Author: Cheryl Bratton (Page 3 of 4)

As I progress through my studies, I am becoming more and more aware of not only the hidden curriculum but also how our spaces perpetuate it, specifically in terms of the lack of Indigenous culture.  Working in a high school setting where over 40% of our school population is Indigenous, I became very aware of the hidden messages that were being sent to our students about their culture.  In an attempt to have them see themselves and their culture celebrated in our space, I began creating bulletin board displays with an Indigenous theme with the goal of indigenizing our space while educating all of our staff and students about the Indigenous culture. It has been a learning process for sure and while they are not perfect, the important part is that they are there and I am trying.

When you look at this photo what do you see? Chances are you will see exactly what I saw when I took it last summer.  A beautiful sunflower and the most enormous bee ever!  I am from BC and have never seen a bee as big as the ones here in Saskatchewan which was why I took this photo last year to show my family and friends back home.  After a year in Saskatchewan, I have grown accustomed to the ginormous bees, their return signifying the start of warmer weather.  But my shock at the size of the bees is not the only thing that has changed this year.  I have as well, partly because of the courses I have taken, specifically ESCI 302.  When I look at this photo now, that beautiful sunflower and huge bee are not all that I see.

I see the interconnectedness of nature.  The sunflower needs the bee for pollination to occur ensuring its survival in future years while the bee needs the sunflower for its pollen to make honey for its hive.  I also see a connection between the human and non-human world.  By planting that sunflower as a gardening project with my daughter, we have helped to provide food for that bee who, in turn, will use it to make honey not only for its hive, but for us as well and that bee will help our sunflower garden to return year after year.  The sunflower, bee and I have all worked together to care for our respective families.  I now see, just as Indigenous cultures have for centuries, how we are all connected in “cultures of reciprocity in which it is understood that the receipt of the gifts which sustain us engenders a moral and physical responsibility to reciprocate those gifts i.e., to sustain the ones who sustain us” (Kimmerer, 2012).

So how do we reciprocate those gifts?  Robin Wall Kimmerer tells us that the way we can reciprocate the gifts is by “healing the land and our relationship with it” (Virtual Talk: Robin Wall Kimmerer).  But how do we do that?  The earth is hurting and clearly the ways we have been doing things and how we have handled environmental education up until this point is not working.  Growing up as a child of the 80’s, environmental education wasn’t really a thing, so anything I learned or was taught about the environment came from my family, friends and the media, which aren’t always the most reliable sources for information.  Luckily “environmental education arose as a complex and vibrant field of practice and inquiry into the meanings, problems, and potentials of human-environment relationships, and the role of education in this respect.” (McBride et al., 2013). 

By incorporating environmental education into my classroom, I can provide students with the opportunity to view the world not just in terms of scientific ecological knowledge, but also with traditional ecological knowledge, something they may not have the opportunity to experience outside of school.   In Building ecoliteracy with traditional ecological knowledge: do. listen, and learn, Lam shares the idea of “four domains of essential ecoliteracy: concepts, competencies, sense of place and respect for other (diversity).  The first two align with knowledge and skills…whereas the latter two align with “affect” (or feelings) and morals often omitted in science and literacy.” (Lam, 2014).

Just introducing my students to environmental education though is not enough.  For them to really develop ecoliteracy which “comprises an awareness of and concern about the environment and its associated problems, as well as the knowledge, skills, and motivations to work toward solutions of current problems and the prevention of new ones” (McBride et al., 2013), they will need to make meaningful connections to the concepts taught and the environment itself.  As environmental education educators, we need to provide students with educational opportunities that “nurture(s) children’s innate curiosity about the natural world, that fosters their understanding of the interconnectedness of all living and non-living things and instils in them an abiding sense of care and responsibility for the well-being of their communities and planet Earth.” (Chiarotto, 2011). 

It is through the development of ecoliteracy that our ecophilosophies emerge.  “The aim of ecophilosophy is ecosophy or ecological wisdom.  The practice of ecophilosophy is an ongoing, comprehensive, deep inquiry into values, the nature of the world and the self” (Drengson, 1999).  As I expanded my ecoliteracy this semester, I felt a strong connection to traditional ecological knowledge, specifically Indigenous ways of knowing.  The interconnectedness of the human and more than human world, the honourable harvest, the culture of gratitude and reciprocity, and the Seven Sacred Teachings all speak to me on a level that I find difficult to put into words or explain.  Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess may have explained it best when he described how “Everyone…has their own ecosophy, and though our personal philosophies may share important elements, they are based on norms and assumptions that are particular to each of us.”  (Environmental Encyclopedia, 2021).

