A heartfelt thank you...

Hello everyone,
I hope your break is going well. I think I'm finally starting to recover from our big final event.
I wanted to send a thank you to everyone that helped make the project such a success. I had a list of people to thank at the end of our evening, but at the last minute changed my mind. (It would have been long winded because there are a lot of people to thank.)

Thank you Bev Schell for helping with the treaty content. Thanks for giving of your time to help us get through all that curriculum. Without your help our students would not have had a solid foundation of knowledge for poem building.

Thank you to Dianne Goulet, Patrick Brennan and Deb Johnson for willingly going along with this massive project. Your trust in my abstract vision means a lot to me. Thank you for your collaboration and willingness to share your ideas, talents, and work. Thank you for your encouragement and support when I thought I was losing my mind. :) Also Deb, thank you for bringing Ross's truck  to help us all haul our stuff to the Broadway Theatre and back. I know that it's not really my thank you to give - but thanks everyone for building all those boards and racks, and bringing all of your student work to the Broadway. It was a massive amount of work, but didn't it look good?

Thank you to Robb Horner for coordinating the masks and teaching some of the art lessons. Thank you for arranging for guest speakers and field trips. Your help with these projects and guests helped the kids to connect their learning to something real and tangible. Thanks for also helping us haul the displays to and from the Broadway Theatre, as well as picking up supplies and things that were needed - your help made things run smoother.

Irma Dormuth, thanks for all of your help and patience through this project. I know that there were times when you had no idea what was going on, and you kept everything together, running smoothly in spite of whatever we needed or were sending to the printer. :) You kept track of the supply part of our budget and helped to get our artists and guests paid. Thanks for typing the program and printing things we had trouble sending to the printer ourselves. We appreciate you tremendously.

Thank you Darren Fradette for your support and confidence in us. Thanks for kicking in the funding necessary for us to meet to plan this project. Thanks for your willingness to help in anyway possible, and for all of the things that you do behind the scenes that we don't see, but make our jobs run smoother.

Delvin Kanewiyakiho, thank you for taking the time to help us connect to your parents. Their afternoon with us was insightful, inspiring, and a horrific look into your mother's past. Your mother, particularly, had a huge impact on all of our students. They were deeply moved by her story and her influence could be heard in MANY of the students' poems. Please thank your parents for speaking to our students. Let them know that their contribution was beneficial in helping our students connect their learning to real people.

Amanda Murray, thank you for your willingness to jump on board with our project. The kids enjoyed the dance, and your influence helped some students incorporate movement into their performance. I was moved by your quality and level of teaching and I would love to have you come and work with our students again. (Maybe a project for next year? :)

Dan Gallays, thank you for taking the time to video record the performance. Your support on this project has been unwavering. You've allowed me to bombard you with details and ideas right from the start. I'm sure that you'll be happy to have your wife back now that the project has come to an end. Your kind words and encouragement have been my fuel.

Adam Daniel, thank you for your collaboration, energy and enthusiasm. If it weren't for your collaborative nature, this project would not have happened. It was your idea to add the spoken word element to this project. Without your influence, some other kind of project would have happened, but for sure not THIS project. I owe you a debt of gratitude.

Thank you to the Mendel Art Gallery. Thank you to all of the talented staff who took our students on tours and helped our kids to see that art gives a voice to the artist, to injustice, to the past.... Thank you for all of the cool art projects and inspiration. The grafitti boards, the Mandalas, the identity art - they were all fantastic and such a powerful experience for our children. So much learning can take place through art, so thank you for helping our kids to learn more, and see that they have the power of creation and creativity within them.

Finally, to our artists, Nicole Almond and Kevin Wesaquate. What can I say? This has been a life changing experience for me, and for many others. Thank you for what you do. Thank you for speaking out about injustice, and then sharing that skill with our students. I was impressed from the first class all the way through to the end. During the final performance I was moved to tears several times by the powerful words that were coming from our kids. You instilled in them a sense of confidence, and on such a massive level. The next day at school my quiet Filipino students were noisy and loud! I heard Raymond barking like a dog at the end of the day! I might actually get to really know some of our quietest students now because they have grown in confidence and may actually start acting like themselves. Preston's mom told me that he decided to dress up for our big night and he didn't care if anyone else was. He also said he's going to dress up more often at school. Instilling that kind of confidence in our students, and that level of acceptance is rare. You played an enormous role in that, so thank you, thank you, thank you!



