I. General Information
School Name: Horse Lake Elementary
School District: SD#27 Cariboo-Chilcotin
Inquiry Team Members: Lisa Pugh: lisa.pugh@sd27.bc.ca
Joe Archie: joseph.archie@canimlakeband.com
Ida Scarpelli: principal@canimlakeband.com
Andrea Silani: andrea.siliani@canimlakeband.com
Inquiry Team Contact Email: lisa.pugh@sd27.bc.ca
II. Inquiry Project Information
Type of Inquiry: NOIIE Case Study
Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Intermediate (4-7)
Curricular Areas Addressed: Applied Design, skills & Technology, Arts Education, Language Arts – Oral Language, Mathematics / Numeracy, Physical & Health Education, Social Studies
Focus Addressed: Indigenous understandings (for example, Traditional Knowledge, oral history, reconciliation), Community-based learning, Core competencies (for example, critical thinking, communication, problem solving), Experiential learning, First Peoples Principles of Learning, Indigenous pedagogy, Inquiry-based learning, Land, Nature or Place-based learning, STEM / STEAM
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? To apply numeracy skills, creative/critical thinking, and problem solving through the experience of carving a Secwepemc Cottonwood dugout canoe to see if we can increase student motivation, sense of belonging, and engagement with numeracy.
III. Spirals of Inquiry Details
Scanning: Learners gave varied responses to “Where are they going?” with their numeracy. Many kids had specific ideas about what they needed to focus on in math; for example, in fractions or geometry, some students said they needed to focus on that because they wanted to get into carpentry or they felt it was important for their future. The students who responded “Not Great” to “How are you doing?” with numeracy, as expected, were below grade level and they were open about their struggles with math. Students that replied very positively to how they were doing, were indeed doing well, as seen by their class/provincial assessments. Students were honest and self aware of their feelings and actions related to numeracy in terms of reflecting achievements, but they also gave their opinions not just about scores and grades, but about how easy or hard it was for them to solve problems and work through numeracy applications.
The “Where to next?” question was again targeting particular areas like algebra and geometry, which happened to be upcoming areas that we had not visited yet. They also know that algebra ramps up more in grade 7, so I think they were thinking that it is an area where they must go. Some said really specific things like “BEDMAS”, others were a little more general, like “Geometry”. Some students gave answers to how they would improve their numeracy skills like “practice more” or “do my homework”, while others wanted to challenge themselves and try harder problems. Others said things like “attend school more” or “IDK”. Knowing how to improve was not easily articulated.
In terms of naming two adults who believe they can be a success in life, out of 23 grade 7 students, there were 3 that didn’t think there were any adults in the building that believed in them, which was disheartening; however, this survey was done in October, so those attitudes of two of the three did change over the course of the year. One student, in particular, worked very closely and clandestinely with an EA on basic skills, connected and attached to that EA and myself, and after eight months finally began to trust that we had their back.
The First Peoples Principles of Learning tenets that I thought about when deciding what to do with the information I was given from these four scanning questions were:
– Learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential, and relational (focussed on connectedness, on reciprocal relationships, and a sense of place).
– Learning ultimately supports the well being of the self, the family, the community, the land, the spirits, and the ancestors.
– Learning involves recognizing the consequences of one’s actions.
– Learning involves generational roles and responsibilities.
– Learning recognizes the role of Indigenous knowledge.
– Learning is embedded in memory, history and story.
– Learning involves patience and time.
– Learning requires exploration of one’s identity.
The scanning told us we needed to foster students’ sense of belonging at school, to foster their skills and feelings of mastery in numeracy, and to increase their understanding of why and how one finds their passion and engagement with learning. Passion and intrinsic motivation are often found when we can see ourselves, our interests, our family, community, and land/area in what we are learning because those things are relevant to our lives. We needed a project that reflected the local community, that utilized traditional Indigenous knowledge, and that allowed students to try out numeracy skills that were real-world and applicable to their reality. Our everyday math curriculum certainly didn’t reflect the FPPL, but our project sure did!
Focus: The scanning told us we needed to foster students’ sense of belonging at school, to foster their skills and feelings of mastery in numeracy, and to increase their understanding of why and how one finds their passion and engagement with learning. Passion and intrinsic motivation are often found when we can see ourselves, our interests, our family, community, and land/area in what we are learning because those things are relevant to our lives. We needed a project that reflected the local community, that utilized traditional Indigenous knowledge, and that allowed students to try out numeracy skills that were real-world and applicable to their reality. The changes for our learners that we hoped for, were for students to work in a hands-on experiential way to learn about circumference: apply pi, calculate the area of a circle and the area of a cylinder, and be able to do it with a real 3D object – a massive 3D log. They had purpose to their learning and a legacy that they were aware would occur. They knew that they were creating something, something big to a lot of people in the local community and beyond. They were aware that they would be the ones testing this canoe and that their measurements mattered because we would use those measurements to make decisions about where to carve and how to carve. The proper functioning of the canoe, like the ability to steer it and ride in it smoothly, started with the math. This carving process required us all to recognize the role of Indigenous knowledge; to use patience and time; to look to Elders’ memories, history, and story; to develop a sense of place; to involve family and community; and to respect and relate to the land, spirits and ancestors.
