Category Archives: Module 3

Module 3, post #5 – Grand River Rafting Company

My final project will be a teacher guide for educators in Ontario who are teaching indigenous studies. A great way to appeal to students and make learning hands-on is through field trips. The Grand River Rafting Company, located 1 hour west of Toronto, offers a variety of customized field trips on native studies. The company has developed several field trips designed to honour indigenous history and culture.

Field trip topics can focus on Iroquois history and famous people, interactive dancing, edible medicinal hiking and the art of making arrowheads. The company will also organize tours of the last residential school in Southern Ontario, a Mohawk chapel, the home of famous poet named Pauline Johnson, a local Six Nations Reservation and a local Iroquois restaurant.

The field trips are guided by local indigenous people, and will therefore provide students with a real-life account of indigenous life. The tours highlight many of the most defining aspects of indigenous culture: nature, natural medicine, craftsmanship, drumming and dance. A field trip with the Grand River Rafting Company would be highly beneficial for students of all ages.

http://www.grandriverrafting.ca/native-studies-curriculum-ontario-trips-0

Entry 12 : Native Public Media

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Native Public Media reports that “radio is a lifeline for emergencies, tribal languages, health and economics news, and electoral participation across the Indian Country.” This site which promotes the radio station, with the “only on-air Native language programming helping to keep tribal languages and cultures alive and strong. ” I believe this is an interesting idea, in a time when many push social visual media (TV) as a way of maintaining aboriginal languages.

Radio does allow the listener to concentrate on the words in order to grasp the meaning. Therefore in may very well be a more effective method of retaining a language. However it is important to rememeber that ther is more to a cultural language than merely sounds. The non-verbal aspects of language may be missed through radio. Blogs and other events in the US serve to fortify the Native Public Media’s mission to: “promote healthy, engaged and independent Native Communities through media access, control and ownership.”

Feel free to visit or listen.

link: http://www.nativepublicmedia.org

Entry 15: Aboriginal youth and Social Media

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This article, by Tyson Christensen, appears on the November 5-19, 2013 edition of The Source ; Forum of Diversity. The author discusses Aboriginal youth activism, and the rise of youth fighting for aboriginal rights, mentioning such movements as Idle No More . Christensen credits, “one critical factor driving this new engagement is the increasing use of social media, which has allowed experienced First Nations leaders to connect and interact with youth in new ways.”

He goes on to explain that “online spaces provide a forum for First Nations youth to join together and become a collective voice on matters that are important to them.” Through online media and social networking, people have a way to speak out and become heard.

link: http://thelasource.com/en/2013/01/21/aboriginal-youth-unite-through-social-media/

Entry 14: Aboriginal Youth and Technology

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On June 19, 2013, Camosen College announced that 2 of its instructors were invited to present their research (case study) on Aboriginal youth and technology. The paper, entitled Digital Storytelling: A Case Stduy of Aboriginal Youth Engaging in Technology,

examines their ANCESTOR (Aboriginal Computer Education through Storytelling) project that introduces Aboriginal youth to careers in technology, an area that has very few Aboriginal professionals.

The authors utilised a 3D program which enabled Aboriginals to create their own stories in an environment which “parallels the Indigenious world view…[Moreover] the project …addresses the problem of cultural kiteracy lost to the younger generation.”

link: http://camosun.ca/news/press-releases/2013/june/aboriginal-youth-technology.html

Module 3:5 – Minority Rights International

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Minority Rights Group International is a human rights organization whose motto is “working to secure the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples”. Its annual flagship publication is the State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples – the 2013 report was released in late September, and focuses on the health inequities faced by most minority and indigenous groups worldwide.

The organization also produces the World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples, which has summary descriptions of the minority and indigenous groups found in all regions of the world. Canada’s entries for First Nations and Inuit are quite lengthy and describe the historical context of colonization as well as current land title issues, etc.

