Creative Journal 4: Our stories

After moving to Regina, I miss seeing some of my favorite places from Montreal.  One of the most beautiful attractive place : Saint Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal, National Historic Site of Canada.  This church is situation where I used to live, not too far from m parents home.  It is situated on the mountain and each time I used to go I could see my neighborhood from the top.  It was breathtaking each time I went.  I never thought of how this church was related to the Indigenous Peoples of Canada.  I never noticed more stories related to it, or how other stories are connected to the land the church was built.  Because it is always a popular tourist attraction, so people tend to see the beauty of it rather than the deep history. 

I always learned the stories in an anthropocentric way, and in this case the Eurocentric way.  But I only found this out when I performed the Blanket Exercise from my EsCI class.  This gave me the opportunity to concentrate on the narratives of Canada, and to “ think with a story is to experience its affecting one’s own life and to find in that effect a certain truth of one’s life” (p.177).  Therefore, doing the Blanket Exercise helped me to see the value of others perspectives.  Because we only “learn the most about a situation by participating in and/or being immersed in it” (p.178).  And as human beings we need to understand that it is important to do so for a clear understanding Indigenous stories.  However, engaging my future students to different historical stories will create “enhanced knowledge of place”; “realization”, and “engaged emotions” (p.179).  Once humans feel the emotions, and others perspective, they can embody any stories.

 References

 Curthoys, L., Cuthburtson, B., & Clark, J. (2012). Community Story Circles: An opportunity to rethink the epistemological approach to heritage interpretive planning. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 17, 173-187.