Today was the presentation day for my Community Field Experience course, and I’m pretty sure it went incredibly well.  Discussed the work I’ve done, how to integrate it into the gallery and online, and what can be done in the future with what I’ve created in my own practice.  Other than the meeting, my work at the gallery was simply editing my lessons and making sure the language and content were appropriate and correct.

One of the curators who was sick earlier this week was in today, and she was helping me along with my work to make sure that it fits in with what the gallery wants, as well as being accurate to the themes of indigenous issues without diminishing, or misrepresenting any of them.  This is the same sort of thing I would do with my SA at my High School practicum.  They would get every one of my lesson plans, go over it on their own, before meeting up with me, usually before school, to talk about any issues they saw with the lessons and suggestions for me to move forward with it.  And my “SA” for the gallery was as helpful as my SAs for my practicum in guiding me toward better language, and more useful information to include in the lessons.

Of the several lessons I’ve created, the curator had a few things to say about several of them, and a couple she just outright enjoyed and had no feedback for.  The following are just notes about how she felt the ones needing changes needed to be changed

Storytelling:

Students are to come up with their own story, and to make it more true to indigenous styles of storytelling try and combine truth with the “supernatural” (word choice is iffy here, but she said using supernatural is alright).  This connects the oral history part of indigenous cultures with the idea that their stories were often shrouded in myth and supernatural events, but had truth to them at the same time (Great flood for example)

Indigenous Medicine and Plant Uses:

Take out the medicine uses unless it’s common knowledge.  She found that certain knowledge of plant’s medicinal properties have historically been taken, exploited, and used by large pharmaceutical companies and now that plant that indigenous cultures used to use is now scarce.  She meant that some information needs to stay within the people that know it, and not to be told to everyone.  Worry that certain information can be exploited.

Importance of Cedar:

Make sure to pick ONE term to describe indigenous people.  Found that I constantly switched between calling them First Nations, Indigenous, Aboriginal, etc. and it just gets confusing.  Also need to cite and source the information I pull up as she wants to know where SHE can go and see these stories or sources I’ve used.  In the content make special note about how felling trees, making bark, making canoes, and making baskets and the like were not done by everyone, and that individuals in each group were selected, trained, and shown how to make specific things.  So in a village of 100 people maybe only 10 would possess the knowledge of felling trees, not everyone.  Emphasize the idea that there were knowledge holders who would select specific people to learn their trade.  Try to include the government definition of a Culturally Modified Tree (CMT).  Also talk about the sustainable practices used when harvesting cedar, not just commercial exploitation (for example the use of rhino horn in some east Asian cultures could be sustainable, but they exploited the resource and now theres no more rhinos left).  Also to watch word use, at one point I write how the cedar tree is considered the “life giving tree” to indigenous cultures and I compare this to the idea of a “god” tree.  She just wanted to make sure the word isn’t misused and thrown around in case it offends people.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge:

In the rationale, discuss more about how the cooperation between science and TEK can benefit everyone involved.  Also to source and cite the graph I used.

Indigenous Environmental Sustainability:

Talk about how objects were used for life, and not just made and thrown away (make a bowl, wash it, reuse it, connects to sustainability).  Talk about how fish stocks were managed by catching them in the river rather than the ocean (that way you can see how many fish there are and select how many you can take so as not to harm the population).  Also the sustainable practice of using totem poles to tell stories, and oration to tell stories, rather than books.  Looking at Chapters you see a million trees all sitting on shelves, but a totem stands for all to see and easily read for hundreds of years.

Repatriation of Indigenous Objects:

Need a glossary maybe? In case teachers don’t know certain words.

I was told by one of the ex-teacher volunteers at the gallery that a great thing for me to do would be create some lessons that are shorter, less content driven, and more accessible to non-social studies classes.  So I came up with a couple that might be good, still waiting on word back from the gallery curator if they’re alright or not, but I wanted to share them anyway.  So here’s one about storytelling.

Storytelling LP

Vancouver Aquarium Visit Summary

Today one of the gallery curators and I went to the Vancouver Aquarium to get a look at their Wet Lab facilities that they use for educative purposes with students from K-12.  We arrived around 9 AM and met up with one of the lead educators, Colin, and then took a quick tour of their space.

Right now they have three large spaces to house students and provide them with materials and things, and they’re in renovations to create a fourth space to have a more young-age appropriate space for students from the K-7 range to interact with what the aquarium has to offer.

