My Creative Journal consisted of me jotting down notes and thoughts about stuff we did in class the past couple weeks. I enjoyed the article Friluftsliv: The Scandinavian Philosophy of Outdoor Life by Hans Gelter (2000). Friluftsliv, or “free air life”, as a philosophy makes sense. Nature is appreciated for nature’s sake; not as a commodity, or something utilitarian, or a conquest. It teaches us to avoid tokenism in outdoor education. My one reservation about Gelter’s article is he uses countryside nature in his examples because he comes from a place where it is in abundance. I would argue Friluftsliv can occur in your local park.

I also wrote about an old German proverb that shot into my head after reading the luft in friluftsliv. The saying is Stadtluft macht frei which translates to city air makes you free. The philosophy behind this statement is the vibrancy of a city creates a certain intellectual freedom and exchange of ideas between people. I wonder too if there is a more literal sense to the saying going back to the time of free cities and vassalage.  Both ideas just sort of represent the different sides of humanity, the social part that drives us to urbanization and our great cities, yet there is a part of us that looks back to nature to combat the perceived corruption that is inevitable with over-urbanization. Both are necessary to feed the mind and soul.

I also reflected on the outdoor activities we did as a class.  My group chose to do the 5 minute demonstration in which we were trying to save bees. Ten years ago, I might have felt foolish parading about; now, I don’t care. You’re in someone’s mind for a second and then out of it. Any embarrassment is one’s own projections. Also, as teachers, if you are afraid to look foolish, you might be in the wrong profession. The exercise made me think more about how you raise awareness of environmental issues. How many people really pay attention to that a kind of demonstration or do they dismiss it, as I do, as just noise? As future educators, I think we may have the best forum at our disposal to inform the public regarding environmental issues.

Finally, I jotted my ideas about interdisciplinary planning and thought back to the article by David Orr (2004) What is Education For? and about the line “All education is environmental education”. I think we all demonstrated with our unit plans how different issues are applicable within other subjects. While some subjects are more explicitly related to the environment, every thing we do in education is ultimately aimed at understanding our environment from mathematical models to philosophy. Essentially there is just one huge outcome and a plethora of indicators.

References

Gelter H., (2000). Friluftsliv: The Scandinavian Philosophy of Outdoor Life. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education. 5(1), 77-90.

 Orr, David. (2004). What is Education For? In Earth in Mind, p. 7-15. Washignton DC: First Island Press.

This week, on the walks to and from my car, I noticed an increase in my sightings of migratory Canadian Geese heading south for the winter. During our stillness exercise this week, the trend continued as I watched four groups fly overhead. However, the neat thing about these sightings was I could hear as the wind whipped around the geese’s bodies and wings. It wasn’t the first time I’ve heard that sound, but it has been awhile.

Part of my understanding of nature is related to birds. The birds signify the changing of the season. If I wanted, I suppose I could refer to winter as the time after the birds fly south. This thought process was triggered by Joseph Naytowhow’s story of the elder who spoke of the treaty in analogies. I forget the other two, but I remember the analogy of “as long as the grass grows”. Essentially, in Western parlance, this could be described as the treaties being agreements lasting in perpetuity. This shows the difference between Western and Aboriginal perspective. In this case, aboriginal interpretation of the treaties is an expression of their relationship with nature. Conversely, using the word perpetuity is expressive of a term more familiar with law or finance (i.e. cash flows with an infinite horizon). So for me, Joseph highlighted the importance of discussing language in Treaty Ed and Environmental Education.

Understanding how Aboriginals use their language can be a great insight for Treaty Ed and to Environmental Education. The classic cliché of the Inuit (I’m aware they are not part of any treaties) is they have 50+ words for snow. The reality is they are not synonyms, rather they have a word for snow that clumps, snow that flakes, snow that crunches underfoot, etc. Their intimacy with their arctic environment facilitated this way of thinking. A similar situation existed with First Nations as they too lived closely with their natural environment. Consequently, the environment is central to their understanding of the world as it has been passed down from previous generations. Without EE, student’s understanding of Treaty Ed is limited because they can only understand one side of the conversation.

The biggest resistance of the day for me came with the rattle and powwow type singing. I have never enjoyed the music styling of First Nations. Frankly, it’s part of why I do not overly enjoy their cultural performances. However, this is more of an aesthetic resistance than a resistance by my ego. (By aesthetics, I am not referring to aesthetics as created through my Western socialization, but rather the pure discomfort I feel from hearing the music; the same discomfort I get from certain styles of Western music.)