Category: Wisdom

 

Eye of the Needle

What advice did you hear that resonated with you?

What implications might this have for you as a teacher?

David speaks with such passion, conviction and love. He made three very powerful statements on Monday- “You have it in you,” “You are a precious child,” and “you are a human being.” Peter talks about essential questions, well I think that these are the essential statements; things that students need to hear over and over until they truly believe it- not just about themselves but about each other-and begin to act accordingly. What a beautiful, empowering way to create a feeling of community in the classroom.

When David spoke today about his achievements I was taken by his humility and his desire to serve his people. I was reminded of a passage in the Oleksa book where he speaks about the Yup’ik story, Eye of the Needle. He says, “Children become members of society by realizing that the purpose of their existence goes beyond satisfaction of their own selfish desires, whims, or passions. Each must become the servant of something other than, and more important than, his or herself.” (p53)

What a great perspective. I feel like as a teacher I need to be humble to be able to recognize, acknowledge and build upon the cultural collateral each student brings to the classroom. I will definitely be using these traditional native stories this fall as we read Touching Spirit Bear and The Outsiders.

 

The advice that resonated with me was how important is was for Mrs. Everson (and the others) to keep their language (and how painful it was to lose it for a time).

I would like to incorporate aspects of whichever Native language I am immersed into my teaching. However, I’m sure (because of practical considerations, time, focus, etc) the amount of any non English language that my class will be exposed to will have to be relegated to key terms that have particular resonance or meaning in the local Native tongue. Additionally, as a Language Arts teacher I definitely plan on exploring the Oral (and written) stories of Native cultures and authors.

I have rarely heard my elders speak like this. It floors me to hear such rich words from this small Tligit council of Elders. Perhaps that which stands out the most is that the ancient food is love and we are starved from it. Instead many of us are consumed with calling each other names and putting each other down.

Somehow I feel like I know deep down inside it is because of the lack of community (tribe) which our culture affords us. Nuclear families just don’t cut it. We in our western culture are starved for love in so many ways: conversation, touch, deep meaningful relationships. No one person can satisfy all our needs. We are longing for deep human interaction, a feeling of being with our kin in our clans. We don’t have that in our culture. So we try and make up for that in what ever way we can. Our nature still speaks loudly in our modern lives.

Some other words that were spoken which I hope not to forget:
-The disciplines are not isolated from each other; they are interconnected.
-You have to know your students well to be able to teach them.
-Each of us is precious and noble.
-You can only control how you receive what someone else says to you and what you say to them, not what they say nor how they receive it.
-Plant seeds in your students by telling them how awesome they are so they can grow.
-You are a human being and intelligent.
-There is nothing you can’t learn.
-We all live in one and only one world; it is in the here and now.

I am fortunate to have these words bestowed upon me, so, Gunalcheesh to you dearest Elders.

I am very pleased at how much exposure to Elders we’ve received with this program, and very honored that they’ve chosen to share their stories with us.

What especially resonated with me was Linda’s diagram of advice that she described, with regards to accepting what you are responsible for. You control your reactions and how you behave toward everyone else; you do not control their reactions or how they behave toward you. I think it’s very easy to get bogged down in emotional responsibility as a teacher, even to the point where you’re so overwhelmed that you feel like you can’t control anything. Linda’s philosophy is a very calming, realistic, and grounded ideal, and I know I’m going to need something like it in the years to come.

What really stood out as far as implications for me as a teacher was how strongly each of them still felt the pain they experienced as a child, whether it was Selina being forbidden from speaking Tlingit or David being ostracized at their respective schools. The hurts children suffer leave imprints and scarring that carries over into their adulthood, and has the extreme potential to negatively affect their lives. We as teachers have a massive responsibility to do what we can to prevent these traumas, and heal when we can’t prevent.

We also need to take care and check to make sure what we’re doing/teaching is what’s best for the kids, and not blindly enforcing edicts coming down from on high. The Presbyterians, like Selina said, thought they were doing the right thing; they weren’t paying attention to the needs of the students, or respecting the culture they already had. So we owe it to our students to be aware and understanding to the best of our abilities, and question our teaching methods’ effectiveness to shape it into something that serves the students well.

Thank you to Elders David Katzeek, Linda Belarde, and Selina Everson for joining us as guests today. We are so fortunate to be living and studying on this land and learning from Elders here in this community.

I really appreciate the political activism that Elder David Katzeek discussed. He described how his grandparents had given him the confidence to become politically engaged. He asked us to help our students build this type of confidence too. He said that the first Celebration was held in February because he wanted legislators to see how powerful it was. Through his advocacy, hundreds of thousands of dollars were invested in the future and culture of Tlingit people, particularly Tlingit children.

Selina Everson and Linda Belarde also spoke about the importance of passing their culture onto children. You could almost feel Selina’s joy when she spoke of watching young Tlingit speakers in the classroom. You could also see her pain, but barely comprehend it, when she spoke about her people being told they could not speak their own language. Linda asked her staff to love their students. This concept probably should not be, but is revolutionary. So many of our students are suffering great traumas. All three speakers addressed how children gain strength and build resilience from connections to their culture and connections to supportive adults.

David began to softly strike his Tlingit drum and a low wave of sound hushed us to silence. While listening to the words and songs of elder/educators Linda, Selina and David I felt overwhelmingly thankful and honoured to hear their stories and advice. Each of the three speakers had a unique voice filled with great amounts of experience, knowledge and passion, yet all three had this humble but powerful presence. They had a way of reaching us new educators by making connections.

I think that is what resonated with me the most; the connectivity. The heartbreaking image of Selina’s older siblings jumping in the air off school grounds, so that they may speak a single word in their own language is connected to David’s description of a people being starving. The images that these stories brought to me just made my heart hurt, and I felt tears stinging my eyes. I do not ever want my family, friends, students, peers, colleagues or anyone to feel that empty void in their lives. Yet, I still see it, that feeling of emptiness…in my students eyes when a school system fails to connect them to their cultural roots. I am committed to doing something about that empty feeling.

Linda gave us a strategy by describing a circle, which I doodled here:

She she instructed us to think of ourselves on one side and others on the other side. By connecting the sides with arrows the image teaches us an important lesson: we can only control what we give and how we receive what is given to us. This is not only an important strategy to relieve stress, but is also a reminder as to the importance of how we give and receive. What does this mean to me as a teacher? It speaks to me about really thinking about how I communicate with students, parents and the community. It also means really listening and educating myself in my student’s lives so that I can make these necessary connections.

As David reminds us, everything is connected. Being a human is all about the connections we make. Moreover, as humans we crave connections. The youngest of our society deserve to feel these connections; to know that they are cared for and loved. As a new teacher with so much to learn, and so many more mistakes to make, I am so grateful for the reminder of one mistake that I must never make: I must never forget to love my students.