The best chance we have to heal the land and our relationships with it is through planting the seeds of awareness, social responsibility and activism through environmental education.  “The environment is fundamental to the functioning of all global systems – economic, political, social, and cultural. Students are better able to grasp the relationship between the environment and these other facets of life when Environmental Education is integrated throughout their learning” (Chiarotto, 2011).  Developing the relationship with the environment at an early age which incorporates both scientific and traditional ecological knowledge and continuing to nurture that relationship throughout the educational journey will create adults who are in not only in tune with their ecological identity but are eco-literate and have strong ecophilosophies. 

In Virtual Talk: Robin Wall Kimmerer, we are told of how children today can identify 100 or more corporate logos, but they cannot identify leaves or plants.  Society needs to change our ways of thinking and our priorities.  The world, the land, the plants, the animals, they are not here solely for our consumption or as a commodity to be bought and sold.  As Kimmerer described, “we need to think of the world as a gift and being rather than property or things…when we view it as an object, our consumption is unconstrained” (Virtual Talk: Robin Wall Kimmerer).  We cannot afford to continue unconstrained.  We are already starting to see the real effects of our actions.  Glaciers are melting, global warming, water shortages, and yes even my giant bee friend is now finding himself in jeopardy.  While the human voices may be loud and at times and change may feel impossible, perhaps we need to take a little page from my friend the bee. 

“According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. It’s wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway, because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible” (Bee Movie 2007).

References

Chiarotto, L. (2011). Natural curiosity: a resource for teachers: building children’s understanding of the world through environmental inquiry. The Laboratory School at the Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Retrieved from https://thelearningexchange.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/NaturalCuriosityManual.pdf

Drengson, A. (1999). Ecophilosophy, the Deep Ecology Movement and Ecosophy. Ecocentrism . http://www.ecospherics.net/pages/DrengEcophil.html

Encyclopedia.com. (2021, June 11). .” Environmental Encyclopedia. . Encyclopedia.com. 2 Jun. 2021 . Encyclopedia.com. https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/ecosophy

IMDb.com. (2007). Bee Movie. IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389790/quotes/qt1057580 

Kimmerer, R. W. (2012). Searching for synergy: integrating traditional and scientific ecological knowledge in environmental science education. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 2(4), 317–323. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-012-0091-y

 Lam, M. E. (2014). Building ecoliteracy with traditional ecological knowledge: do, listen, and learn. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 12(4), 250–251. https://doi.org/10.1890/1540-9295-12.4.250

McBride, B. B., Brewer, C. A., Berkowitz, A. R., & Borrie, W. T. (2013). Environmental literacy, ecological literacy, ecoliteracy: What do we mean and how did we get here? Ecosphere, 4(5). https://doi.org/10.1890/es13-00075.1

Minneapolis Institute of Art. (n.d.).Virtual Talk: Robin Wall Kimmerer. Virtual Talk: Robin Wall Kimmerer –– Minneapolis Institute of Art. https://new.artsmia.org/event/virtual-talk-robin-wall-kimmerer/

Today we wear orange. We wear orange for the 215 children whose remains were found at the site of the Kamloops Residential School. We wear orange for their families who never got to hug their babies again. We wear orange for those who somehow survived those “schools” and who live with the trauma every single day. We wear orange as our way of acknowledging what happened, to show our support and to say “Never again”.

Our final assignment for our ECS 102 class was to provide a creative representation of our learning through the creation of an audio/visual presentation. As someone not familiar with using video creating/editing sites, this assignment was a real learning process for me but I persisted and am really proud of what I was able to create!

Take a look and let me know what you think!!

When you hear or read the term “disability”, what comes to mind? What does that mean to you? Society has set very clear limits and definitions about what it means to be “able” and anyone who does not fit neatly within those parameters is labelled disabled, less than, or not enough with no consideration to the person themselves. The article “Becoming Dishuman: Thinking About the Human Through Dis/ability challenges the reader “…to find new vocabularies in order to honour the humanness inherent in dis/ability alongside its disruptive potential”.

As someone who has worked with adults in a community living environment as well as with students in the public school system who would be categorized as intellectually disabled, the language used in the article is new to me and somewhat difficult to wrap my head around, but the idea the authors are trying to convey is very familiar. We need to challenge the normatives of what it means to be able, independent, or successful. We need to ask ourselves not only who is excluded from those normatives but also who is served by perpetuating them. Is an intellectually “disabled” adult who has their own apartment that they look after and pay for with money they earn at their job any less independent because someone comes once a week to take them grocery shopping or helps them to pay their bills? What about the student who struggles to complete written tasks and tests but who can demonstrate their understanding and apply their learning verbally, are they any less unsuccessful?