Their main space, the Wet Lab, is a large classroom space with lots of shelving and storage along the walls with displays and visuals and other touchable pieces to help facilitate learning.  In the center of the room are several large tables with seats all around them, and on top of the table are tanks filled with an array of creatures.  One specific thing to note is that the aquarium organizes these tables according to the specific taxonomy of the animals in the tanks.  So one table would be invertebrates, another has vertebrates, yet another mollusks, and so on.  This is a great way to organize the information, as it usually fits within the BC Curriculum standards for science classes.  What’s also great about each table is that for the aquarium they will have one volunteer per table (or teacher) to facilitate students learning, which helps because then that volunteer can become experts on their specific table.  Colin, our guide, also made a point to show us a helpful booklet that volunteers, teachers, and even students can use that lists all of the animals that are displayed, their latin name, a few specifics about them, and a colour high def photo of them.  Also another book was available that had a whole lot of simple information with diagrams, visuals, and other information that could be picked up and studied pretty easily by new volunteers, teachers, or students.  A big thing for their lab is that all the information is orally delivered, and then investigated by the students.  There are no handouts, or sheets than need filling in (as they end up either getting wet or destroyed, or too much time is spent filling them out by students than interacting with the specimens).  However, the aquarium does provide handouts and notes packages online for teachers who wish to use them before coming to the aquarium, after visiting, or for use when they go an explore the aquarium outside of the Wet Lab.  One final thing Colin showed up while we were in the Wet Lab was a box of props they use to show students the weight, feel, and texture of things without needing to use a live animal.  So they had abalone shells, mollusk shells, and other touchable things that were not living.

We moved on to the room next to the Wet Lab, another smaller classroom that was being set up for a elementary school group coming in later in the morning.  What was neat that they had there was the organization system.  The class that was coming in was dealing with frogs, so they rolled in several tanks with live specimens, but they also had a lot of bins with non-living examples of what was being learned about.  There were four colored tables around the corners of the room, as well as large pieces of colored cloth on the floor (To sit on, but also to move students around “Group 2 now goes to the Orange mat”).  At each table a volunteer or staff member would be there to instruct on what was being shown at that table, and students would sit in front, and have a chance to touch all the props that they had at each station.  They also had puppets, which we felt was a great thing the gallery could do to engage younger audiences with material in the gallery.

We also visited their rotating exhibit space to see how things work in that context.  Simply put, the educator team comes up with a 10-20 minute presentation that is content and activity (right now it’s Deep Sea Monsters so they talk about how artists drew the things they saw in the middle ages, how it influenced opinions, and then they have students draw their own creatures before going into the exhibit to see the real “monsters”)

Suggestions that were made by Colin were to have stations that could be put onto carts and taken into the gallery to have more tangible things for students to touch while they’re experiencing the visuals of the exhibits.  So for Bill Reid’s context you could have cedar bark pieces ,wooden carving tools, woven pieces, or things from the cedar tree that are used by indigenous people to make goods.  That way students have something to touch, while it is explained to them how masks are carved, why they use cedar to carve, etc.  Other suggestions were for storage needs, you can make the storage space a display that open up to the pieces you want to show.  For the aquarium this meant having a wall with boxes inside, than when you open up a door inside would be whatever it is you want people to interact with.  For the gallery it could be half of a tree that can be opened to see the inside maybe?  And have one or some of the objects we want students to be able to touch and see.

For a quick summary, here are some point form notes I took:

• Lab tables organized by species type
• Labs about interaction, not about note taking
• Curriculum options for lessons (not just socials concentration)
• Need props and touchable things
• Activity sheets available, but not given out by the gallery (teacher discretion)
• Have stations that can go into the gallery and relate to exhibit
• Display Storage (able to show information, then pull things out of display)
• Puppets (good for younger students, especially for story telling moments)
• Connections between spaces (gallery should be an extension of the learning space)
• Online information to be available for teachers
• Storytelling very important
• General public space? Will the Cedar Room be solely educational for students?
• Touchable components that give connection between objects and information
• Connect with Homeschooling programs, and summer camps to visit
• Figure out age range issues, ability of students, their height, and numbers for groups
• Volunteers need training in how to move groups of people through spaces like the gallery

Weekend after Raven’s Feast seems to have sent most of the staff to the infirmary.  Out of the 10 or so people working here, 6 of them were sick, and another had the day off.  So most of the time I spent alone at my desk, in an eerily silent space.  It was nice to have some quiet work time to myself, but it just feels weird being alone in an environment I’m normally surrounded by people in.  Mondays and Tuesdays the gallery is closed, so even ambient visitor sound wasn’t around to make me feel connected.  So it was an odd day in comparison to the others I have had so far.

