Kym Stewart visits Masset: After months of planning and preparation, my media-education research finally began at Tahayghen Elementary school in Masset, Haida Gwaii. I decided that I would continue with the work on ‘advertising’ that I had begun in a Burnaby elementary classroom. As I gathered my materials on Sunday night, I was both excited and anxious to bring the lessons that I had developed to new students. While I felt comfortable teaching these very-familiar advertising lessons, I was extremely uncomfortable with their lack of Haida content as well as my role, as a non-Haida, in the development and implementation of culturally inclusive materials.
This all changed when I woke the next morning to find a small, unraveled bundle of wool with a note by the door of our little cabin in the woods. As I puzzled over the mysterious items, I quickly scanned the note for a signature; “Mouse Woman!” I cried out. And my shoulders sagged with relief. For it was known that Mouse Woman was a friend to young people (and struggling graduate students) in distress. Mouse Woman’s big, busy mouse eyes must have spotted my confusion the night before and left a note providing me with clarity and direction. “Mouse Woman,” I said again, in an awed whisper. For Mouse Woman was also a narnauk (spirit), and I knew I must show my respect, “thank you for the gift”. In return I made sure to leave this smallest of grandmothers some more knitting wool as a gift, for it was well known that in exchange for such advice, wool must be given.
Mouse Woman’s note included a poem called Jimmy Jet and His TV Set by Shel Silverstein and a reminder of Christie Harris’ collection of beautifully-written stories of Mouse Woman’s adventures. These two wonderful pieces of literary work became the basis of my four-week, media-detectives-in-training program, inspiring an investigation into the extremes of an unbalanced world, the chaos that would result and the strength and ingenuity that is needed to create order and equality once more.
I began with the Jimmy Jet poem; a short, rhythmic piece about a boy who watched so much television that his bottom grew into his chair as his hair became antennae, his face a screen, he developed a tail-like a plug and instead of watching the TV set, everyone sat around watching ‘Jimmy Jet’. The poem presented the students with a fantastic story of unbalance and transformation. I read the poem multiple times as the students intensely drew this transformation and I was intrigued by the students’ level of concentration and engagement as they listened in awe, carefully illustrating the transformation they conjured in their minds.
The students were then asked to imagine other media-hybrid characters that might result in a world like Jimmy Jet’s, where media-use imbalances could cause such bizarre transformations. The class has now introduced me to a tricky bunch of characters including; ‘Mr. Crabs’, a young boy who became a portable Play Station; ‘Video Game Vic’; ‘Mp3 Bob’ and a whole ‘iPod family’: Pink, Camille, Paul, Nancy, Nita, Sally, Nick and Chuck.
Since the initial investigation of imbalance in the lives of these characters and the sketch artists’ renditions of the media-hybrids, we have conducted ‘background checks’ on the media tricksters in the computer lab to find when they were born (when the technology was invented), where (and by whom), and how many children they have now (how many TVs, iPods, etc. are in the world now). As the students continued to develop their media characters, I began to introduce them to another wonderful cast of characters through Christie Harris’ Mouse Woman and the Mischief Makers. Using one particular story of greed, selfishness and temptation, the students were introduced to Mouse Woman and her abilities to not only sense imbalance and chaos but also to provide advice and help to those in need. This story was also used as a template for the students to create their own stories describing worlds where chaos had caused such imbalance that ordinary, playful, energetic, kind people turned into selfish, obnoxious media-characters and where Mouse Woman’s wisdom, kind words, magic spells and mysterious powers helped to restore balance.
The students’ individual stories began with a written activity and ended with a one-on-one conference session between the student and myself where we further explored creative possibilities. We are now in the process of creating group stories by reworking our ideas into skits to perform for the class.
We are having a wonderful time and the students are in awe, as am I, at the power, creativity and strength of Mouse Woman as she continuously helps others to regain balance. They have found an ally in the struggle to maintain balance in their lives and I hope that they can continue to rely on Mouse Woman when I am gone, especially as they leap into the world of advertising; a world where tricksters lie in every corner.
I have been fortunate during my research to find strength from Mouse Woman to step outside of my own comfort zone, to search for resources and find a way of incorporating Haida content into media education by taking a journey into the wonderful, mythical world of Haida Gwaii.
Ahhh… I just caught a sight of something white flash across the kitchen! I hope it is Mouse Woman again… I start teaching the Grade 5’s tomorrow and I am looking for inspiration.
by Kym Stewart
