I was excited to see net making as an option for trying this week, because my family has generations of fishers and boatbuilders. I remember when I was quite young, gillnets hung in the basement to be mended. This would be done by hand, going through section by section of the net. It was slow, rhythmic work. When I was in my early teens, licensing for fishing in our province underwent a change to better accommodate management and sustainability of the resource. Fishers could only choose one method for which to fish by with their license, and my family chose troll. Gillnets and net making/mending are no longer a part of family routines. A generational skill has been lost with me. This activity gave me a chance to try and appreciate the skill my ancestors were once so fluid with. The patterning is actually quite simple, but the material I had was not the best. It was slippery and the knots did not hold well, leading to the end product being mis-shappen - but the general idea is there :)
This made me think of other generational skills that are becoming lost. For example, the school I work in no longer has a textiles/sewing class and I do not know how to thread a sewing machine. Having never lived outside of the city, I also do not know how to break down a whole chicken into parts; I just buy the cut I want at the grocery store. My family only owned automatic vehicles since I learned to drive, so I cannot drive standard. I will not be passing any of these skills on to my daughters and they will likely not learn them in school. Will we come to a time when these skills are lost altogether? Or only belong to a select few?
It was interesting to see, in Aström & Aström (2021), that rope and cordage have such a long history with our species but that much of that history comes from secondary artifacts (imprints, paintings, etc.) because fibers degrade over time. It highlights the need for these cultural knowledges to be passed down generationally so that they are not lost. I like that the Q’eswachaka bridge, shown in our viewings, is rebuilt annually with the whole community. It builds in a continuity of knowledge, and not just for specific individuals but for the whole community. Today, we have written records as well, but I don’t think that these are the same. In the video clip Closed by Hand, ropemaker Ingunn says, “the knowledge is in the body and in the hands. I had to learn how.” Do written records capture this wholly?
It made me think, what practices do I want to do as annual traditions with my family? With the community? Should we be doing some of these things at school? What could that look like? I feel as though the knowledge that I have to pass on in the school capacity is limited, so perhaps it looks like bringing in guests? (This would also tap into the “power of the intergenerational exchange” that McKenzie (2021) recognizes in her article, The Spirit of the Medicine Will Lead Us Back: How Avis O’Brien is guiding elders to weave their first cedar hats.) Or exploring through videos and trial and error? I really liked that the Trillium park in the Wildfibers video clip grows plants for use in fiber arts. Our school has been thinking about putting in a native plant “garden” and perhaps considering some plants for use like this would be beneficial. I wonder if invasive plants could be utilized this way? Perhaps a clean up and create something task could be developed.
I will need to spend more time pondering how to bring this into the classroom well. But, I like the idea that math class can be linked to culture and identity, and position students to be both learners and teachers of these knowledges.
References:
Åström, A., & Åström, C. (2021). Art and science of rope. In B. Sriraman (Ed.), Handbook of the mathematics of the arts and sciences (pp. 409–442). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57072-3_15
Ensby, S. (2017). Closed by hand [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/198049602
Kallis, S. (2015). Wildfibres [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p936TM65Q6Q
McKenzie, A. (2021, April 11). “The spirit of the medicine will lead us back”: How Avis O’Brien is guiding Elders to weave their first cedar hats. APTN News. https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/the-spirit-of-the-medicine-will-lead-us-back-how-avis-obrien-is-guiding-elders-to-weave-their-first-cedar-hats/
National Museum of the American Indian. (2015, June 5). Weaving the bridge at Q’eswachaka [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dql-D6JQ1Bc
Nichola, I understand your concerns about how your life experiences have lead down certain skill trees that may or may not become an intergenerational skill. Just as any tangible treasure, I believe these lost skills will become valued but rare. How do we select the right skills to learn and pass down for independence and sustainability in the unpredictable future?
ReplyDeleteMy belief is that anything manual is a must – if technologies fail us due to natural phenomenon like an epic solar flare, technological disruptions could bring us back to the iron age. Not thinking out or fear, but of practicality, you carry your body and appendages with you everywhere, if you can make/fix it by hand, then you’re self-sustaining while keeping those skills alive. A blacksmith first must create a fire and forge before they can create tools, then with those tools creates their next set of tools. Anywhere you set up, the progression is the same: use the previous skill, to generate the next artifact that will help you with the next artifact, and so on. So intuitively, by looking at the shelf of tools a blacksmith has created for themselves, it would tell you how far along in their process they are. I think this is a unique art in this aspect, we don’t necessarily have that for sewing where our first project helps us with the second and the second helps us with the third.
Your wonders are really thought-provoking: “[W]hat practices do I want to do as annual traditions with my family? With the community? Should we be doing some of these things at school? What could that look like? I feel as though the knowledge that I have to pass on in the school capacity is limited, so perhaps it looks like bringing in guests?”
What I find tricky is trying to identify Western and Canadian culture because I’m so close living it daily with it being part of my thought processes and inseparable from ‘the norm’. On the same level as the Q’eswachaka bridge building, what cultural values, skills, or traditions do we have to offer our students? Do Western Canadians have anything that unique and important? Because we live in such a diverse demographic, perhaps exploring cultural aspects of everyone else might land better. Is the answer selecting cultural practices that connect to mathematics from various countries across the globe (for good representation with my students) as well as Indigenous practices from the land we reside on itself?
In connection with your wonder connected to your readings: Question: (trying to capture all of my questions above...) How can we celebrate culture and identity in the mathematics classroom, in a way that preserves and passes forward knowledges of the body and hands? What specific tasks may help with this?
Putting it all together, we want to use our body and hands, cultural practices involve creation by hand, mathematics is a human activity that transcends cultures, identity is about self-expression and choice, arts is the perfect medium for self-expression. So, what a beautiful way to wrap up this course with your wonder. Doing math with the body and hands, and self-expressing through the arts is a fantastic way to preserve and pass-on cultural knowledge.