In Stolen Bodies, Reclaimed Bodies: Disability and Queerness the author Eli Clare describes how “The dominant paradigms of disability…all turn disability into problems faced by individual people, locate those problems in our bodies, and define those bodies as wrong”. We need to take the focus away from the body and focus on the person, whether it be when we talk about dis/ability, gender, sexuality or anything else that goes against societies normative narratives. “Leave our bodies alone. Stop justifying and explaining your oppressive crap by measuring, comparing, judging, blaming, creating theories about our bodies.”

Normative Narratives

From the time we are little, our families, culture and society as a whole tells us what it means to be male/female and what are the “norms” based on our gender. These gender binaries, teach us what is expected and acceptable such as men/boys being expected to be strong, active, athletic, handy/mechanically inclined, and tough while women are weak, inferior, nurturing, emotional and incapable when it comes to things mechanical such as vehicles or home repairs. Even everyday things that most of us don’t give much thought to such as the clothes we wear or our hairstyle are linked to these gender binaries as one of my classmates recounted in her blog when she expressed to her mother her desire to cut her hair short. These socially constructed stories, or normative narratives, are based on “Patriarchy [which is] the belief in the inherent superiority of men and male norms.” (Sensoy et al., 2017 p.103)

Gender binaries have a huge impact on who we are and how we view ourselves, especially when disrupting those normative narratives puts us in a position of possibly not being accepted or ridiculed by others. One of my classmates recounted in his blog a time when he was in line waiting to buy a Valentine gift for a girl he was crushing on. He described how he “…wouldn’t let [his] friends catch [him] dead in this lineup” and how he “…wondered what they would think if they saw [him] standing here…”. In the end, the potential backlash from his friends caused him to leave the line, without the gift.

In Accepting the New Norm the author shares a memory of a time in school when he overheard classmates “…making fun of [him] for showing [his] emotions about something that happened yesterday. Something a man “can’t do.”. In the documentary Tough Guise 2: Violence, Manhood and American Culture , Jackson Katz tells us how “Qualities like compassion, caring, empathy, intellectual curiosity, fear, vulnerability, even love – basic human qualities that boys have inside them every bit as much as girls do – get methodically driven out of them by a sexist and homophobic culture that labels these things “unmanly,” “feminine,” “womanly,” and “gay,” and teaches boys to avoid them at all costs.” (Earp & Katz, 2013, 19:21). None of us should have to defend ourselves, actions, or interests because they don’t ‘fit” with the socially constructed stories we have been told about our gender. But how do we get to a place where ourselves and our children feel free to make choices because they want to, not because of what society dictates they should based on their gender?

Creating Counter Stories

While we may think we have come a long way from where we were when our mothers and grandmothers were our age, the reality is that oppression is “…much easier to see in the past than in the present.” (Sensoy et al., 2017 p.104) and moving forward we need to understand “…that it can adapt and change over time, while still maintaining inequitable outcomes overall.” (Sensoy et al., 2017 p.104). The only way we are going to push past the normative narratives associated with our gender is to challenge them when we are presented with them.

I grew up in a house where my father insisted that his daughters learn how to do what some would consider “male” tasks such as how to change a flat tire, using power tools and basic home repairs. While these skills have served me well over the years, and saved me considerable money in not needing to hire someone for basic repairs, it has also put me in the position of having to face gender binaries and the normative narratives that accompany them. Luckily because of my dad, I have enough confidence in my abilities to take on these tasks, but to also stand up to anyone who may question my ability to do so. In a previous blog post I describe one such situation in a hardware store when a male employee made assumption based on my gender that I could not possibly know what part to get to fix a broken toilet, let alone that I was the one fixing it. Needless to say, by the end of our interaction I had disrupted that normative narrative and hopefully changed that man’s mind about the gender binary he was perpetuating.

We used to tease my dad that he had the best of both worlds, girls who knew how to cook and bake but who could also hang drywall and owned power tools, something that definitely disrupts the gender binaries of what a woman “can” do. As the mother of a young daughter, I know it is unrealistic to expect for her to never experience or defend herself against socially constructed limits that society has placed on her or that she will never miss out on something great because she is afraid of the potential repercussions of going against societal norms. That is why I am trying to raise her the way my parents did, in a way that she will feel confident and comfortable enough in herself and her abilities to stand up to those with whom try to make her “fit” into their mold of what someone of her gender should or shouldn’t do. I’ve never really thought of myself as a feminist, however I am starting to see myself as more of one as I watch my daughter grow up. After all, “Feminism is not about making women strong. It’s about changing the way the world perceives that strength.” G.D. Anderson

Sources:

Katz, J. (2013). Tough Guise 2: Violence Manhood and American Culture. USA; Media Education Foundation. https://uregina.kanopy.com/video/tough-guise-2.

Sensoy, Ö., & DiAngelo, R. J. (2017). In Is everyone really equal?: an introduction to key concepts in social justice education (2nd ed.). essay, Teachers College Press.

