Embracing an Indigenous World View in Life and in Education

As part of a land-based learning experience with Professor Tricia McGuire-Adams, I wrote this reflection.

It’s not often that we’re asked to stop and think about why we live our lives the way we do, or what life means beyond living and breathing, beyond existing in a time and a place. Furthermore, considering our orientations to life and the world as either stagnant and full of things to discover or everchanging. Little Bear spoke to a part within myself that I think has been beneath the surface the whole time but not quite awoken. This part of myself may be generations old but it is very real and relevant – only has been disconnected through technology. I’d like to tell you a story,

• I once wrote an essay about how the evolution of technology will lead to the regression of mankind and Little Bear’s discussion and my land-based experience reminded me of that. People choose to ignore our regression in blind determined efforts to perfection. They choose to ignore their relationships, their mental health, and their emptiness. They fill voids with temporary satisfaction and distraction. When you look around and hear no beeping or buzzing, you’re in the right place. You’ve found your escape from a false reality. It’s the place that stays constant, unlike time and man’s creations. You crave the land and its offerings, you use it, abuse it, and look to your offspring to solve things. People come into this world as babies and they go out without their belongings. When you step outside into a natural setting, you might hear crackling branches or the odd bird chirping but you’re not irritated by the distraction of the rail tracks humming. Humming – more like growling with eagerness and hunger, people everywhere taking the easy way out, escalators and staring at screens are what it’s about. You hold the door and you get a smile, your heart thumps. A human interaction instead of a meaningless buzz or beep from your phone, or a meaningless text you need to read with your own voice tone. Our thinking, feeling, and acting, or organization within society – our ways of being have become so refined that we’ve almost reached perfection. We’re well on our way there – but have you asked yourself what does perfection look like? It’s not you. It’s artificial, photoshopped skin, picturesque landscapes, unrealistically thin. The more we disconnect with the land the thinner we get in every aspect of our being. We need to go back to warm embraces and snow touching our faces. We’re on our way to extinction.

That poem or story is the only way I could express my reaction to this week’s land-based learning experience. As I sat in the snow in the forest behind my house (St. Pascal), I began to realize the value of land in our holistic development. I realize that there is something about being outside away from our constructed reality that opens the door to deeper learnings and understandings. My land-based experience allowed me to write creatively; this exercise could be repeated with an English class (my second teachable).

Questions from the Video and Land-Based Experience

1. Will our western ways of thinking lead to the regression or destruction of mankind and Indigenous ways of thinking offer a sustainable solution?

2. What can we do daily reconnect ourselves with the land? How does our sense of time change in nature?