Thank you to the Saskatchewan Arts Board for your support in the form of the TreatySmarts grant. This program is supported via a partnership between the Saskatchewan Arts Board, SaskCulture, and the Ministry of Education. Without the funding to bring in local artists, a project like this cannot exist. Connecting our children to art is of the utmost importance. Art is sometimes overlooked as a powerful learning tool. It's important for schools to have access to grants like these so that we can access local artists who help facilitate learning through the arts. If you happen to be reading this blog and would like to know how you can obtain an ArtSmarts or TreatySmarts grant, please contact Risa Payant at the Saskatchewan Arts Board. She can help you explore opportunities for the 2013-2014 school year.  You can reach her by phone at 306-787-4659.

I had an abstract vision for how this project would unroll and unfold. I knew it had the potential to be a good project, but without the help and enthusiasm of all of you, it would never have become what it was. I've been working on video editing, and I am moved to tears every time I listen to the poems. I still find it shocking that we pulled it off. I think this is one of those rare times where we really made a huge impact - a difference. It can't be measured on a standardized test because what those kids accomplished, and what they gained, can't be seen on a test. It will be noticed in the way the kids treat each other, the way they chose to be in this world, and the confidence they feel in themselves. The final performance was a bit surreal for me. To see this all unfold and become a success was such a gift. Thank you again everyone. You helped to make a difference.

Have a great break everyone!

-Jen

The power of partnerships...

Sorry to bombard you with another long winded regale of my experience on this journey. So much has been happening that it's nearly impossible to keep up.
On Monday our two senior classes spent a full day at the Mendel Art Gallery. On a whole, it was a pretty amazing day. The students spent time rotating through the gallery learning about message and content, and then into the studio to create. They learned a few new art techniques, and clearly understood that art is about sending a message. It's pretty amazing and cool if you stop to think about it. Art can engage us and speak a powerful message without using a single word. We viewed Steeling the Gaze: Portraits by Aboriginal Artists.

These portraits were full of symbolism and messages. Some of the messages were more disturbing than others as they tackled stereotypes of the First Nations and Metis culture. Words like gang member and alcoholic subtly placed on t-shirts in beautiful photos gave way to the harsh reality of what comes to mind for many when they think of First Nations people. The beauty of children and their innocence was apparent when many of them said they didn't "get it." They didn't get it because they hadn't heard some of these stereotypes, not because they lacked the understanding of a stereotype. Wouldn't it be amazing if in the future these stereotypes became something of the past and most of our youth grow up and never learn these misconceptions and generalizations?

There was so much information to mine out of these photos that I think I'll have to follow up with some of the on-line links offered through the Mendel. The gallery is huge and the acoustics aren't great for teaching and discussing, and that leaves me with a feeling like our look at this art isn't quite over yet. Our tour guide was amazingly kind, gentle, and encouraging of all the students, as she led them through the gallery and art activities. Here are some examples of the graffiti art she had them do.

The goal was to create a positive "I am" statement in graffiti style on black paper with pastel. They turned out wonderful. The Mendel Art Gallery sponsored a portion of their time with us, which is another amazing gift and opportunity for our students.

The next day our students spent the afternoon with two First Nations guests, Alexander Kennedy and Josephine Kennedy. They spoke to our students about growing up on reserve. Alex spoke of spiritual beliefs, attending day school, and wisdom passed down from his grandfather. He tied this all together at the end by explaining the Idle No More movement. Josephine spoke to us about her experiences in residential school. Her stories were sad and haunting, but also hope filled. She explained how the residential school experience left many First Nations people with difficulty loving and parenting and masking pain with alcohol. She spoke to our students for an hour and a half, and I don't want to minimize her amazing presentation, but I also want to be sensitive about broadcasting her story online. The students connected with these two individuals and had many poignant questions to ask them. One of my students told me that meeting them made it clear how difficult residential schools were. I wish I had copied down a direct quote, but she said something along the lines of, "She is here all these years later speaking to us about her experience, and you can tell from her voice, her body, and her face that this is painful and her heart still hurts." I heard several students say that meeting these two people helped them to understand the harm done by our government.
So now all the learning around treaty, the Indian Act, and residential schools is not so abstract. It also became clear to the students that while this happened before they were born, it didn't happen too long ago, and the impact is still evident today.
I have to acknowledge that our funding for this project comes from the Saskatchewan Arts Board through a TreatySmarts grant. We also need to acknowledge our partnership with the Mendel Art Gallery, The Saskatoon Tribal Council and the Office of the Treaty Commissioner. These important partnerships and funding help us to create rich learning environments where students have a deep understanding.

