Throughout my previous education math has never been something that I was strong at and also a subject where I never felt comfortable asking a question. The teachers within my schooling taught ever math lesson using only one system of doing it. It was the system the teacher thought was the easiest to process by the students. I personally was one of the students whom this process or strategy didn’t make sense too, but the teacher would keep pushing me to use that one strategy. As I got older teachers began to mark my assessments poorly because I might not have used the same strategies as them. As I am continuing in the education program I hope that I will learn more practices that will help me support students in different ways so that they are able to understand difficult subjects such as math. I also hope that I was given the materials to teach my student many different strategies to help my diverse classrooms needs.
Month: March 2017
Examples of citizenship education
Discussing about citizenship in the seminar really got me thinking about how this was incorporated in my own elementary school. Every year the grade 8’s had a “grade 8 Farwell”. At this event awards were given out to certain students to reward them for their achievements. The Hillsdale community citizenship award was given to a student whom which was involved in the Hillsdale community and also was someone who other students looked up to. This award was an important award because it was usually given to a student who was always kind and didn’t always get recognized for it. As a future educator I feel that is is very important to acknowledge students who are great citizens and help other students within and around the school and community. The fact that this award is given only in grade 8 is sometime questionable. But do we want students to be kind only to receive the award or do we want students to do it unknowingly?
As I moved into high school the school encouraged students to get involved with the community. I found this very important for my classmates and myself. Each year we were expected to accomplish 10 hours of community service. As a student I didn’t always enjoy having to find somewhere to do my 10 hours but once I found a place it was always something I looked forward too. This was a time to not only give back to the community but to also change peoples lives. This is something that is very important to teenagers and a great way to help get students involved within their community!
Single stories:
When looking at my k-12 schooling years I was told many “single stories” about many different cultures. Every story told though was told from the European’s point of view. Teachers taught me the way that Europeans looked at things and shaped my world and my thoughts around that European point of view. Not only did our society shape what our teachers taught us but also our teachers opinions spoke out within their lessons. As a child we are taught many life skills and told many stories by many different people. Our perspectives were built off of these stories and lessons. Due to the fact that I am Caucasian and live in a society where Caucasian is the minority I was taught what they were taught and lived the European lifestyle. One experience that really stood out to me was in high school when I was being taught history 9 (grade 9 history). This class was a class where we were not taught about any Aboringal history but just about World War 2 and World War 1. We were taught these stories from the voice of a white man. Extending that even more, in grade 12 I took a Native studies class that again as taught by a white male teacher from the view of European.
As a future educator I find myself realizing more and more all of the bias I have been shaped to believe. Every course introduces new ways that I need to adapt to and start thinking about. After watching this TED talk I am going to make is one of my goals as educator to make sure that I am teaching things from the many points of view so that my students have a better understanding about that certain topic.
My Special place <3
As a child I spent most of my spare time outdoors, whether that was running around my backyard or going to the park or pool with my neighborhood friends. Being outside was something I loved doing. Although I loved playing close to home, every summer I experienced the outdoors in a different way. Since I was a young age my family traveled to a private lake by Fernie British Columbia where we spent at least 2 weeks. This wasn’t ordinary “summer lake” most people had. Rock lake was a lake where there were no cabins, no running water, no cell phone service and no plumbing. Rock Lake was a place where you were able to enjoy the environment with no distraction, you were able to appreciate everything the earth had to offer us. Every year I experienced new things and saw the environment grow around me, until I was the age of 12 when arrived at Rock lake only to see that someone as bought the land across from the lake and built a children’s camp. As the years went on the lake began to become less, they started to build real bathrooms, put cellphone towers up and create a running water source. After hearing about the blanket experience it reminded me about how I felt seeing something I cherished and loved to much be taken over and destroyed. Although this is not as detrimental as what happened to the indigenous people it was a way to try help me understand how they felt. Being able to look at something for so many years and enjoy it presence and then one day realize its all gone and that it will never feel the same again.
Meta- Reflection:
Throughout my reflections I can see the difference in my writing and even the way I talk about the environment. As I looked at my first entry I noticed that I talked about the environment the way I was raised too. I talked about how using technology is bad for the environment and how we are so consumed by it that we don’t see the beauty the earth displays for us. It wasn’t until after writing my love poem that I realized I was writing what society wanted to see or what society has taught me. As I moved further into this course and became more educated, my responses became more thought out and not something that society taught me but my own thoughts. Although I saw the difference between my entries I also noticed that every entry mentioned how humans do not use the natural environment to help educate our younger generations.
Starting this course I didn’t fully know what to expect or what I was going to be educated on. As I wrote my first creative journal I questioned if I was doing things right, or if this was the purpose of the task. It took me awhile to try and put what was on my mind into a reflection. I read the article over and over again to try and create “what my professor” was looking for. After reading the article in “Braiding Sweetgrass” it was this quote that inspired my visual, “I wanted them to see beyond the boundaries of their own skin” (Kimmerer, 2014). This quote got me thinking the way society wanted me too and how consumed humans are with technology. It made me think about how “horrible” technology is and how people would rather look through a camera lens than at what was in front of them. Technology is very commonly used in today’s society for almost everything. This may not be a horrible thing due to the fact it is an easy way to spread awareness to our society about how much our environment is hurting, but I also feel that younger generations need to take time to enjoy the environment before it disappears.
