In my first practicum at Lax Kxeen, I noticed that the classroom that I was in had some Indigenous First Peoples Learning content for example, the local language Ts’msyen posters were up by the calendar and change monthly. The students had Sm’algyax once a week where they read traditional Indigenous story books and learned colors and counting to 10 in Sm’algyax. In the hallways, I noticed some button blankets of familiar Indigenous animals. It reminded me of the buttons blankets I would see at my elementary school when I was younger. At one of the school meetings, the admin team encouraged the staff to look around the school and advocate on which areas needed more Indigenous content and what could be improved. I liked how the staff engaged in a collaborative discussion on what was working and what needed more support.
In my first three week practicum, I tried my best to incorporate First Peoples Principles in each lesson that I did with my students. Prior to arriving in Prince Rupert, I reached out to the Indigenous education centre in the hope of having feedback on my Indigenous lessons and inquiring about an elder coming into my class to help give the Indigenous history on my lesson’s topic. However, it became difficult to connect with the Indigenous centre. I emailed back and forth many times and tried calling their office with no luck. When finally they were able to connect with me it was towards the end of my practicum. With the support of my coaching teacher and another teacher who worked at the Indigenous Centre, I was able to alter my lesson plans to avoid the cultural appropriation and still engage in Indigenous content with my students. For example, most of my lessons, I read Indigenous books with themes that related to the lesson activity. The students seemed to really enjoy the illustrations and were able to make connections to the lessons from the variety of books.
One of my first lessons that I did with the students was the sharing circle where students created their own talking sticks. This lesson relates to the “learning is experiential” as students were able to experience making their own talking pieces and connect to the land as they collected their own stick during a nature walk. Closing circles was a way for students to practice listening to one another’s thoughts, this skill relates to “learning takes time and patience”. I incorporated a closing circle to each of my lessons. There were a couple times when we ran out of time to do a full closing circle, so I pivoted and chose three students with popsicles sticks to reflect on their learning. I found that that closing circles allowed each student to have a voice and share their individual experience of the lesson activity.
For each lesson, I focused on one of the 9 FPPl’s that Jo Chrona suggests on how to incorporate into the curriculum.