Front-end loading

A misconception about inquiry based learning is that children have complete control over what they will learn. It may conjure images in your mind of students using computers to delve deeper into whatever they are interested in. That's not totally true. Inquiry does allow students the freedom to learn about an aspect they are more interested in, but this learning is guided and supported by the teacher. There is still a place for direct instruction throughout an inquiry project. I sort of think of it as a feedback loop. When you have an over arching question, you may need several mini-questions to explore that question, especially when you work with a cross-curricular thematic approach. Propose the question, front-end load some of the more interesting material, have students question and wonder, represent learning, use formative assessment to determine how students are taking in the new content, and teach again as needed. There are times when students are teaching each other. There are times where you are directly giving them information. There are also many opportunities for you to steer the learning through exploration. It is a really exciting process. For me, every unit develops as I go. I know where I want to end up, the road map changes and adjusts as the project gets underway. I adjust the road as I determine where the projects needs to go to get to our outcome. To me, this is the best part of teaching. This allows me to have autonomy as a teacher, and to use my professional judgement and creativity to respond to the students and their needs. (I do need to say here that this is my interpretation to this point on my journey. It will be interesting to see if I agree with myself a year from now or two years from now.)

For the past four or five weeks, my students have done a lot of exploration though art around identity, stereotypes, and culture. Something I had not mentioned was that during this entire time, I was supporting student learning around First Nations, Inuit, and Metis history as set by our provincial curriculum. For two one-hour sessions per week, my students received explicit instruction around treaties: what was promised and what promises were kept. They also received direct instruction around the Indian Act and residential schools. Students learned about assimilation and genocide - all ugly parts of our history that many Canadians have forgotten or were never taught in the first place. This instruction was done by our ELO Catalyst teacher, Bev Schell. To get this information to the students in a quick and logical manner, Bev used powerpoints, and handouts. The handouts were largely used to track student thoughts, questions, and learning around the content. Often, I modeled my own mind-mapping for the students on the board. Some students directly copied my thoughts, and points, other students used the own. I didn't mind if the students copied my work. I think this is part of the gradual release of responsibility: some students still need my support with tracking their thinking.

We now have the framework of "knowledge" mostly completed. To understand the complex issues facing First Nations and Metis people, students needed this background information. With my background in Native Studies, I have to say that even I was able to learn new information from Bev. From the information that she passed onto us, we were left with big wonders and questions. What if the land that was promised had been given? Would First Nations people have been able to farm and become self sustaining? If the Indian Act hadn't been created to assimilate First Nations people into the dominant culture, would there be so much poverty and alcoholism? These are deep questions that my students are now wondering.

For the last two weeks my students have been exploring poverty. We have been using resources at Saskatoon Poverty Reduction . This is a great website that has videos and educational tools that can help put a face to poverty and help the general public to have a better understanding of the challenges faced by the working poor and individuals living in poverty. I had my students view these three videos:

This video is about a working poor family from the inner city of Saskatoon.

This video follows the coach of the Saskatoon Blades hockey team as he participates in a Saskatoon Food Bank Challenge. The most powerful part of the learning in this video, for me, was when he said that if he had to eat like this, he could NOT do the job he does.

This video has stats and statistics related to health and wealth. It's WAY TOO fast for most people to read, so I had to pause it, and we watched it several times to record all of the information. (Watching it over to record the information was a student initiative.)
Once we had watched these videos we had several discussions about poverty. I really had to work hard to gain student trust around this issue. Many students struggled with the idea that poverty is not always the "fault" of the individual living in poverty. As a society, we often think of "those people" as lazy and if they would just work harder... Well, students in a classroom are like a little "mini society" and we had to work through some of the ideas they had around poverty. I had to reassure my students that they were not to feel guilty about this information. They might have different opinions than the views that are being expressed in the classroom, that's okay too. I just asked them to be open to learning something new. For the most part the information spoke for itself. I witnessed a lot of growth during these lessons. I saw minds being expanded and new understandings emerging. It was pretty cool.