Not realizing that the many years of being taught about the environment in a certain way was affecting me, I then wrote my love poem. My love poem asked the reader multiple questions about our planet and the way we treat it and if we realize it. I found that my poem was spreading awareness to society and making humans question themselves. It wasn’t until after watching Leonardo in “Before the Flood” and reading my classmates love letters/ poems that I realized how society and my schooling had shaped me. I watch this film believing that Leonardo wanted to help save the planet and that he was genuine in the film, but then I read Harpers poem and it opened my eyes to the box shaped mind I had. I didn’t look at the movie the way Harper did, I looked at it the way the directors wanted me to. The combination of the film “Before the Flood” and Harper’s letter inspired me and helped me open my eyes to the actual damage we are doing. This specific moment in time helped me become more passionate when we created our Eco literacy groups.
The creation of the Eco Literacy groups gave me the opportunity to try and see if I was able to do more than just say that I wanted to help the environment. I grew up in a home where we turned off the lights when we left and where we turned off the water when we were done with it, but I feel we only did this to save money not to save the environment. This projects purpose is to reduce our carbon footprint, and I personally am finding it very difficult. I am someone who would rather drive than walk and who would rather leave the light on then have to go back and turn it off. This project has taught me that taking the extra thirty seconds to go and turn the lights off is not only saving my family money but more importantly saving our planet.
Throughout all of my entries I have found a reoccurring topic, the topic of experiencing through the environment rather than reading or listening about it, and how I was to implement this in my future classroom. This started out in my first entry when I stated “As I was reading this article it reminded me of how my generation is so consumed by their cell phones and looking up things on their phones rather than actually exploring”. As I moved on though my other journals entries I found this same occurrence, I was always talking about how I want my students to learn through experience within the environment. Now I am left to think why I thought this way? Why was I stuck in the middle for so long? Why didn’t I make this mind set change earlier? This course so far has changed my mindset and made me think differently than I have for the last nine-teen years.
Reference:
Wall Kimmerer, Robin. (2013). The Sound of Silverbells, in Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge & the Teachings of Plants, pp. 216-222. Minnesota, MN: Milkweed Editions. (Handout & GC)
Creative Journal #3
As an elementary student when I reached grade 7 I have the opportunity to take a school field trip to Dallas Valley Ranch camp for a two day exploration. As I read the article I was reminded of this experience and the knowledge that was learned. Like the students in the canoe pedagogy we were accompanied by Dallas Valley workers which had knowledge about the Land. I found this experience very beneficial and very educational. At the grade 7 level when we went on what was called “outdoor Ed” adventures I assumed that this was what nature was, when actually it was a very western way at looking at nature. We traveled to a place that was set up to teach children about nature, we never went to a place that was actually nature. In my visual I drew a sketch of what I now see Dallas Valley Ranch Camp as. It was a gated of area in which we were taught about nature while swimming in a man made dug out and sleeping in man made cabins. This experience is not really a nature experience but as a student I grew up believing that something like this set up was nature and being in the wilderness. 
Treaty Education or.. “Settler Education”
As not only a future educator but also a resident on Treaty Four I believe it is very important to show our students the history of our home. Treaty Education is one of the many ways in which I am able to do that. I found it very interesting when Claire discussed how the term Treaty Education should be called Settler Education because it is use settlers who need to be educated on treaties. I agree verily strongly with this, we as settlers are the ones who took the indigenous peoples land, we are the ones who need to learn the ways of the land. We are also the people whom are destroying the land and not seeing it as something sacred. In my future classroom I think it would be very beneficial for my students and myself to experience the indigenous people’s cultures and learn where our land came for through experience. I will be able to do this by introducing my students to books, movies, or even have a elder come into my classroom and educate them on it. The purpose of this is to not only help our students gain a better understanding of the indigenous culture and the history of the land we are standing on, but also help our students learn about how we need to keep this land we live on sacred and not destroy it.
Learning from Place:
The article “Learning from Place” shows decolonization and reinhabitation throughout the narrative in many different ways. The narrative starts out by explain the project and whom was all participating. This 10- day canoe trip consisted of the whole group participating in old tradition and using the land to live. Due to the fact that this canoe trip consisted on many people from many generations the youth were taught from the elders about all the old traditions and the secrets that the land holds. “Kellert (2005) has said that connection to nature is important to children’s intellectual, emotional, social, physical and spiritual development. “. This quote from the article “learning from Place” really drew my attention because if I were to look at the outcomes and the categories that we as teachers are suppose to follow I would find; intellectual, emotional, social, physical and spiritual development and Kellert stated that the connection from the environment is important the the development of these. Taking children into the environment is a wonderful idea because it helps them develop those skills and also gives them a sense of how living in the wilderness is. Having the elders there to teach them about the old traditions and cultures is very beneficial to help the youth understand the earth around us in more depth.
Integrating these ideas in my future classroom will not only be very important for my students but also for myself. As a student I was never able to participate in activities such as this, so as a teacher I will learn from the elders with my future students. Learning first hand is the way that most students learn best. Being able to experience it rather then just being forced to read a book about it. As a second year student I have found that I do better in classes that actually engage me in the process of learning rather then just lecturing and then having an exam at the end of the course. This type of learning gives our students the opportunity to come up with questions and expand their imagination while experiencing.
Claire tochor 