A topic from Dr. Frasier’s most recent lecture was around oral storytelling and creation stories. While I found the information interesting for many reasons, one stood out to me the most: the connection between creation story and people, place, and land.
I believe that with elementary students it would be important to tell these creation stories in oral form for two reasons:
- they can develop an awareness for the land they live on and begin to connect themselves to it
- to value and appreciate the First Peoples Principal of Learning “Learning is embedded in memory, history, and story”.
I feel like the ability to connect yourself with land is not one that comes naturally, but instead occurs as a type of realization once it is brought to your attention. And, for those of us who wish to honor and appreciate the land we live on because of this realization, it changes our perspective on life, nature, society, community, and many (if not all) other aspects of our lives. So, to develop that sense in our students from a young age I would be interested to see how that impacts their own lives and the effect on their own well-being. It is not that we want to tell our students that the world does not revolve around them, as that would be inappropriate, but it is important that they understand the part they play in these many facets of the world around them and to devlop their own purpose as well as respect the purpose of others.