B.C. Bound

I am getting super excited about our trip west. It's no Mexico or Europe but who am I to complain. We're staying in a castle... okay maybe not a real castle but it looks like a castle. The more I think about it the more I realize how generous UCN is being. They have paid for our entire trip; flight, hotel, conference and luncheon. They even bought us t-shirts.

This is definitely a perk of attending a very small school. Other universities also send students but students compete for the funding. Maybe in future years to come our students will also have to compete but we lucked out.

It's funny though, a lot of people think we (our group) got off easy because we're presenting a poster. By no means was it hard for us to put it together, I love homemade crafting. Not too mention the ice fishing part, it was a lot of fun to take the students out. But regardless we're promoting a style of education that I genuinely believe in.

Sometimes I feel like I know everything when I am sitting in class, or reading our texts. Not because I really think I know everything more because the styles of teaching presented mirror my own beliefs of how education should be presented.

Our concept came from an Anishinabe Pedagogy. I am not going to type it out because then my blog will appear on google search because there are so few publications on it that mine will show up. But the basic idea is connecting students with the land, to their environment, to the environment, as well as meeting curriculum standards. It really is a no brainer. Our curriculum is rooted in the natural environment. So if you're in Gr.5 and learning the solar systems why not actually camp out to experience them (we did in grade 5), or if you're learning about Gr.8 water systems why not canoe down the river with an Elder? To me it only makes sense. However generations have passed without care.

Just look at our Global Environment Crisis now? Tsunamis, Floods, Draughts, Melting Icebergs, Eroding Shores, Land Degradation, or the Pine Beetle & Jelly Fish eruption, or the missing Bumblebees? This is all related back to our we connect to our land. How we respect and preserve our environment. Sadly there is a disconnect.

So where better to start than in school?