Module 4: Living Inquiries – Engagement with Others, Materials, and the World

Reconnection to Land and Place

Children and educators consider what it means to be in relationship with land. This includes the stories of land that are shared and the stories that have been silenced.

Critically Reflective Questions

• How might I contribute to children’s reconnection with land and place?
• What does it mean to be in relationship with land? To be of a place?
• Whose stories of land are told and whose have been silenced?
• What are the local Indigenous stories of the land?
  • In what ways might the stories be different from those you know?

• What are the children’s stories of the land?
• Think about how childhood and nature have been idealized or romanticized in Western thought:
  • What examples can you think of?
• Do idealized notions of childhood and nature appear in my practice? In my community?
• Consider a common worlds framework.
  • How might I begin a dialogue with colleagues and invent new pedagogies together?
• Think about worldviews and how people are shaped by them:
  • How might I begin to consider the worldviews of others?

  Case Study: Reconnection to land and place

  During a nature hike in Haida Gwaii, a mother and her 7-year old daughter noticed fallen leaves, but also blooming trees. They found a huge thimble berry (guugadiis) leaf with two “eyes” on it. The daughter held the leaf up to her face like a mask. Along the way, the daughter was able to identify plants that she had learned from a Haida Knowledge Keeper and Elder. She told her mother how to harvest some of the plants. They were sharing traditional knowledge and stories that had been passed down.

  Reflective Question

  In her description of the nature walk, the mother says, “This daughter of mine has a great creative imagination. Our relationship grows stronger while on these hikes. We can have meaningful conversations while we are playing together. This connection to the land is hopefully one she will always remember.”

  How might you contribute to children’s connections with land and place?