I have attached a brief write up about the rationale behind my project and how this project began, the method used to complete this project, and the results I found while completing this project
How the Project Began: While learning about how to incorporate FNMI content into the classroom I found the majority of the information I was receiving was about residential schools and their legacy. While teaching the history of residential schools and the intergenerational trauma that is still present today is important, I believe it is also crucial to teach and celebrate Indigenous culture in the classroom throughout the school year. Furthermore, teaching Early Childhood Education, I believe it is important to lay a foundation of what Indigenous culture is, who Indigenous people are, and the importance of Indigenous peoples in regard to Canadian past history and present. One of the best ways to lay this positive foundation is to consistently add FNMI content into the classroom in daily lessons, as well as focused larger lessons once per month. In my PSI, PSII and personal experiences working with children, I recognized the need for lessons about social emotional concepts that are not only taught one time, but consistently referenced to students. Grade 1/2 students may understand what kindness, respect, compassion etc. is and be able to explain how they can practice these values, however, many students struggle to embrace these concepts. I wanted to find a way I could consistently incorporate FNMI content into an Early Elementary classroom to students who had little to no prior knowledge of Indigenous people, history or values, while also teaching them incredibly important social and emotional skills. Furthermore, the school I completed my PSIII at, Queen Elizabeth Elementary School in Calgary, is working toward a school wide goal of Indigenous Education and improving equity. This project allowed me to personally and professionally explore different ways to meet TQS 5, begin laying the foundation for young students to learn FNMI content, and also help the school as a whole work toward their goal. I chose to use the 11 Blackfoot values specifically, as we are in Treaty 7 territory and I felt it would be most appropriate, as it allows students to connect and recognize the Indigenous culture that is present where they live. The Seven Sacred Teachings could also be used, instead of Blackfoot values. Prior to beginning this project, I began talking to Professor Don Shade from the University of Lethbridge Faculty of Education. Don spent countless hours sending me resources via email and through numerous phone calls to ensure I had as many resources as possible and felt comfortable teaching these sacred values. While Don was sharing these 11 values with me he helped me realize the importance of Pommotsiiysinni, to transfer knowledge to others. Don was generous enough to explain each value to me in great detail, pronounce and record himself saying each value so my Grade 1/2 students could hear the word being said, and he explained and helped me find ways each value could be taught to non-Indigenous students appropriately. This project truly could not have been done without the help of Don Shade.
Method: My first step prior to introducing the first value was to assess the needs of students. Especially due to Covid-19 and students not being in school for many months, there was the chance that students may need to focus more on some skills, such as kindness or respect. I also needed to assess students’ prior knowledge about Indigenous people, specifically the Blackfoot people before introducing them to any of the values. Once I had assessed student need, I was able to go through the Blackfoot values and create a tentative schedule to introduce each value. My goal was to introduce at least 4, hopefully 5 during my 4 months with my Grade ½’s. I needed to create a realistic timeline that gave me the time to introduce the value and give the students time to actually practice this skill. Introducing a new value every 3-4 weeks seemed most manageable and realistic for my students. It is important to note that the purpose of this project is not to incorporate FNMI content only once per month. My goal was to explicitly teach a Blackfoot value once per month or every three weeks and then encourage students to continuously make connections to these values throughout other subjects, daily conversations or different challenges I gave them. Ensuring I introduced each value with an Indigenous text was also one of my goals. I wanted to make sure that students were learning about the Blackfoot people through Blackfoot books and authors, where possible, or from other Indigenous authors. I have included a resource list on my website with a chart that states the value, has a list of Indigenous books, and a list of non-Indigenous books that can all be used to reinforce the value. After focusing on one specific value for 3-4 weeks it was important to follow up and reflect on the work we had done. For example, during our first value of kindness and compassion, students were given a ‘bucket filling’ challenge. For those who are not familiar with bucket filling, it is an analogy used in many Elementary schools to represent kindness. When you do something kind for someone it fills their bucket and they are called a bucket filler. When you do something unkind, you are a bucket dipper, and no one wants to be a bucket dipper! Students were given the challenge to see how many different ways we could fill our friends’ buckets at school and our families buckets at home. Each time students filled a bucket they told me and I would write it down and put it in our class bucket. At the end of the 4 weeks we read the different ways we filled each others buckets and reflected on why being kind and compassionate was important. We then discussed the Blackfoot value itself and I had students think about why they thought this value is important to the Blackfoot people. It was incredibly rewarding to listen to students make personal connections to this value, and learn such an important skills through this Blackfoot value.
Here is a picture one of my Grade 1 students drew to represent the value of kindness and compassion. They were incredibly excited to use the Blackfoot word and reflect on different things they do to be a kind and compassionate friend! Here is another example of student work. In this picture the student represented kindness and compassion with keeping their friends safe by wearing a mask, being a bucket filler and expressing that dogs help people.
Results:
The results from my project have so far been only positive. The other Grade ½ class also introduced these values in their class and I received positive feedback from that teacher as well. Students were excited each time I told them we were going to be learning about a new value. I noticed a genuine change in students as they took on a new task depending on the values we were learning and focusing on at the time. I also loved watching students get invested and excited about completing challenges. Our most recent competition is our 18 days of gratitude challenge. On Monday, we learned about the Blackfoot value prayer and are currently exploring the way we can be grateful daily for different things in our lives. As there are 18 days left before winter break, students are writing one thing every night they are grateful for. Once students return in January, they are going to share the things they are grateful for and reflect more on the value of prayer. The principal also turned this into a school wide 12 days of gratitude challenge, in which each class writes 3 things they are grateful for and they are posted in the foyer for all the students to see.
I feel very fortunate to have had to the opportunity to begin teaching these children about the Blackfoot values and watch them learn and become more confident by embracing them! I have added a final picture to end my presentation with. While writing things we like to learn about, many of my students wrote they enjoy learning about the Blackfoot people and Blackfoot values. This, to me, is a great example of the positive impact this project has left on my students!
My favourite lesson and value I taught was the third value of being able to take on tasks independently. Due to Covid-19 and students being out of school for many months, I found students struggled with their independence more than ever before. With restrictions not allowing students to sit in groups or work together, students got into the habit of asking me or my teacher mentor for help on almost every task. I introduced the value of being independent with the challenge of trying things at least two times before asking for help. Students also had the challenge of choosing an independence task at school and an independence task at home. Students did an amazing job embracing this value! Many students challenged themselves to try things 3 times before asking for help. My teacher mentor and I both noticed a genuine change in students after introducing this value. Here are some different examples of my Grade 1 and 2 students’ independence goals.
I have added some other photos of some of my students’ work drawing and writing about the different values. At the beginning and end of each 3-4 weeks students would work in their visual journals to represent the value in different ways, such as their goals for that value and then what they learned. I have added some examples here.
2021 Results
The results from this project have been amazing! I have been contacted my many teachers who have begun using these values in their classroom! This project has been implemented recently in a Grade 3 class and a Grade 8 Humanities class. These values are easy to adapt to fit the needs of the students in every classroom!