I’ve been reading about different ways to develop a sense of place, and feel more connected to the land. One of the ways both Basso and Raffan talk about, especially when looking at indigenous nations, is how we name places. When we name things we build our relationship with them, we define how to use them, and we create a way to interact with the place.
I’ve been thinking about how I’ve changed one of my classroom practices since last year. Last year, one of the first things we did as a class is name ourselves. How do we want to be called. I have two classes this year, and I had planned on doing it in our new unit, but I think I missed an early opportunity.
There’s two ways for me to think about this. One is that, we could have taken an early opportunity to define ourselves, and how we work together. We could have started naming and identifying ourselves as a group in order to really think about how we work with the place around us. The other is that now that we know more about us, and how we work together we can maybe come up with a more informed and relevant name.
I suppose though, I know now that we need to name ourselves, we need to name our team, and we need to think about the places we inhabit. I’ve been working more on talking about the Sang Cancil stories. The Little Mouse Deer, who is much like Briar Rabbit. The students are really liking them, they connect and think Sang Cancil is funny, they are asking more questions about who the leaders were in the past, and making guesses about important other creatures in the jungle. It’s more surprising than I thought.
It’s been a good journey so far, knowing more about our place, and starting to make connections. The kids even went out in the rain yesterday. Fun times.
Basso, K., H. (1996). Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Raffan, J. (1993). The Experience of Place: Exploring Land as Teacher. ERIC Online, 16(1), 39-45.
Joe Teft 