On July 8-10 teachers, leaders, researchers and supporters of the LUCID research project from all districts were able to reconnect at a quaint cannery in Port Edwards. This conference marked the midterm point of the LUCID project and provided an opportunity to share ideas and inspiration that would carry us towards additional imaginative, cultural inclusion practices for our students. Like many of our meetings together, this conference created another opportunity to support risk taking in the classroom as we seek to continue the questioning of the normative practices and to engage the students in a deeper manner. Click on "more" to read a Reflection of the conference by a visiting scholar, Dr. Thomas W. Neilsen
Rooted in who we are and who we might become
I have never been a great believer in culture. Growing up in Denmark, I saw the division in human relations that 'culture' creates. I remember how Turkish children where teased for being different and I saw how Turkish immigrants scorned Danish society for lacking family values and religious beliefs. To me, 'culture' has always meant conflict, tension, unrest.
As a consequence, I have always sought synthesis, similarities and universality in my intellectual pursuits. I have always felt that it is only by finding our commonness and what we share as a humanity, that we can make it as a human family.
When I arrived at the mid-term LUCID conference, it was therefore with some reservations. I had been interested in imaginative education for some time, and I was thrilled to have been invited to attend the conference by the Imaginative Education Research Group, with whom I also have the privilege of taking my sabbatical at the moment. But with regards to the cultural inclusion aspect of LUCID, I had my doubts about combining in a research project two seemingly very different concepts: cultural inclusion and imaginative education. Too many foci, I thought - and one of them being of less importance than the other.
After the LUCID conference, however, I have had to reassess my entrenched view.
To spend two days with a group of dedicated and compassionate educators, hearing about how they planned and implemented imaginative learning in their classrooms, is a privilege in itself, but to also hear about and feel the impact on students, and in particular, First Nations learners, touched my heart. By using imaginative teaching strategies, such as stories, metaphors, binary opposites, etc (see Egan 2005), and connecting these with local history, myth and geography, the students were learning the curriculum via exploration of their place and origin, benefiting not only First Nations learners but all students.
The presentations by teachers illustrated to me how important it is for First Nations learners to regain a sense of pride of and identity with their cultural roots. As Mark Fettes, Director for the LUCID project, put it: "Education has to be rooted in who we are, as well as who we might become." During the conference, I slowly began to realize the connection between these words and the objectives of the LUCID project: Culture represents our roots, our foundation in the particular, the earth and context we have come from; imaginative education represents the need to re-imagine a new world, where our aboriginal communities are no longer marginalized by colonizing and metropolitan powers - that is, re-imagine what we might become.
When I was in school, I never questioned what it meant to be Danish. Perhaps this was partially because my history lessons were not very imaginative. Rote learning the names and dates of kings and queens seemed to me a waste of time. Attending the LUCID conference has made me think that maybe if I had had more imaginative education I would have a stronger sense of my own roots today.
It is also slowly beginning to dawn upon me that perhaps it is not cultural differences that create the wars and conflict, so predominant in the world today. Rather, maybe, it is the inability to tolerate and celebrate these differences. Indeed, perhaps our cultural differences are not only the roots of our place and history - who we are - but also the little parts we have to recognize in order to see their connection to the 'tree trunk' and our commonness, our spiritual origin. I have been told that this is a First Nations way of thinking. That to find the universal, the tree of life, one must understand the roots of that tree, the soil and foundation in which the tree grows.
Certainly, I have realized that I have come to Canada not only to learn about First Nations but also from First Nations' culture and wisdom. The LUCID conference was a good start.
Thomas W. Nielsen
Reference:
Egan, K. (2005) An imaginative approach to teaching . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
