The Impact...
Not only did students learned in formal and informal ways throughout the project, but so did all those outside of the student body. Relationships where formed, respect for the process that was involved in multi-cross curricula, such as the basic fundamentals in arts, crafts, land-based hunting and gathering, social interaction and communication, and language. Such formal learning focused on indigenous art forms such as learning about Eastern Woodlands artists, techniques, and theories. Informal learning included learning how to bead and make leather goods and birch baskets from Elders coming into some classrooms. Experiential learning occurred when students were taken out on the land by Elders for activities such as snow shoeing, learning to set snares, and camping. Not all experiential and informal learning was marked. This allowed students to focus on the Elders and the experience with the Elders and land instead of worrying about their grades.
It was hard at times to bring teacher/mentors on board in every community. Two of my colleagues who are no longer at our school flat-out refused to participate. In both cases, it was dealing with teachers who did not want to do any extra-curricular activities. Accordingly, in both cases the classroom attendance decreased since these teachers took over. While this did provide a good ‘scientific’ control group, it was very frustrating to see students who I had come to know online in my courses dropping out of school, especially those who I thought would benefit greatly with respect to this project. Also, the myriad of different artists and storytellers resulted in some administrative challenges including gathering releases, travel arrangements, coordinating story and artist, and many other unforeseen difficulties which needed to be finessed.
When attending my school board’s annual meeting (5 Keewaytinook Okimakanak communities), I listened to the Education directors and community member’s contributions to the discussion. Common themes in the discussion were including community members in the land-based, traditional and language activities as not all the practices/materials were the way it was done in their community. This is challenging at the board level which deals with five separate communities which speak different languages and dialects. It is even more challenging in my school as we work in nine more communities and have an additional language and several more dialects. Our communities also differ in regards to desires to teach students traditional religion and/or practices. It appears that the challenge is to create materials that can showcase or be adapted to each community. One positive is that while there is a desire to teach local students the local communities’ values, there is no criticism of what other communities choose to teach their children.
Balancing the uniqueness of each community and still trying to develop one item such as a calendar is a challenge. It reminds me somewhat of teaching in a classroom, we have one lesson and many unique students with different needs, or of being a principal where the is one school but different needs for each classroom. Ideally, it would be great to individualize learning for all students completely, but the time that demand on a teacher and administrator is very unreasonable. At the same time, often it is the struggling children who receive the most attention. If educators are truly going to help each child become the best that he or she can be, even those students who do well need our attention. Making plans to spend individual time with every student as a teacher, or every teacher as a principal is important. As an older and more established teacher I don’t often received the same attention as our newer starting out teachers. This is fine as I don’t need the support they do, but is always lifts my day and makes me want to work harder when I do receive personal attention. Even something as simple as “Thank-you for doing the calendar”. As a Principal, it will be important to me that I recognize not only teachers who are struggling, but those who are successful as well, and give teachers time to talk to me about their hopes for their classroom, students, and careers.
I reflected a lot on how, when at meetings with various communities, there is never a push to do things ‘one way’. Nor do the representatives from different communities put down other communities. When there is disagreement, it is often prefaced with an acknowledgement such as “I appreciate that in your community X is working well, but it is not working well for us” or “It is different in X, we want Y instead”. This type of respectful disagreement is missing from wider Canadian society. Often, when trying to argue a point, politicians or representatives try to be the loudest and most sure of themselves. It reminds me that as an administrator, I need to listen to all points of view and never try to make ‘cookie-cutter’ students as each student will be unique.
The actual publishing of the calendar, which I had thought would be easy, ended up being a challenge as administration would not allow the first choice of publisher due to them not taking a purchase order. The second choice of publisher resulted in delays in receiving the calendars. Once they were received, they were shipped via different means including two airlines, for distribution. Surprisingly, some teachers were recalcitrant in their duties to distribute the calendars. With perseverance, the calendars were eventually distributed where they needed to go, including to the artists and Elders (or Elder’s family). with that being said, the Calendars were a success.
Elders were appreciated for their time, and students and teachers were encouraged to honour the Elder’s contribution in keeping with community protocols: students and in some cases teachers from outside the community, were taught how to properly approach and thank the Elders including giving a gift when keeping with community protocols. This was in addition to payment Elders received for their time and specialized knowledge through the head office. In some cases, students reciprocated the knowledge shared with them by Elders through showing the Elders the technology and/or art supplies they were using.
In talking with an Elder recently, she remarked how much she enjoyed being around the children, and how one had come and visited her outside of classroom. Reforming bonds is very important and I realized in the past year through listening to my students and the project participants that there were people I needed to re-bond with in my own life. I think this is very important as it goes along with the other discovery I mentioned earlier about making time for myself to nurture my passion with art so I can bring it into the classroom.
It would be good to take the time, the biggest challenge to see to what extent Elders, language and land-based activities correlate with improved student outcomes and attendance. Currently, teacher/mentors all report a positive correlation, but this information is based on their views, not quantitative evidence. Having quantitative evidence would assist in advocating for more such projects for our students.