Currently, my students are developing menu plans for a week for a family of four. They are using flyers to price their menus for the week. Once they have a total amount for the week, they are to half that amount and make changes or substitutions to their food menus. When they have completed that, they are going to make a Venn diagram to see if there are similarities in the foods that they took off the list and added. The middle part will be the foods that stayed the same, and the two outer circles will be the food that they added or took off. We did this activity after I "front-loaded" the videos, and students jig-sawed information about nutrition (carbs, proteins, vitamins...)

Where are we going? My students will eventually take a trip to 2oth Street to visit some of the businesses in the area and the Friendship Inn. This is inquiry: physically going to learn. Today a residential school survivor is coming to our school to speak to students about her experience. I hope this helps them to make a connection - they can connect all of this abstract learning to a real live person. They can see how the Indian Act has impacted the life of a real person. I think it will be powerful.

Again, I have to thank the Saskatchewan Arts Board for our TreatySmarts grant. Without this grant, all of the cool activities would not be possible.

Finding your power...

Growth can come in areas that you least expect. This week I was stretched and forced to grow. Isn't that what happens? As adults, we can get stuck in our old ways: what we've always done is what we continue to do. I'm not good at delegating jobs to other people. I'm not really sure why; it's just something I don't do. This week I came to a tipping point. Too many things to do and really not enough time. I had no choice but to delegate - so I did, and now it's out of my hands. Even as I write this I know that what makes me feel uncomfortable is that I am now powerless over this one delegated aspect. Gasp! What an awful feeling. This brings me into exactly what we've been doing in the classroom. It's always strange to me how interconnected things are.

Last week we learned about stereotypes and looked at the art of Keesic Douglas. He uses First Nations stereotypes in his art as a way to speak out and inform... I think. This week it seemed appropriate to take the exact opposite journey. We looked at art from artist Jerry Whitehead.

His art is highly identifiable. When we viewed his art, I had students answer the question: Who is Jerry Whitehead? They wrote their answers on the whiteboard and their guesses were largely right.
My students seemed really taken by his art. They liked the colors and the bold shapes. I had them use black construction paper and oil pastel to recreate their own piece in his style. With this activity I only asked them to recreate his style; I did not ask them to show their own identity. I thought we first needed to master his style before we tried to bring our own identity into the art. The student art turned out amazing, and the part that surprised me most was that some students took the style and made it about them. In their art you won't find First Nations powwow dancers, you'll find Filipinos among buildings, for example.

With the last two art projects, I had put up an inquiry question with a picture of the artist and their name. As our new Jerry Whitehead style art was being completed and tacked our board, a student came to me and said that I needed to get his picture up there and a question. She also had no plans of waiting for this to happen. She wanted it done now. I asked her what question we could explore. Really we are always exploring identity and how it influences art, but as art can, it allows us to bring in all kinds of other aspects. Her response echoed my thoughts: Is it okay for an artist to use stereotypes about their own culture? His art is a stark contrast to the message that Keesic Douglas gives. This is such a deep question, and one that will also take some cultural sensitivity as we explore it. I honestly don't know the answer because a simple answer is not what we are going to find or come to. I plan to bring in a few sub questions to get them thinking. Questions like: Does art create cultural pride? Can people learn about culture through art? I wasn't sure which artist we would explore next, but maybe I should let the students answer these questions by finding an artist and their art and using it to build a case. Inquiry is such a fluid process, and being open to going where a project naturally wants to go is hugely important.

During our non-art time I had my students watch several videos on poverty. All three of these videos can be found at saskatoonpoverty2possibility.ca. In summary, we watched as the coach of the Blades participated in the Food Bank Challenge, as well as a fast paced informational video, and a mini-documentary on a working poor family from the inner city of Saskatoon. I had the students record any statistics and information they learned from the videos as well as a reflection. We had a small discussion around poverty. This is a difficult topic to understand and it's very complex. We still have more work to do around the cycle of poverty, and from a health perspective, how hard it is to make healthy food choices on a limited budget. Some of my students admitted to me that they didn't like learning this information. It made them feel sad and helpless. I guess I really need them to understand that knowledge is power and now we can use our knowledge to look past our own biases and stereotypes. We can be more accepting and loving. We can all work towards a better world - whether it's in a small act of kindness or a larger act of protest. As well, we all need to decide for ourselves what our act of kindness will be. No one can chose it for us.

