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The power of intergenerational connections
14 Plays2 months ago
Michele Schwab (Balcarres Community School, Balcarres, Saskatchewan)
Recipient of the 2024 Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Teaching
For more information about the award visit CanadasHistory.ca/TeachingAwardMichele Schwab led a project that included preservation of traditional knowledge, community engagement, empowerment of elders, and intergenerational connections by bringing in kehte-aya (old ones or knowledge carriers) to capture their viewpoints and teachings on a variety of subjects. The goal was to capture the cultural significance, authenticity, and impact of the stories shared by local Indigenous kehte-aya. Schwab created relationships between the kehte-aya and the students that will go on beyond interview days while passing on traditional knowledge to a new generation. Her collection methods preserved cultural heritage, promoted intergenerational knowledge transfer, and increased cultural awareness. From these interviews the participants generated a podcast, created visual art pieces that showcased the students’ connections, and wrote and published persuasive and explanatory magazine articles that were shared with the school community, nations, and elsewhere.
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Transcript
Introduction and Teaching Excellence Award
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of the Teaching Canada's History podcast. I'm your host, Brooke Campbell, and today we are speaking with the finalists of the 2024 Governor General's History Award for Excellence in Teaching.
00:00:16
Speaker
Created in 1996, the award recognizes innovative and impactful approaches to teaching Canadian history. For more information, visit canadashistory.ca slash teaching award.
The Indigenous Magazine Project
00:00:28
Speaker
Today I'm chatting with Michelle Schwab, a high school teacher in Belcarra, Saskatchewan. Thank you for joining me today, Michelle. Thanks for having me. Can you share more about the project that you have done in your classroom and you know maybe explain what your students have been working on?
00:00:45
Speaker
um My students, ah through a credit course in practical and applied arts, ah completed 70 plus page magazine that shared ah stories, opinions and ideas um centered around interviewing in indigenous Kata'ak and getting their perspectives on current issues facing Aboriginal people in today's society.
00:01:13
Speaker
Thanks. And what are some of the the main steps that your students had to go through then to to accomplish you know writing this this magazine?
Guidance from Elder Alma
00:01:23
Speaker
um The first thing that we had to do was approach this from um an Indigenous perspective, which always involves um getting input from a Kata'ak. In our case, it was Elder Alma who comes to our school.
00:01:41
Speaker
um My students and I sat down with her to seek her guidance on the appropriate way to address um these issues as they are very sensitive issues such as residential schools, treaties, missing and murdered Indigenous women. And um she provided the guidance we needed to start the project. So the first thing that my students did was become more educated on the topics themselves.
Research and Interviews with First Nations
00:02:09
Speaker
They did internet research. They spoke to people in their homes. um We did a carousel learning activity and a jigsaw learning activity so that they could share their knowledge with their classmates. um Then we sat down with Elder Alma again, and she um was very um appreciative of the students' knowledge, appreciative of their hard work.
00:02:34
Speaker
um The next stage was um to schedule and meet with um the knowledge carriers in our community. So students chose um the knowledge carriers. I teach in a community that borders four First Nations, Star Blanket First Nation, Okanese First Nation, Little Black Bear First Nation, and Pepecusis First Nation.
00:03:00
Speaker
And I have students from all of those nations in my class. So the students chose people that were of importance to them. Some were family, some were close friends, um chiefs, people that are involved in all aspects of um Indigenous um knowledge and worldviews.
00:03:21
Speaker
From there, we met with our interviewees. Some of our students did that at home on their own time. They went out to the community to meet with their people. We did have some people come into the school and then we captured and recorded all of their interviews, which we turned into a podcast.
Creating the Magazine and Art Show
00:03:39
Speaker
From that point, we re-listened to the interviews and students chose thinking points from the interviews. So it could have been a quote. It could have been something that they learned.
00:03:53
Speaker
It could have just been something that intrigued them. And we then compiled their knowledge, whether it was in ah writing piece that expressed the student's opinion on what they had learned in regards to the topic, or it captured the knowledge gained from the interviewee.
00:04:13
Speaker
And um also we used what we learned to create art for the magazine. And we also created um art pieces that showcased the issues from a visual perspective in a show that was separate from the magazine.
00:04:32
Speaker
There are so many layers to this work. It's really beautifully interwoven. Can you share how your students were able to to engage with with history and with historical thinking throughout this
Learning from Oral Histories
00:04:44
Speaker
work?
00:04:44
Speaker
This entire project was based on inquiry learning and based on ah oral histories. um I feel that When looking at Indigenous history, you can gain a baseline from internet research, reading.
