Bits and Bytes

In June 1992, Patrick Logan and Brian Metcalfe were fortunate to attend a workshop that Brenda Longclaws, Aboriginal Education Consultant, organized for all coordinators and consultants in our Division. Brenda arranged for Rosemary Ackley-Christensen, Director of the Indian Education Department of the Minneapolis Public Schools, to speak to us about aboriginal education and meeting the needs of all our children in our classes.

Rosemary provided a very enlightened workshop which gave us a better understanding of the aboriginal culture and how we might better support educators working with aboriginal children. Brian particularly remembers one story that Rosemary related. She asked us how we as educators would traditionally reward younger children who had completed assignments or who did well on various tests. We generally agreed, of course, that all younger children love to get “stickers” on their papers as feedback for a job well done. Rosemary went on to explain that aboriginal children did not view the “happy face” in the same way that other children might.

Rosemary spent a great deal of time with aboriginal children determining what types of “stickers” might provide them with the “warm fuzzies” that are so important to young children. When Rosemary was told that “my grandma’s smiling face makes me feel good” or that “I feel safe in my grandpa’s arms”, by young children, she started to make up stickers with pictures of elders to which the younger aboriginal child could better relate. With so much of the learning of an aboriginal child dependent on the visual as opposed to the auditory process, Rosemary began collecting and designing clip art which she could introduce into classrooms.

Patrick Logan asked if Rosemary would be willing to share a copy of her clip art masters with him. She graciously agreed and Patrick spent a great deal of time scanning in these images and converting them to .jpg format.  A good deal of the graphics include the faces of children, with images ranging from blossoms, leaves, pine trees, feathers, eagles, rabbits, and other animals.

Originally written by: Brian Metcalfe, 1992

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