Big thing today was completing the powerpoints for the lessons I’ve been making.  Using what I’ve learned in my high school practicum, I used visuals, short content slides, and provided direct and informative commands when explaining activities.  Some of the powerpoints are simply instructional commands for students to be able to read what they need to do for activities, but others have several visuals as well as animations.  There is also lots of room for students to discuss with one another, and have discussion as a class about certain questions relating to the topic of the lesson.  I found students were much more involved in lessons if they had opportunity to talk about questions with each other and the class, rather than just telling them what they need to know.  The idea of tapping into the things they might already know about a topic, rather than simply dictating information to them.

For social studies, I found often that discussion was the best way to assess student understanding as well.  Discussion before content to see what they already know, and discussion during and after the lesson to make sure they’re grasping the information, as well as being able to take away something from the class at the end of the period.  All of this is hopefully included in my lessons, the only problem I’m having now is that written down these lesson plans look alright, but I don’t get to teach them myself which is weird.

What seemed like a very long week went by a lot faster than it seemed.  I now only have one more week at the gallery to get everything in order, and then subsequently present what I’ve accomplished here to the gallery staff.  It feels like yesterday was my first day and I was terrified about what I was meant to do, whether I could do it or not, and whether I would accidentally create something that was ignorant of indigenous cultures and essentially fail my CFE placement.  However, now I feel much more on top of things, I’ve discussed my problems with gallery staff, worked together with the curators, and done a heck of a lot of research into indigenous issues to feel a lot better about my job here as an education program supervisor?  I’m not sure what my title would be but that sounds official.

What I learned this week was due mostly to the few documentaries I watched about indigenous issues to help with my content in the lessons I’m making.  One of them, “Stolen Spirits of Haida Gwaii”, is about the repatriation process that many indigenous groups are undergoing with museums and galleries in order to get back much of the material that was stolen from them over the last couple of hundred years.  Basically anthropologists, traders, Indian Agents, and many other individuals took cultural treasures from indigenous people (totems, bowls, tools, boxes, and even human remains) to either have in their personal collection or to sell to museums for display purposes.  This is an issue that came up in my classes at my high school practicum, about how cultural artifacts or objects get taken away from indigenous groups (mainly due to the banning of the Potlatch in the 1800s).  The video ends with many of the ancestral remains being returned to the Haida Gwaii, and a lot of the research I’ve done since seeing the video has been about how this process helps in a lot more way than simply returning stolen property to its rightful owners.  What repatriation helps accomplish is the healing process to mend the rift between indigenous groups and the effects of European colonization.  For the two groups to reconcile in the ways that would help both groups move past the issues of the past, repatriation is an excellent first step because it acknowledges the wrongs done to indigenous groups in the past, and helps them reclaim a small part of their identity as well.

I also had a wonderful conversation with a volunteer named Karen who is a retired teacher of the Vancouver School District.  I brought down my work as she was helping out with the Tourism Challenge and we went over the lesson plans I’ve made so far, as well as came up with a few ideas for non-social studies lessons that could integrate the gallery materials.  One example we came up with was for a theater or drama class have them come up with something similar to the Undersea Kingdom dances, where students would make a list of several animals in our local area, write down characteristics that represent that character (raccoons are mischievous for example), and then either make a tableaux or a scene that involves those characters.  They would perform the piece in front of their class and the viewers would try to guess which animals were which depending on their characteristics.  It would likely be a multi-lesson “unit” so that as they were coming up with characters and scenes they could visit the gallery and be informed more deeply about the animals and masks and carvings that indigenous people used in their own cultural plays/dances/ceremonies.

Today was a work day for me, getting through the lesson plans I’ve been working on and adding more to the folder I’m creating for the gallery.  Reminds me a lot of my time during my high school practicum, designing lesson plans around a theme or unit (in this case indigenous issues and content).  The difference now is that I actually have time to work on each lesson, and research it in depth, rather than blasting through it because I have 4 others to work on tonight.  It’s nice having the time to thoughtfully go through my lessons, revise them, and edit them over a few days rather than throwing it together the day or two before I teach it, then hope for the best.  And as much as I collaborated with my SA at the school, working here at the gallery allows me a lot more time to work with the staff to make sure the lessons are on point.

Also brought everything back up from storage to display on the main floor.  Had a lot of Tourism Challenge people coming in asking questions, and needing directions, and I was surprised at how much I knew and could answer for them from being here just two weeks.  Either I’m learning fast, or the information is just very easy to relate to and understand.  Probably more that I know stuff because I’ve been researching non-stop for two weeks.

