Early in the semester the Humanities & STEM students were given the chance to take part in some powerful learning along with Jen Pighin from School District 57. We spent the morning at the Tsasdli Yoh (Pit House) on the Greenway near the University of Northern British Columbia campus, learning about the importance of the creation of the Pit House.
We then came together as a community of learners to share the new perspective on the passage of time gained through building a Beaded Timeline – focusing on significant local events before taking part in the Blanket Exercise.
For the upcoming Practicum, I was given the chance to be part of an English First Peoples 11/12; it is really a dream come true for me! While I was excited for the opportunities afforded to me by this Practicum, there was also a bit of hesitation as I want to be honest and authentic with the work and voice of the poets, writers, spoken word artists and visual artists that I will be sharing with my students.
I met with the University of Northern British Columbia Lheidli T’enneh Elder in Residence, Marcel Gagnon and talked about the power of stories and how to best support the students in my class. The day I went to meet with Marcel the first time there was a sharing circle and smudge taking place, it was a beautiful experience to share with those who were gathered around the circle and cemented in my mind the desire to work with Marcel to support my students learning. Marcel is a wonderful and knowledgeable resource who has offered to come and share both stories and songs with the students in my class during this upcoming Practicum.
Marcel and I met on couple of other occasions to discuss how his coming into the classroom could benefit the students that I was working with. As fate would have it, Marcel and I bumped into each other at the Indigenous Professional Development day in School District 57 and more story telling and sharing ensued.
My final Practicum found me teaching English First Peoples 11/12 and English 12 again, but with the addition of Appreciation of Film 12 to round out the course load. I was excited about the prospect of being back in the same school and classes even if the students were different, but still wanted to try different things. I wanted to focus on the connection to place and land, because I know how damaging a lack of connection can be and connecting to place is grounding. While talking with one of the Vice-Principals of the school, he mentioned that if I wanted to do field-trips or connect with other schools and educators during this Practicum time that it was fully supported and encouraged; he also gave me the name of a teacher that he thought would be a wonderful resource and connection for me. I connected with this teacher about potentially joining our classes together on a field-trip and she was enthusiastic and agreed immediately inviting my class to join hers in just a couple of days. Unfortunately, field-trip forms and other paperwork would not be ready for the students to go on such short notice, so we made plans for later in the year. I was able to attend the field-trip and was able to take back stories and ideas to share with the students about what our shared field-trip/project with this other class could look like in the spring.
Our plan was to come together in April, and have the two classes work together on the land to help clean and restore; specifically the slough that runs through the centre of Prince George.