Svetlana Gibson – ETEC 521

http://www.edukits.ca/aboriginal/culture/grade1/teacher/resources.htm

This is an excellent site of lesson plans and resource books from Grade 1 to Grade 12.  The stated purpose of the site is to explore culture and its meaning with regards to Aboriginal people.  The plans are said to be “Aboriginal” but they tend to focus on the Blood Indians.  I would have liked to have seen the scope of this large body of work to be broadened.  The site is from Alberta and although the stated goal is to be inclusive, I feel that it would be difficult to adapt the curriculum to be relevant to people living outside of Alberta.

http://www.fnesc.ca/

This is the First Nations Education Steering Committee website.  I found this site to be very interesting and valuable because it gave a good overview of existing program for aboriginal students in BC.  The committee is located in Vancouver.  The site is easy to navigate with clear, well defined and intuitive user interface.  I found the search window did not work when I tried it, returning a cryptic message about insufficient quota.  This is too bad, because I think there is a lot of valuable information buried deep within this site.

http://www.camh.net/Publications/Cross_Currents/Summer%202008/eldersspeak_crcusummer08.html

This is a short article on the Center for Addiction and Mental Health site.  It talks about elders spending time with children in foster care.   One particular example relates a story of an elder taking a group of foster children on a medicine walk through a forest in Duncan, B.C. 

A six-year-old girl hurt her ankle playing in the forest.  She wrapped her ankle in a healing fern she had learned about from the elder.  This is just one example of how powerful the connection between the elders and the children can be and shows how much it is missed when that connections has been severed. 

The medicine walk is hosted by the Surrounded by Cedars, an aboriginal child and family welfare agency in Victoria, BC.  “This day-long excursion and the lessons it taught are an example of the valuable role that aboriginal elders can play in ensuring that the future of youth includes a strong link to the cultural knowledge and traditions that will ground them in their identity as aboriginal peoples.”

The site also provides links to various mental health sites.

http://ainc-inac.gc.ca/bc/proser/fna/ed/ed_e.html

This Indian and Northern Affairs Canada site is a typical government site with all the government insignias and format.  The first thing that stands out is how bland and boring it is.  The only benefit this site provides is the links to other sites of more value.  It is a page of government double speak and bland, pointless entries.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX2_QUPMFrE[/youtube]

Performed by a Native from British Columbia, who goes by the name GTech, this video was clearly self produced.  The lighting is bad, the sound is poor, but the important thing is that this young person has the opportunity to speak his mind in a forum where people will hear.  It is interesting to see that he has 1,821 views, although this video is clearly of low visual quality.  I think this speaks volumes about the breadth of audience these young people can find for their message.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIyCDr_ojV4[/youtube]

Here is a video from a Native rap group called Tru Rez Crew.  The song is called “I’m a Lucky One”.  The group is from the Six Nations.  This is a wonderful piece of self empowerment.  While the video is clearly well produced, the poetry and the power of the lyrics suggest a resurgence of the story telling genre.  Although they borrow heavily from the rap genre, this story is something unique.  They are using modern means to tell their story and honour their parents.  To paraphrase, Those who rose above it, chose to love us, and gave us a kick in the butt when we need it. 

During the reading, I encountered concepts that suggested that Aboriginal people are defined by the land where they lived.  The further suggestion was that since the Internet is landless, they would have difficulty connecting over it.  This is clearly not the case in this video.  Images of land, family, and life experiences on a reservation make it all the more powerful.

http://epx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/15/2/258

This article is apparently about the role of technology in overcoming social exclusion in US Education.  It sounds very interesting, examining current patterns of exclusion among other things.  I was not able to access the entire article, because the cost was prohibitive.  For short term (1 day) viewing, the price was $20.  I feel that this is extremely ironic – they are writing an article about using technology to overcome social exclusion, but they exlude many readers by putting a hefty price tag on it.  What I find interesting is the social dynamic.  Where I could pay for this article if I wanted to, why would I when there are so many free articles out there?  However, they are denying access to the same people they seem to be trying to empower with their article.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZRHUEP7XfA&feature=related[/youtube]

I found this YouTube video very interesting because it is a recording of an elder telling the story in his own language.  Subtitles are included, and actors are used to present the story, but the elder is shown repeatedly through the video, which gives the story a real face, like one is learning the story at the foot of an elder.

.[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHJW_rHwRQ[/youtube]

I found this Youtube video on a whim when I searched for “First Nations Story”.  There are many First Nations stories done as videos.  I feel this makes YouTube a very powerful resource.  This was a story of hardship and how people must rely on each other.  It exposes the folly of pride, as the hunter refuses food from neighbours to feed his family.  It also speaks to how the larger group can be affected by the actions of one individual.  In this case, the father’s daughters die of starvation because he will not accept help when he needs it.  It is done in in a First Nations language that was not identified, but subtitles were provided

 http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/lisel-mueller/why-we-tell-stories/

This poem is to me the essence of why the internet is such a valuable tool.  Searching for story telling articles on the web led me to this page.  It is just one poem – not much to review – but I felt I should include it because it made such a profound impact on me, and really defined where I wanted to go with my final paper.