Wednesday was a blast.  I managed to get in so much stuff it’s hard to imagine it was 8 hours worth of time.  Started the day at 2 PM as I was expected to be there till around 10 PM for the conclusion of the event, and dove right into making more lessons and doing research.  Managed to get another one squared away for review, and was just starting the next one when it was about 4:30 and I was asked to come help out downstairs with some of the pieces, and be briefed on the events that would span the next few hours until I was to leave for the night.

The briefing involved our roles for the evening (security, bathroom checks, schmoozing, and keeping people off of exhibits that were unable to be moved into storage), as well as the main people who were coming and who to look out for.  Afterward we finalized the display case for the auction items, and met up with the artists who were coming in that night from the people who made some of the auction items to the music guests.  It was really cool to see the organization that went into the event, making sure everything was ready, having the caterers set up, and making the guest performers comfortable before the night.  When guests started showing up it was our job to meet and greet them, as well as show them around the gallery in a quick tour of the exhibit, as well as show them the auction items for sale.  It was neat being seen as someone who knew what he was talking about, even though I’ve only been at the gallery for a week and a bit.

The night went on and the auction started, which meant it was my job to help organize and bring out the items for sale for people to see them.  Some of the items went for some serious cash as well, and it seems to me like the gallery did a great job it getting money for their interests from the event.

Food was great, done by an indigenous chef who created northwest coast inspired foods including salmon, bison, venison, and other things including octopus (tasted gummy, but good).  As the evening ended and we began ushering people out, it was fun helping out pack up some of the items in their boxes and cases, as well as helping some patrons of the older “vintage” get their items to their vehicles (some were pretty big and heavy).  All in all it was an excellent look into the efforts that have to be undertaken by galleries to raise money especially when they’re growing the way this gallery is.

Yesterday went by pretty quickly, without a whole lot of things of note happening.  I worked out another Lesson Plan and printed it off (this time about teaching the main tree types of our coast), met up with some of the staff for a meeting about tomorrow’s big day (the auction thing), and helped figure out more things dealing with the cedar room I hope to help design.

Did go to a lunchtime meeting with the curators though, and went over the lesson plans I’ve created as well as the Cedar Lab Proposal I drafted up in case it was needed.  And one thing that really reflected my own personal understanding of the issue came up in conversation, and that was the fact that I really need my work to be looked over by someone with more roots in the indigenous communities.  The thing that came up was the language I was using in some of the work I made (and I worried that this might be a problem, hence my desire to have it looked over) could sometimes be construed as somewhat racist or simply offensive to indigenous people.  Obviously not my intent, but a lot of the language we use today has taken decades to entrench itself in modern vocabulary so that even without intending to put people into boxes we do simply by the words we choose to explain.  For instance, I re-read my intro paragraphs to the proposal and found that the way I was using both vocabulary and tenses made it seem as though indigenous people were no longer existing, and were simply a culture that had remained static forever before disappearing/assimilating into our own.  Now it wasn’t THAT horrible or explicit in its message, but I found it could likely be construed as offensive to certain people.

This is something I’ve known about for a long time, the idea that language shapes perspective in a lot of ways, and simply using the same language to portray and describe a group of people will slowly make everyone believe those words are only associated with those groups of people.  A great contemporary example is how the media chooses to depict racially charged issues (white people rioting at a Pumpkin Fest in Maine were simply “rowdy” and “fueled by testosterone” whereas blacks rioting over police brutality were “thugs” and “overly aggressive brutes”).  This sort of language over time can start to shift perspectives of everyday people toward seeing a group of people as they are depicted in the news.  So with this in mind I really aim to avoid that sort of “language-labeling” with my lessons and work I do at the gallery.

Today was actually a really interesting day.  The Gallery is working toward, and setting up for, an event night on Wednesday that will include an auction which I helped set up the display case for.  During the morning when I arrived I had my usual note-taking and idea-writing to do, and spent a good few hours at that, but once everyone had arrived and had lunch we all met up to start organizing how to make the space available for 100+ people.  So meeting up with the curator I helped move pieces around, either into storage or up from storage depending on what was needed, looked over the seating plan, and helped display the auction items in a case in the gallery.

In order to move these pieces, the curator instructed me on the proper techniques in moving artifacts and museum pieces around.  I had on white gloves, clean hands, covered arms and legs, and was told how to hold and move things properly so as not to damage them or put undo strain on any of the parts (especially as we’re dealing with movable masks).

I also met Beau Dick, a hereditary chief from BC, who seemed like the chillest guy in the world.  It was incredibly interesting seeing how he composed himself, and being able to connect the art I’ve been working with to the artist who helped make many of the pieces.  Really neat stuff.