Module 3:4 – Participatory Methods

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The Participatory Methods website from the Participation, Power and Social Change team at the University of Sussex’s Institute for Development Studies “provides resources to generate ideas and action for inclusive development and social change.” In Module 3, we looked at the topic of indigenous knowledge for development , and how important it is to give real power to local people over decisions that will affect their lives and communities and homes. In development studies, “participation” is the widely used term that covers the idea of locally based decisions and collaboration. This website is a great introduction to all these “participatory” terms and has links to key resources. It has a particularly interesting section on the importance of defining what we mean by the development buzzword “participation” – and how the term can be applied to methods to mask manipulation as well as those that facilitate real citizen control and transformation.

This website defines participatory research as such:

“In participatory research power is handed over from the researcher to research participants, often local people. They have control over the research agenda, the process and actions. They also analyse and reflect on the information generated in the research process. Empowerment of communities, to bring out local realities and to inform policy and practice are possible purposes of participatory research.”

Module 3:3 – Promise of Place

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Promise of Place: Enriching Lives Through Place-Based Education is quite a large website with many resources about place-based education, including a PDF manual called Learning to Make Choices for the Future: Connecting Public Lands, Schools, and Communities through Place-based Learning and Civic Engagement. The manual claims that the trend of place-based education is a response to the alarming “growth of a youth culture that has turned away dramatically from nature and the outdoors.” It defines many terms related to place-based education such as service learning, environmental education, project-based learning, experiential education, etc., which was useful for me. The website also has many examples of and links to place-based learning curriculum (mainly American) such as the Rural School and Community Trust http://www.ruraledu.org/ and the Alaska Native Knowledge Network http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/publications/index.html

Module 3:2 – Orion Magazine

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As I was searching for resources about place-based education, Orion Magazine popped up. I was tempted to spend all day reading the articles – there are so many good ones. The focus of the magazine is nature and our moral responsibility to protect the environment. It includes an article about the use of a Native American stereotype in an ad in the 1970s (the Keep America Beautiful Crying Indian campaign) in service of the beverage packaging/bottling industry (see http://youtu.be/j7OHG7tHrNM for the original ad) as they diverted public attention about whether or not disposable packaging should be allowed in the first place, to the demonization of litterbugs (i.e. there is no problem as long as we pick up after ourselves). There is a short list of interesting articles about “Connecting Children to Nature” http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/mag/5420/, including one called “Charlotte’s Webpage” that discusses the risks of disconnecting students from real life and nature as they spend more time with computers and other media. Orion is a fantastic source of information and inspiration for place-based education that focuses on environmental sustainability and connection to nature.

Module 3:1 – Foxfire

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Interested in taking a look at the broader topic of place-based education (beyond the indigenous context) and in learning more about place-based education generally, I came across Foxfire, a U.S. non-profit educational organization that promotes place-based learning in the Appalachian region of northeast Georgia. Foxfire encompasses a student magazine, a museum, and a teaching approach (“The Foxfire Approach to Teaching and Learning”). I would call the magazine, founded by high school students in 1966, an example of “salvage ethnography” – its goal is to document the disappearing heritage of Appalachian elders and pioneer culture, and in this way (among others) is very different from a place-based Indigenous education that is part of a living culture. The magazine has been extremely successful, and is still published today. Out of this first initiative came a teacher training program that promotes the use of local resources (people, community, culture) in education. The teaching philosophy’s “10 Core Practices” espouse student-centred and active methods centred around local and student-initiated concerns, hands on approaches, reflection, and relevance beyond the classroom. The idea of relevance to an external community is an important one, I think, whether or not that community is strictly local.

Module 3 – Post 5 – Indigenous Ecotourism Toolbox

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Very interesting website assisting Indigenous Peoples in Australia with establishing their ecotourism venture. One of the things that struck me about this website is that rather than just being text based, much of it has the option of being auditory, both in keeping with the oral traditions of the culture and minimizing the exclusion potential for people who do not have certain levels of reading ability in English. Visitors to the site select a region of Australia in which they are interested in establishing an ecotourism venture, and then are guided through a series of steps/case studies that helps them determine what has been successful in the area and possible issues that one might have to deal with.

https://www.dlsweb.rmit.edu.au/toolbox/Indigenous/ecotourismToolbox/#