As I opened the door of the hardware store, the distinct sound of the model train on the track above my head greeted me. “Good morning Cheryl”, a familiar voice chimed as I walked past the tills. “Good morning Francis” I acknowledged as I rounded the corner toward the plumbing section. I love the comfortable, welcomed feeling I got every time I came here. I headed down the plumbing aisle, feeling slightly overwhelmed at all of the parts before me. This is not what I needed to be doing this morning but plumbers are expensive and really how hard can it be?

Slowly and methodically I perused the multitude of products, searching for the one that needed to be replaced. Who knew there was so many different options for getting a toilet to flush. As I continued my search, I was grateful I had the foresight to remove the broken part and bring it with me, making it much easier to find what I needed. I found the part that matched what I had in my hand and began to turn to head toward the till when a deep, male voice commented, “Are you sure you have the right part? Here let me look at that for you?. Oh no see this isn’t what you need. Here I’ll help you.”

Slightly taken aback, I stood there frozen for a moment. Who is this guy and how on earth does he know what I need without even asking? And better yet why is he assuming that I’m not capable of figuring it out for myself? I mean really, its a simple home repair and I managed to diagnose the problem and remove the broken part all on my own. “No thank you. I found what I needed” I said as I snatched the package back. “The man chuckled, “Uh ok lady, I’m trying to save you an extra trip when your husband tells you you bought the wrong part but it’s your choice.” as he turned and began to walk away shaking his head.

Oh no he did not….

Fuming, I followed him around the corner “Actually FYI I am the one doing the repair and while you have made it very clear that in your mind a poor, helpless woman like me is somehow incapable of actually getting the right part let alone replace it, I have news for you. I am more than capable because lets face it, if a small-minded man like you can figure it out, then I will be just fine”. The man stood there looking like a deer in the headlights, his gaze only broken by the chuckle of the older gentleman standing beside him. “Well she put you in your place now didn’t she?” the other customer commented smiling at me. I smiled back before heading to the till, feeling proud not only for standing up for myself but for having the confidence in my own abilities. I mean really it’s replacing a toilet handle, it’s not rocket science.

“Bye mom!’ I shouted as I ran out the front door in the bitterly cold January morning. I couldn’t wait to show my friends what I had gotten for Christmas. I clutched my treasured gift under my arm and broke into a full run. As I rounded the corner, the familiar sight of my school broke through the heavy snow and I could see my group of friends waiting by the climbing tires, just as we had planned. My heart pounded in my chest, partly due to the run but mostly due to excitement. I was the only one of my friends who didn’t have one, but that was all in the past now!

“Look what I got for Christmas!!” I gasped, trying to catch my breath and holding out my most prized possession. Her hair was red, tied with a white ribbon into 2 ponytails, her white cotton dress, covered with a yellow petty coat with matching shoes and socks. Her body soft and smelling like fresh baby powder just like our bathroom did on bath night. She was perfect. “Her name is Elizabeth!”

“She’s really cute, Cheryl.” one of my friends said. “I love her red…” but before she could finish her sentence, one of the other girls in our class, Susan came over. “What are we all talking about?” she asked looking at the doll in my hands. She pointed at Elizabeth and gasped with a look of horror on her face, “What on earth is THAT?” with a look of complete disgust on her face. “It’s my cabbage patch doll. I got her for Christmas. I named her Elizabeth.” I said. Susan burst into to hysterical laughter. Tears streaming down her face as she doubled over with laughter. “THAT” she said “Is NOT a cabbage patch doll.”

I knew that she was right. No my Elizabeth was not a real cabbage patch doll. My family couldn’t afford the real ones. But my parents knew how badly my sister and I wanted one so my mom spent countless hours making us ones and I loved her just the same. “It’s not even a good fake one.” Susan continued as she snatched Elizabeth out my hands. “Her clothes don’t even fit her properly, her hair is all rough, she doesn’t have a diaper, and look…” she pulled down my dolls underclothes to reveal the missing tell-tale signature. “Give her back!” I yelled. Before Susan could say anything else, the school bell rang signaling the start of the day. My friends all began to walk toward our classroom as Susan and I stood there staring at each other. “Give her back” I said again. Susan took one look at my doll, looked back up at me and said “And you wonder why no one wants to play at your house, your parents can’t even afford REAL toys”. She began to walk toward the classroom door, casually tossing Elizabeth into the snow.

I ran toward my doll, hot tears now streaming down my cold cheeks. I picked her up, dusting the fresh snow off of her. “I’m sorry Elizabeth. She is just mean. I love you even if you aren’t a real cabbage patch.” I told her as I hugged her tight, standing on the abandoned playground, cold, sobbing and completely heartbroken.