Educators value the involvement and support of parents, guardians, families, and communities in schools.
Maintain a positive relationships with parents, guardians, and families, is extremely important to me. I hope that parents feel comfortable talking to me about their child at any point in the school year. I think including parents in their child’s/children’s learning journey is crucial in the development of the student.
For a linked lesson at Nusdeh Yoh, I invited an elder to join and left it open to them. If they wanted to share, partake, whatever it may be. This lesson was about making lotion out of dandelions.
In this lesson, students are introduced to harvesting and the process. With the elder, we spoke about how important it is to go into a harvest with positive intentions and a mindset. This is because when we are harvesting we are taking what the earth is giving and it is important that we acknowledge that and give that positive/giving energy back to the earth. Furthermore, we also talked about how important it is to only take what we need. Creating a discussion about how we are not the only living things that are utilizing the dandelions, they are in fact a part of many ecosystems and are vital and many other organisms surviving on this land. We also discussed what other things dandelions are used for and how they are considered traditional medicine. (The time that this lesson took place fit into the seasonal rounds on harvesting traditional medicine).
The goal of this lesson was not only to make a lotion bar out of dandelions but to get the students to develop a relationship with the surrounding community (land) through the opportunity of experiential and authentic learning. Students were also presented with the opportunity to expand on their empathy and understanding of interconnectedness. Students were provided with the opportunity to further their knowledge and understanding of the First Peoples who inhabited this land for thousands of years.
As a teacher I will strive to:
- Incorporate a sense of place and belonging in my lessons. (centre our learning around my students family’s, culture, and land).
- Approach each lesson with the concept of community in mind.
- Put forward the effort to create professional relationships with my student’s families and support systems.
- Encourage students to discover and help them find their sense of place and belonging in all scenarios (classroom, outside, sports, etc).
- Place importance on my student’s heritage and their place to ensure a feeling of belonging and further confirm the concept of interconnectedness.
- Practice and encourage relationship-building with other staff members, students, students’ parents, students’ support systems, the community, and the land.
