Reading Reflection Kallis, S. (2014). Building for Change from the Ground Up. In Common threads: Weaving community through collaborative eco-art. essay, New Society Publishers.
The excerpt of this book begins with a brief introduction of what community garden initiatives in Vancouver and asks the questions" "Beyond food, what if we began to make some of the things that we need for ourselves again as a cultural and social norm?" (p. 19.) Newer towns are being built around the idea of humans as consumers but could also be geared towards supporting production and consumption. Kallis suggests using our power as purchasers to ask questions about what we are buying and dictate the type of consumerism we want. Currently, our needs for food, clothing and shelter are being met by others who are doing the work, likely in factories. Through striving to meet our own needs we can learn these skills that have been lost.
There is a quote box on the last page of this excerpt from a community participant that really stood out to me (see below). I have seen students on their brand new iPhones, online shop in the middle of class and use their parents credit card to purchase whatever they want. This was crazy to me as I would never have been allowed to do that when I was growing up. When children and youth have these abilities to buy whatever they want when they want it, it definitely becomes an issue and an ongoing cycle of purchasing the newest trends even when the item they previously bought is fully functional. Even for me now as an adult I need to think about purchasing something for quite a while before I do, unless it is something I need.
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| Quote seen in Kallis (2014, p. 22) |
Thinking about making our own food or clothing, I was thinking about how I know school gardens are in some of the schools around me but since I was in high school they have taken out the textiles program. I grew up sewing with my mom and loved taking textiles in high school, in grade 8 and 9 we had a combined 'home -economics' course with both textiles and foods and in senior classes we could take each course fully. In these classes we learned a lot of life skills and learned how to make our own clothing - I still have some of the things I made. I think this may just be due to lack of teachers for a textiles course where I live but I wonder how else we can teach students to make things of their own.
Questions
- How can we teach students to ask the questions about where their items are coming from when they have the power to purchase whatever they want at the click of a button?
- What are some other ways aside from school gardens that we can teach and encourage students to relearn these lost skills and make things for personal use?
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Activity: Multi strand braid
It is very snowy here today so I couldn't forage for any items, I decided to try the multi strand braid. I know how to braid my hair with 3 strands but have never tried more than that.
I started with a 7 strand braid as seen the
video. This was challenging for me, I used different colours to see all the seven strands but struggled to hold all strands in my hands and found that if I let them go the braid would be quite loose. I think this would have been easier if I had used a thicker string like macrame yarn as seen in the video.
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setting up the braid
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| Beginnings of a seven strand braid |
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| seven strand braid |
I then tried to make a four strand braid, this one was easier to keep ahold of and I was able to feel the weaving and patterns in this. I liked how naturally I was able to complete this braid as it required less concentration and frustration.
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| four strand braid |
Reflection
Knowing that this 'activity' has been done for tens of thousands of years is empowering, doing the craft made me "really appreciate how lovely and skilled these technologies are" (Jerofsky, 2024). I think it is fun that we are able to continue on these crafting techniques and teach younger generations about them. Learning these skills allowed me to see the skill and concentration that many generations have gone through to learn. These crafts must have true integrity to be able to withstand and be passed on for so many years, I wonder how long they will continue to be learned and passed on.
As I was trying the braiding I was able to see the patterns and counting involved in the movements. For the four stranded braid there was a clear over under, under over pattern. With the seven strand braid, while this one was less natural for me, I could count the under one over two pattern on each side.
I currently work in classrooms of all ages in four different schools so don't have my own group of students. I have seen some quite complex mathematical ideas associated with braiding (like this or this). I was thinking about how braiding could be used in an elementary classroom aside from looking at patterns and I thought about skip counting. Students could braid and count each time they put the left strand over.
Connecting to a larger project idea for upper elementary, students could braid old fabrics together and make rugs or sleeping mats. These could connect to a social justice project as well and students could give away the sleeping pads to those experiencing homelessness. These could also be made into dog beds for animal shelters or students could even make braided sit spots for their classrooms outside explorations. In each of these activities the students would need to calculate how much materials they would need and how large they need their mat or rug to be.
While I didn't try the upcycled activity this week, it reminded me of when I was in grade 5/6 and we participated in a project where we were to take recycled or items that couldn't be used again and made them into something new. Like in the introduction we were tasked "to make useful and delightful things from what would otherwise have been considered waste." This is something that I still remember today and I still have the project that I made, it is a great way to connect to Earth day and allow students to see the ways that they can use objects that are often considered garbage or useless.
Hi Jodi,
ReplyDeleteI tried the 7-strand braid this week, too, but I really like the pattern that emerged in your 4-strand braid. I was annoyed that the colours in my 7-strand braid didn't make a more interesting pattern, even when I set up the strands in a way that I thought might create an interesting pattern. I wonder if that is another way to engge kids in this process - have them estimate what the finished product might look like. I like the idea of using the braid as a skip counting tool, and could see how that might then be used to help understanding multiplication as well.
In Cynthia's last class, my final project centered around the environmental impacts of the fashion industry. I like the idea of upcycling end-of-life clothing as a way to stop those items from ending up burned or in landfills. By creating something that others can use (especially those who are less fortunate) is a great way to tie in social justice with mathematics. In discussions about where our "things" come from - and how far they have to travel to make their way to us - we can have students start to make those connections.