We recommend inviting an Indigenous community member into the learning space to help facilitate this Learning Activity.
Instructions:
- Teacher engages students in a land-based meditation. Students will choose a place at their school ground, a local park, or at ELEEC to either sit in or walk through for approximately ten minutes. While sitting or walking through this space, students will consider the following question:
- What does the land provide to us and how can we give back to the land?
- Sitting in or walking through your spot, use your five senses to notice what the land has to teach you about this question. For instance, what do you hear? See? Smell? Feel? and taste? You may wish to record what you notice in a notebook or on a piece of paper.
- Be prepared to share your observations with the group after.
- Before students are sent off, they should be encouraged to quiet their minds and notice the little things. They do not need to focus intently and directly on the question but should be open to what their five senses have to tell them.
- Afterwards students will be asked to share their answers through a talking circle.
- The teacher will start by reviewing the proper protocols for facilitating a talking circle with the students (included in the Teachers Guide).
- Students will share the answers revealed to them by the land.
Note that a more developed version of the land-based meditation above was shared with QUILLS by Misty Underwood who is a non-enrolled descendant of the Muscogee Creek and Choctaw Nations of Oklahoma. This more developed version encompasses spiritual elements and is referred to by Misty as a “Walk Talk”. While Misty is not comfortable sharing the protocols of how to facilitate a Walk Talk through a written resource, Misty has graciously offered to help facilitate Walk Talks with local school groups. Misty’s contact information is as follows: Misty Underwood, mlu@queensu.ca, Queen’s University – Office of Indigenous Initiatives
Extension: Original Instructions
- Teacher leads a discussion with students regarding the nature of the Original Instructions that are transmitted through the land to Indigenous peoples. The land teaches us that all humans have a holistic and interconnected relationship with the land that must be maintained by living with reciprocity and respect.
- Teachers get talking points to lead the discussion from worksheet for teachers found in Nature of the Original Instructions.pdf.
