Feb. 15, 2023

I was given the gift of time to think with our ethos and Inquirey today! Thank you everyone.

I am sharing with you some of the trouble I got into 🙂

While diving into thinking with, How to Language Dance within our Sitka Place Ethos?, I fell into a rabbit hole of reading Erin Mannings book, “Always More Than One * Individuation’s Dance”. In her book Erin Manning speaks about this video “In My Language” by Amanda Baggs (2007). This is a two part video at minute 3:12 there is a written “translation”. This video gives a movement languaging perspective within neuordivergence.

“In this two part video Baggs first creates a sound-sensing environment by moving through space while activating and being-activated by the welling enviro-mentality of the milieu. She moves slowly and carefully, touching, smelling, sounding the environment. Then in part two she challenges the notion that by “translating” this experience into spoken language she will make it more “complex” or “more real”.

”In my Language” does not reject language out right. What it does is use first movement and sensation and then language to inquire our tendency to place language as the determinant of experience. Why would we assume that language can touch every aspect of experience” – Manning

During our last staff meeting we continued to think about our Inquiry and how to start our collective letter to request time with an Elder/Knowledge Keeper at The First Peoples House. I noticed myself feeling tensions and impatience with the feeling of not doing enough or being fast enough in my role as an educator working with the Early Learning Framework which asks “What can I do to ensure that the diversity of Indigenous cultures are recognized and reflected in my program?”. I also felt tension with wanting to recognize the importance of the labour and time it takes to maintain situated, careful, respectful, relationships of unlearning and stumbling together. How do I move away from deficit thinking to working with the idea of holding each other up? (Denis Hodgins) Can it be by moving together within action? I feel activated by the word ACTION. What will this co-labouring letter writing process activate?

“Being and worlding depend on the acitivity of reaching toward” Erin Manning

During our meeting, I was reminded of the Colloquium in London Ontario that I attended in 2020. One Key note speaker was Alexis Shotwell “Education without Extractivism”. Alexis Shotwell asks political, ethical questions about “intellectual extractivisms” and “How do we craft modes of being that do not extract Indigenous ways of thinking?”

Here is the link….. https://www.youtube.com/embed/KxbUjXS2E7M

These were my reflective notes back in 2020….feels like a lifetime ago!!

Reflection – The idea of “Intellectual Extractivism” created much curiosity within my practice. This helped me grapple with my privilege. I now wonder how, where and when do I extract knowledge? When is it my place? When is it not my place? How can I become more ethical within my relationships with others knowledges that is respectful of boundries? This allows me to be more comfortable in sitting with the uncomfort of not knowing. I now see how stealing and consumption of knowledge is just as damaging as stealing land, people and culture. How will I practice a new careful, respectful, reciprocal, responsible relationship with others knowledges as a white settler?

Group Ethos Brainstorming from all of us during our last staff meeting in no particular order, Copied from our “Thinking” wall.

Sitka Place Pedagogical Commitments – Relationship (more than human, families, community, children team, self, uvic, other centres), TRC – Calls to Action, Belonging, Questioning with Curiosity, Being present, (micro) moment (s), De-Romantasize, Arts, Re-Active, Intention, Mindful, Activate Self-Worth-Value-Love, Reflective, Equity, Not child centred but still individuality respected, Knowledge of multiple concepts, improve vocabulary, learn from other professions, Open (ess), Horizontal Encounters, Political, Ethical, Listening, Communication (listening, verbal, non verbal, touch, movement), Welcoming, Boundries (consent, rights, A Practice, De-Centering(child,teacher,environment, more than human) Attunement, Collaborative, Connection, Respectful, Unlearning, EnJOYment, Emotion, Care-full, Inclusive, Images we hold.

Adding more ideas towards beginning to compose our Ethos……

Working as a team we Question, What does it mean to live well, together within difference?

Inquiry, professional development

Materials

Most of our Program is outdoors ….speak to Weathering, Climate change, Movement, Walks to Campus, FPH, Water Fountain, Galleries in the Humanities Building, Haro Woods, Beach

How we work with art, clay, paint, sketching, dance studio, music, photography, the atrium space, thinking otherwise with children.

Dance Language – improvisational movement that is both spontaneous and intentional, embodiment, a coming to be, relational, collaborative, collective research-creation,

Working with taking care of , Stories, Thinking otherwise, in between, noticing/missing, sticky knots, slowing down, planting, cultivating plants, seeds, labouring, experimenting with time.

The Chair

The team at Juniper Place, decided to add a big blue chair to the office so that the educators could have a comfortable chair to relax in during their breaks and when they need to meet one on one.

The chair is located beside the good-bye window where the children get to say good-bye and see their loved ones (Mommy and/or Daddy) go out of the gate when they start their day inside.

So what do we see? …. A comfortable chair for the educators?

Well, it has become more than that….

It has become a chair to sit on when some children arrive with big feelings, where friends and siblings come together to share a book, look out into the yard, or to support each other.

The chair has welcomed the children into the office, making it a welcoming place just like all the other rooms at Juniper Place. The chair offers all kinds of invitations to show love, share empathy and explore the unknown. It also offers time to share stories with the educators, creating conversations that have come to develop a stronger relationship among the educators and the children at Juniper Place.

As I reflect on this, I have been wondering whether those insects, birds, squirrels, deer and other non-humans in our neighboring community would also have a certain tree, branch, rock, lamp post or a spot in the forest to sit on and what feelings it might bring them.

So go ahead, sit on the chair, enjoy the moment!