00:05:04
Speaker
we were able to access historical documents through our interviewees. But really, when you look at appropriately learning Indigenous content,
00:05:15
Speaker
It is through the oral tradition and through um language and speaking with the people firsthand. So I feel that for my students, they developed a um knowledge of history straight from people who have um lived it.
00:05:35
Speaker
um Residential school survivors, people that have lost um children to um the missing and murdered Indigenous women crisis. One of our chiefs is an expert on the treaties and has done amazing work around that.
Students as Knowledge Carriers
00:05:51
Speaker
And from this knowledge, um my pride for my students comes from the fact that my students know now that they are now the carriers forward of that knowledge, of that historical knowledge, and that in their life, they have a responsibility now to be the new knowledge carriers. um It was really... impressed upon them from the Kataiaq and other knowledge carriers that um what are you going to do with what you've learned?
00:06:20
Speaker
How are you going to use that now? So one of my grade 12 students is ah going into education and she made a very strong connection to the fact that she now has a responsibility to teach the children she will be teaching about these things. So it was a multi-layered project but I think when you look at the historical significance of it is that I feel my students become the next line of knowledge carriers even though they are only in high school they definitely understood the responsibility that was um provided to them and for them now to continue.
00:07:05
Speaker
Yeah, you've you've really emphasized the the importance of community in your work and and in your classroom at large. um Can you tell us more about the resources and that that includes the the people that you that you like to to use and to to reach out to to help support this work?
Enriching the Project with Mentorship
00:07:22
Speaker
Yeah, i'm really I'm really lucky in the community that I teach in that people are always willing to work and share with the youth. I worked with a Dakota artist, Holly Yuzuchapi. Her and I have done several projects um together, and she's very comfortable in our building, although most of my students are like of Cree or Soto descent.
00:07:49
Speaker
she brings an artistic component and a cultural arts component. That's not just like tokenism, sort of like arts and crafts. It's actually based very firmly in, again, like culture and traditions and,
00:08:03
Speaker
learning um techniques like they dyed porcupine quills. They learned the beading techniques. We encased all of our art pieces in red willow. And then another mentor that I worked with was Brad Belgard, and he's a journalist and a musician. And he helped on the podcast and interviewing side as a support to me.
00:08:25
Speaker
And that was a really important connection for my students because he's from Little Black Bear. So my students were able to see a successful Indigenous person in a role that came to help them, but also someone who originated from their um community.
00:08:44
Speaker
It was really enlightening for a couple of my students when they were able to go into the homes of some of the knowledge carriers and they were shown historical documents. They were shown photos. They were shown um all kinds of things that um I don't think without those connections of community, we would not have had access to.
Impact and Lasting Connections
00:09:08
Speaker
feel like you've already shared so many anecdotes that speak to the impact of this work, but maybe I'll ask if you can then, you know, if you take a step back and you and you look at it as a whole, what, how would you summarize that impact that it's had on your, on your students and, and, and on the community and maybe what are some of the outcomes that you've, you've seen?
00:09:28
Speaker
One of my grade 12 students, his dad, took the opportunity to get a sneak peek of the magazine. And it was when we were actually doing an interview um in our culture room in our building. And ah when he came back, he impressed upon me that this student had interviewed his Mushom. And he said that, I know based on the article that my son wrote, that my teachings and his Mushom's teachings have impacted him. And he was so proud of his student and so proud that um his son, pardon me, that there were opportunities like that to learn like that.
00:10:17
Speaker
I think for my students, the opportunity to relationships real life experiences and real life learning. These are the things that will stick with them. These are the things that they're going to take further when they leave the building. And history comes alive when someone shares it with you from a firsthand perspective.
00:10:38
Speaker
And a lot of our interviewees were very candid with their experiences. our residential school survivors that we spoke to.
00:10:50
Speaker
There's no way that reading from a book would have been as impactful as hearing them share What happened to them when they were in residential school? Or um the File Hills Colony Experiment, which is another example of something in history that is probably not very well known.
00:11:08
Speaker
And actually having someone who is the keeper of all of that information be able to share that and now know that another generation is going to have all of that information to pass on. um It's truth. it's It's sharing of truth and being able to take that truth and then put it into your own heart and decide now what are you going to do with it? What is your responsibility?
00:11:33
Speaker
How are you going to take that further so that all of these stories and all of this knowledge doesn't go away as our elders and knowledge carriers pass on?
00:11:47
Speaker
Those are some really powerful and and moving. Thank you so much for having of the the work that's been done and the and the impact of this project. Thank you so much, Michelle, for for sharing this all with me today and for for sharing more about what's going on in your classroom.
00:12:03
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me and showcasing our school.