Policies were put in place for treatment of Elders and payment of Elders for their time. These policies and protocols, however, need to be standardized in a way that reflects the practices and traditions of each of our communities, and then codified so that when staff turnover occurs, they have access to them.
Moving forward, I hope to encourage teachers to use the paintings and videos that were developed for this project in their classes. Science, history, language, and English are all areas where students could benefit from using these resources.
It was hard at times to bring teacher/mentors on board in every community. Two of my colleagues who are no longer at our school flat-out refused to participate. In both cases, it was dealing with teachers who did not want to do any extra-curricular activities. Accordingly, in both cases the classroom attendance decreased since these teachers took over. While this did provide a good ‘scientific’ control group, it was very frustrating to see students who I had come to know online in my courses dropping out of school, especially those who I thought would benefit greatly with respect to this project. Also, the myriad of different artists and storytellers resulted in some administrative challenges including gathering releases, travel arrangements, coordinating story and artist, and many other unforeseen difficulties which needed to be finessed.
When attending my school board’s annual meeting (5 Keewaytinook Okimakanak communities), I listened to the Education directors and community member’s contributions to the discussion. Common themes in the discussion were including community members in the land-based, traditional and language activities as not all the practices/materials were the way it was done in their community. This is challenging at the board level which deals with five separate communities which speak different languages and dialects. It is even more challenging in my school as we work in nine more communities and have an additional language and several more dialects. Our communities also differ in regards to desires to teach students traditional religion and/or practices. It appears that the challenge is to create materials that can showcase or be adapted to each community. One positive is that while there is a desire to teach local students the local communities’ values, there is no criticism of what other communities choose to teach their children.
Balancing the uniqueness of each community and still trying to develop one item such as a calendar is a challenge. It reminds me somewhat of teaching in a classroom, we have one lesson and many unique students with different needs, or of being a principal where the is one school but different needs for each classroom. Ideally, it would be great to individualize learning for all students completely, but the time that demand on a teacher and administrator is very unreasonable. At the same time, often it is the struggling children who receive the most attention. If educators are truly going to help each child become the best that he or she can be, even those students who do well need our attention. Making plans to spend individual time with every student as a teacher, or every teacher as a principal is important. As an older and more established teacher I don’t often received the same attention as our newer starting out teachers. This is fine as I don’t need the support they do, but is always lifts my day and makes me want to work harder when I do receive personal attention. Even something as simple as “Thank-you for doing the calendar”. As a Principal, it will be important to me that I recognize not only teachers who are struggling, but those who are successful as well, and give teachers time to talk to me about their hopes for their classroom, students, and careers.
I reflected a lot on how, when at meetings with various communities, there is never a push to do things ‘one way’. Nor do the representatives from different communities put down other communities. When there is disagreement, it is often prefaced with an acknowledgement such as “I appreciate that in your community X is working well, but it is not working well for us” or “It is different in X, we want Y instead”. This type of respectful disagreement is missing from wider Canadian society. Often, when trying to argue a point, politicians or representatives try to be the loudest and most sure of themselves. It reminds me that as an administrator, I need to listen to all points of view and never try to make ‘cookie-cutter’ students as each student will be unique.
The actual publishing of the calendar, which I had thought would be easy, ended up being a challenge as administration would not allow the first choice of publisher due to them not taking a purchase order. The second choice of publisher resulted in delays in receiving the calendars. Once they were received, they were shipped via different means including two airlines, for distribution. Surprisingly, some teachers were recalcitrant in their duties to distribute the calendars. With perseverance, the calendars were eventually distributed where they needed to go, including to the artists and Elders (or Elder’s family). with that being said, the Calendars were a success.
Elders were appreciated for their time, and students and teachers were encouraged to honour the Elder’s contribution in keeping with community protocols: students and in some cases teachers from outside the community, were taught how to properly approach and thank the Elders including giving a gift when keeping with community protocols. This was in addition to payment Elders received for their time and specialized knowledge through the head office. In some cases, students reciprocated the knowledge shared with them by Elders through showing the Elders the technology and/or art supplies they were using.
In talking with an Elder recently, she remarked how much she enjoyed being around the children, and how one had come and visited her outside of classroom. Reforming bonds is very important and I realized in the past year through listening to my students and the project participants that there were people I needed to re-bond with in my own life. I think this is very important as it goes along with the other discovery I mentioned earlier about making time for myself to nurture my passion with art so I can bring it into the classroom.
It would be good to take the time, the biggest challenge to see to what extent Elders, language and land-based activities correlate with improved student outcomes and attendance. Currently, teacher/mentors all report a positive correlation, but this information is based on their views, not quantitative evidence. Having quantitative evidence would assist in advocating for more such projects for our students.
Policies were put in place for treatment of Elders and payment of Elders for their time. These policies and protocols, however, need to be standardized in a way that reflects the practices and traditions of each of our communities, and then codified so that when staff turnover occurs, they have access to them.
Moving forward, I hope to encourage teachers to use the paintings and videos that were developed for this project in their classes. Science, history, language, and English are all areas where students could benefit from using these resources.