Faculty of Education Education News Fall 2011 / Winter 2012 Page 15
Kelly Polaski explains math connections in drum-making activity
ect , students learn and demonstrate various math skills including : radius , circumference , and angles . They learn to identify parts of the animal and aspects of its habitat . When the project is finished , Vee explains to the students that they have been doing math . The youth are surprised that they have shown ability and competence in math , something they may have seen as irrelevant as a subject in school . Vee and Kelly are working to develop chemical formulas for the process of tanning the hide . They are developing resources , lesson plans , and collecting pictures so that anyone in a public school system can teach in the same way .
Vee is careful to show how the creation story frames all of his lessons and stories . His lessons emphasize values such as respect , wisdom , and humility . For instance , each spring the students raise a teepee . Each pole of the teepee represents values that are necessary for a good home , for good relations . While learning the traditional stories , students are representing what they learn . As an example , while learning the story of the Corn People , students are growing traditional , sacred corn in the classroom , measuring the growth , and eventually grinding the flour and making it into food .
Field trips are also an important element of their curriculum . They travel to historic monuments around Fort Qu ’ Appelle , and ask questions about treaties . Kelly has done some research and has found where Treaty 4 was signed . He has found that there were supposed to be 16 Chiefs who signed Treaty 4 but he can only find 13 signatures . “ This is a research project for any kid in any school — investigative learning , this is it !” says Kelly .
As they continue envisioning a horizontal curriculum , they are excited by the possibilities . Kelly says , “ Rick gave us a challenge : Relate the curriculum to Native culture and to the present .... None of this would have happened the way it did without our conversation with Rick--He led the way .”
Canada ’ s Influential Edutweeters
Dr . Alec Couros , Faculty of Education , U of R ( and his brother in Alberta ) as well as on-going Sessional Instructor , Dean Shareski , are at the top of the list of “ Some of Canada ’ s Influential Edutweeters ” in an article by Max Cooke in Education Canada ( Spring , 2012 , p . 21-22 ). The article is also on the Education Canada website .
Graduate Summer Institute in Education
Anti-Oppressive Education & Teacher Activism : How Far Will You Go ? July 3 – 24 , 2012
Common Morning Course : EC & I 822 : Anti-Oppressive Education and Teacher Activism with Dr . Carol Schick Each student will choose one of three afternoon courses that will be linked thematically to the morning course : ED 800 : Introduction to Educational Research with Dr . Mia Perry EC & I 804 : Curriculum Development with Dr . Xia Ji EC & I 808 : Instruction : Theory and Practice with Dr . Shawn Holmes
Registration form : http :// education . uregina . ca / assets / documents / edgrad / Courses / 2012 SummerInstitutePoster . pdf