Hunch:
- Horse Lake mathematics curriculum involves paper, Youtube, Smartboards, textbooks, whiteboards, manipulatives, collaborations and problem solving, but it doesn’t involve creating large scale legacy projects that build relationships to the land community and Indigenous knowledge.
- Often kids are just going through the motions of learning, but not actually learning. To learn really deeply and engage on a level that touches the heart, we wanted to do something that required a thematic multi-disciplinary use of numeracy with a local cultural purpose, that again gave purpose to the learning.
New Professional Learning:
- We sought out Elders and knowledge-keepers to make sure that we were on the right track. Brenda Celesta, an Indigenous teacher in SD73 (Kamloops), had done this project a few time before and she was very helpful with advice and recommendations about the process and how to incorporate math into it.
- We sought the advice of Dr. Christine Younghusband, who really drove home the point that our assessments didn’t have to be rigorous pre-test/post-test style proof of learning. She explained that we could decolonize our assessments to look at how our kids improved not only in their numeracy skills related to circumference and measurement through observation, but also in their feelings and attitudes towards numeracy through discussion. I agreed that if we are to truly embrace Indigenous ways of knowing and being and Indigenous pedagogy, we need to also think about Indigenous assessment. How do we know we have learned something? Through our impact on the community and our feelings and our words about our learning, not just through a test score.
Taking Action:
- We held a few meetings to figure out funding, who would do what, and source tools and materials.
- We had students look at pi, circumference and area of a cylinder in their regular text book, and with the usual pedagogy of Smartboard, whiteboards, Youtube, etc.
- Then we went outside and practised what we learned with the log by measuring in both inches and centimetres, as many kids and family members work in inches (including our knowledge-keeper). After taking measurements and recording them, we used chalk lines and started carving. Knowledge-keepers, Elders, and family members of students all became involved.
- We also visited each other’s canoes to carve and make friendships. We used some power tools to finish the ends and cut off weight, students were well aware that we needed to get as much weight off the canoe as possible so that it would float, and we talked about design and how the hull should look as well as the stern and bow shapes. We listened to Elder stories and ate together, and in the end we all gathered together at a local lake to test the canoes. We had a large ceremony and blessed the canoes (again). We had an RCMP skipper the kids, as they tried out their creations. In the end, I gifted our canoe to our knowledge-keeper, Joe Archie, which was a very hard thing to do, but also a very traditional thing to do. Joe said the Horse Lake canoe will go into a new Sewepemc museum being built at the 108 Mile, while Eliza Archie’s canoe will be hung from the rafters in the school.
Photo descriptions: (Top) Canoe carving day. (Bottom) Canoe testing day with the two canoes.
Checking: This project was more than a numeracy project; this project was a once in a lifetime opportunity to connect, to learn, and to leave a legacy in our hearts and our minds. Kids will not forget what a diameter is or that you need that to find the distance around the outside of the circle. We talked so much about the 31 inch diameter and how massive our log was, and how the top of the log had a different diameter than the bottom because trees are bigger at the bottom. We all seemed to transition to inches and feet naturally, which is real world math in a nutshell! Did students learn math and increase engagement in numeracy and develop a sense of belonging–oh yes, this project bound us together and created friendships between a band school and a mostly non-Indigenous rural public school. Learners know that adults care about them (more than two), and adults from different schools and communities as well. The answers to “where are you going with your learning” were basically about how math is useful for building and creating and making things, and that it does have a purpose in life and meaning to people as a tool to do and create cool things.
Reflections/Advice: I learned that I must use experiential, relevant, real-world examples with my curriculum; we as humans need to touch, smell, hear and see things to make sense of them, no matter how complex. I learned that reaching out to local Indigenous knowledge-keepers, and creating those connections, can be such a powerful learning experience for both non-Indigenous and Indigenous learners. I learned that I don’t have to prove learning with a test, I can prove learning with anecdotal responses and how one feels about their learning. I would recommend this project, but give yourself more time. Time was the most important thing we needed during this whole process. We realized that a few months is crazy short for this project, and one needs at least six months to do this without feeling rushed, like we felt.