SPIRIT OF THE SOUND
Multidisciplinary Arts and Aboriginal Traditions Initiative
Glen Orchard Public School
April/June 2010
Project Coordinator: Jamie-Lee New
Spirit of the Sound began with Ojibway Storyteller Aaron Bell on Friday April 16th, 2010. Aaron graced all students of Glen Orchard with his comedic, engaging, and highly entertaining teachings of First Nations culture based upon the Ontario Ministry of Education requirements. Students in Kindergarten to Grade 3 were brought the gift of imagination and the teachings of Elder Brother Animals. Grade 4-6 students were told how the First Nations first arrived on Turtle Island, and about the First European contact. Grade 7's and 8's were told teachings of the First Man, First Woman, Haida Nation, moral responsibility, friendship, self confidence, and respect.
Aaron Bell addresses the Grade 7 & 8 students
Following Aaron's full day of storytelling, the Grade 6, 7, and 8's received a week of intensive in-class arts workshops based on their learning from Aboriginal teachings, Earth Day, and our relationship with Mother Nature. Shirley Hay, an Aboriginal artist from Wahta Mohawk Territory, and non-Aboriginal artist Mark Sepic, were paired with the grade 6, 7, and 8 teachers Christine Lewis, Ricki Crothers, and Cynthia Michaud in the planning, development, and implementation of the project. The students explored questions around interconnectedness, how we are connected to the earth and animals, and how we can better take care of them. Non-Aboriginal artist Krysia Bower was also involved in the project, not only filling the role of photographer and videographer, but also leading workshops in block printing. The pairing of artists with classroom teachers provided professional development opportunities for both artists and teachers. It also allowed the students to see the teachers and artists modeling appropriate interaction, language, respect and cultural collaboration.
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L - R: Shirley Hay and students; Mark Sepic; Woodblock Prints
Mark Sepic brought his skills as a musician into the classrooms and taught the students about garbage, recycling, and how we can reuse things by turning them into musical instruments. His motto: "fight garbage with garbage!" Mark helped the students create kazoos, drums, guitars, and shakers with all of the garbage and recycled materials that were collected from their homes. Not only were the students engaged in conserving, reusing, and taking care of our earth, they also used their creative thinking and problem solving skills to create their own unique and new instruments out of these otherwise wasted materials. Once the instruments were completed, students were engaged in learning beats, rhythms, and songs using their new instruments. In another fun workshop, Mark taught students how to make music with their bodies and together they created exciting rhythms.
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Shirley Hay brought her knowledge of Aboriginal traditions as well as her skills as a musician and visual artist into the classroom. She taught the students about the Medicine Wheel, who we are as humans, and what our purpose is in taking care of Mother Earth. Along with participating in a smudge ceremony, singing, and dancing, the students created human dream catchers while discussing positive things we can do for the earth and ourselves. They also created 4 large sized dream catchers symbolizing each direction on the Medicine Wheel - North, East, South and West, and all that they stand for. They placed objects and meaningful items onto each dream catcher symbolizing fire, water, plants, air, minerals, etc.
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Towards the end of all their teachings, Shirley Hay assisted all three grades of students in coming up with a song to represent what they learned over the course of the project.
First Verse:
We are Earth Keepers of Glen Orchard,
Way yah hey yah, Way yah hey yah way.
The 3 R's our motto and care of the planet,
We honor Mother Earth and all of creation,
We offer our greetings to all our relations.
Chorus:
We are Earth Keepers of Glen Orchard
We like to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
We need the Earth for all of our uses
We'll take care of her forever and ever!
On Earth Day all students and teachers gathered in the gymnasium at Glen Orchard Public School for a celebration of the Grade 6, 7, & 8's teachings and creations. The students presented their Dream Catchers and what they symbolized, and performed their new Earth song for the school.
Following Part I of the project, Shirley Hay returned to the school to continue teaching the students about Aboriginal traditions, and to create a performance for Aboriginal Day with the help of teacher-artists Barbara Leek and Jen Morgan Anderson. Shirley had the students head out into the forest to listen to the Earth, feel their heart beat, and find their own rhythm. From these feelings, each class brought their sounds together and created rhythms with rattles, drums, bells, shakers, xylophones, voices, chimes, marimbas and some of the instruments they had created in Part I.
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For Aboriginal Day, the grade 6, 7, and 8's returned to the gymnasium to showcase the new song they came up with. Along with their performance, Shirley Hay and the Singing Birds from Wahta Mohawks sang Aboriginal songs, provided teachings on the origins of Wahta, the Hiawatha's belt, the importance of strawberries, and then finished their presentation off with servings of homemade strawberry drink.
Special thanks to all the artists and teachers for their hard work, as well as Carol Holmes (Wahta- Education), Rob Dennys (Glen Orchard P.S. Principal), Shelley Mierle (TLDSB- Aboriginal Project Officer), Marian Archibald (UBC- Ph.D. Candidate), ArtsSmarts, and Gayle Dempsey and Gary Froude (Muskoka Lakes Music Festival) for making this invaluable project come to life!