Noticing Water 1: Beginning with Reverence
What is reverence?
Reverence is the feeling of awe you experience when you are in the presence of something greater than yourself. It is one of the 4 principle R’s of Indigenous Storywork. Dr. Jo-ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem describes reverence as listening with the heart and holding the storyteller in the highest esteem (Archibald, 2008). This important feeling helps us become ready to learn from stories, or in other words, become “Storywork ready”.
The land holds stories as well. To learn from the land, you must be both a good listener and observer. It is our hope that this series of activities will allow you and your class to become Storywork ready. We would like to help you and your class understand and hopefully experience the R of reverence as you learn about and from one of the most important life-giving substances on our planet: Water.
The first place to begin is with the following short video that explains reverence and introduces our storyteller:
Video Link: Reverence and Noticing Water (5 mins)
After watching the video:
Time to do a little time travelling! Take a bit of quiet time and remember times you have spent with Water. You might want to have a class discussion and share your ideas.
Mouse Woman sneaks in…
Math has a way of sneaking in and helping out, just like Mouse Woman (Click here to know her better). This time we hope that math will help students make sense of the memories that everyone in the class will share! Specifically we will be sorting, comparing, looking for patterns of similarity, graphing, and counting to better understand what reverential feelings we might have experienced in the presence of water.