Place based pedagogies & learning from the land

Hi everyone,
Well the weather kept us out of the forest this week. But I thought I would post some ideas that were shared with me at the Nature Symposium I attended last weekend in Victoria BC. An Indigenous scholar from UBC (Dr. Michael Marker) shared some of the work of another Indigenous scholar from California -Dr. Leanne Hinton. Both of these scholars discuss the ways in which place (the land) has a story and an intimacy that can be shared with people. Michael also shared ideas and stories about the natural world teaching us. He also shared Leanne's song that she wrote that I think is quite marvellous. It might be a bit deep for 3-5 year olds but the message is clear--we are all but a small part of the microcosm of this world & certainly the refrain is a wonderful reminder of our role as people.

The Land Knows You're There

• (Leanne Hinton)       Refrain: For the land knows you're there
  

          And the land knows you're there

          And the rocks and trees and rivers

          Give you friendship and care

  
  I know some people who live in the north
  They've lived there since Columbus and many years before
  They live in the wilderness where few ever go
  But they say that in that land no one can be alone
  And every rock and tree has a name of its own
  You call out that you're coming as you journey through the land
  You never can be lonely, alone though you may seem
  For a tree is like a person and it keeps you company
  You give a happy greeting when you come to a spring
  As if it were a relative or a long-lost friend
  And when you've sat and rested and drunk your fill
  You give the spring a Thank you and a fond farewell
  When you come into a new land that you have never known
  You bend and touch the soil and you tell it why you've come
  You tell it where you're going, you tell it where you've been
  For they say that if you're kind to it the land will be your friend
  When a man is very old and his life is near its end
  He takes a final journey to say farewell to the land
  He tells it not to miss him and he tells it not to mourn
  But to learn to live without him when he is dead and gone
  This northern land is healthy, on love and care it thrives
  But back down in my home town, they forgot the land's alive
  They've polluted every river and they leveled every hill
  But underneath the concrete, the land is living still