Yesterday we worked with the slam poetry artists. I think that everyone was feeling apprehensive about having our students write and perform poetry. We wondered how the artists would get the kids feeling confident enough to put their thoughts and ideas out there to each other. What our artists accomplished was fantastic and awe inspiring. Many of my students went up to the front and shared their poems - in front of the grade eights! (That's the more surprising part to me.) I was so proud of them, and the poems were fantastic! I have this problem with my eyes leaking when I'm proud of my students. Yes, some might call it weeping. I sat there wiping my eyes and deciding that I now need to wear water proof mascara during this project. Seeing the students empowered was so moving. I can't wait for their parents to see what I saw. They will be so proud!

So how does this all relate to my own powerless feeling as I delegated a job? Art and performance all have aspects of power. Taking back power, finding our own power, empowering others (in my case letting go of power/control) - they're all things that can be accomplished through the arts. Again I have to thank The Saskatchewan Arts Board and the TreatySmarts Grant for allowing us to have this opportunity to grow and find our power.

The creative fire...

Our school was fortunate to receive a TreatySmarts grant this year, and we are using this grant to explore identity and culture and how they influence art. The unit starts off with the front-end loading of the information pertaining to Treaties, and will culminate in a slam poetry night at the Broadway Theatre. Ideally our students will write poems that pertain to the FNIM content they learn in class and speak passionately for peace, tolerance, acceptance and understanding for all people.
Our first exploration into identity and art was an assignment on Ted Harrison. I chose the questions: Is it possible to express your identity through art? Basically students had to view Ted Harrison's art and then guess who he is. I asked guiding questions and recorded their ideas on the board. Later we read his bio and looked at pictures of him. We discovered that some of the assumptions we made about him were accurate, but some were not. We then moved into the creation phase. Students were instructed to copy Harrison's style and create a piece of art that expresses their identity. After their art was completed, they were to write a reflection on how their art does or does not represent them. The final part of the assignment was to write a 1-3 paragraph biography on Ted Harrison, and to write a similar autobiography in third person about themselves.

Surprisingly many students had troubles copying this style of art. Maybe it was the combination of trying to combine a style with their identity. When I asked this inquiry questions, I assumed that the answer would be yes, but now I'm not so sure. Maybe the answer is yes if you are given free reign, but when you must mimic someone else's style it becomes more difficult.

Today we started to explore stereotypes exposed through art. We found this thought provoking First Nations Artist, Keesic Douglas. His art tackles stereotypes though photography. A teacher candidate took the lead on this lesson and showed the students Douglas's art. We discussed the meaning of the word stereotype and tried to list the stereotypes expressed through the art. This lead to a lively discussion about stereotypes that we all face. Tomorrow we will have students create a collage of the stereotypes portrayed in the media. They will be allowed to cut words and photos out of magazines for this collage. The difficult part for them will be to find stereotypes that are specific to them. While they are working on their collages, I will have students come one at a time for a black and white photo shoot. Once their collage is complete, they will begin the work of recreating the style of Keesic Douglas. Their materials will be their own photo and a sharpie. They can use words and pictures to draw on their photo and expose the stereotypes they are subjected to. Keesic Douglas's work depicts the stereotypes that First Nations people face, and our art likely will not. We will need to do this with a measure of cultural sensitivity, but with the idea that tolerance and acceptance of ALL people is the our common goal.

Finally, we will put all of our work into zines. Zines, short for magazines, are self published mini magazines that target a small niche. As we work over the next few months, the students will each build their own zine with art, poetry, and reflection.

Next week we begin working with two slam poetry artists. They will help teach our students about slam poetry and eventually lead them through the creation of their own slam poems. Working with these artists, as well as the Mendel Art Gallery, would not be possible without the TreatySmarts Grant, and the Saskatchewan Arts Board. For this opportunity, I am grateful.
For those of you who don't know what a slam poem is, here is a video:



 Here is the assignment the students worked through:

   Identity Inquiry Project by