this land.
Some ways to implement storytelling in a classroom which help to tell the stories living on our land include the following: inviting local Indigenous elders to come to the classroom to share stories and spread knowledge about their values, traditions and land, reading storybooks written by indigenous authors and encouraging more oral storytelling from students as opposed to focusing almost exclusively on storytelling through writing, and working with Indigenous education teachers at the school. Western culture is heavily reliant on reading and writing, and is less skilled at oral communication (Archibald, 2008). Oral communication is more nuanced, personal and full of emotion (Archibald, 2008). Combined with literacy, orality can contribute to a better understanding of storytelling (Archibald, 2008).
Just taking students outside can help us pay attention to stories on the land. Being outside in nature promotes attention (Berman et al, 2008). This is how I felt being at Skaha Bluffs. Ideas came more readily than the did sitting inside, and I felt more inspired. Taking students outside to listen and look at the forest carefully would be a great activity. We could encourage students to be nature spies and look and listen carefully. We can pose the students questions like “What do you hear and see?” at first, and as student become more observant in nature we can expand on their inquiry by asking what the forest is thing to tell us (ex. big, healthy trees tell us that humans are doing a good job protecting this part of the forest). I also loved the quote that Devyn brought up: “One’s connection to nature encourages reflection upon what healthy relationships look like” (Wildcat et al, 2014). I could perhaps ask students what they thing the relationship between the soil and the trees are. Or perhaps the relationship between two different plants, to get us thinking about how the forest ecosystem has many parts which support each other. If students have questions of their own, they should be nurtured and shared with the class so we can find answers together.
Teaching students reciprocity will allow us to have a better relationship with nature. This can be done through stories, or through teaching reciprocity towards other students and then extending the idea to nature. The teacher can prompt students to think about what nature gives them, and after, can ask students what they can give to nature in return. This can be done as a group conversation in the forest, or the answers to these questions can be painted. The Indigenous education teacher at my school suggested that we could do a joint lesson where we can teach about reciprocity and place sweetgrass by the trees around my practicum school to give back to mother Earth. These are just some of the ways that a teacher can go about teaching reciprocity.
Sources: Archibald, J. (2008). Indigenous storywork: Educating the heart, mind, body, and spirit. Chapter four: The power of stories to educate the heart (pp. 83-100). Vancouver: UBC Press.
Berman, M. G., Jonides, J., & Kaplan, S. (2008). The cognitive benefits of interacting with nature. Psychological Science, 19(12), 1207–1212. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02225.x
Calderon, D. (2014). Speaking back to manifest destinies: A land education-based approach to Critical Curriculum Inquiry. Environmental Education Research, 20(1), 24–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2013.865114
Wildcat, M., et al. (2014). Learning from the land: Indigenous land-based pedagogy and decolonization. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society. 3(3), i-xv. Available at: https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/2224