Chalk Rocks and Sacred Stones

It’s Thursday afternoon.  Almost all of the children are already gone, except the few who remain outside.  HR is using a dump truck to carry the rocks that he finds around our playscape/garden.  I notice this, and it reminds me of digging for crystals in my backyard  when I was a child.  Thinking of this, I join HR and hunt for rocks all around the yard.  When we are through, we leave the dump truck with all of the rocks in it near the front of the driveway.  

Monday morning rolls in.  The preschoolers are arriving at school and CKP has an idea.  “I want to draw with chalk!,” he says, searching for a piece to begin his work.  I hear and see his ideas, and offer to grab some more chalk out of the shed. 

After we have gathered a spectrum of chalk colors, we begin thinking about what outside materials we could decorate.  CKP quickly spots the truck that HR and I had used for collecting rocks, and the creation begins.  

As OP and JA join CKP in this endeavor, I pause to admire the colors of the stones they have already embellished with fresh chalk.  Bright blue, purple, yellow, and pink adorn these rocks in an array of lines, circles, and scribbles.  I pause, thinking about the way that rich colors such as these have significance and meaning in many Native American Tribes.  For example, the Navojos have four colors (black, white, blue, and yellow) that represent four sacred mountains in each geographical direction (North, South, etc.).  Furthermore, these same colors represent the four stones that are a central part of their creation story (Navajo People, 2020).  This convergence of meanings strikes me, and I experience an array of feelings reflecting on this.

The children do not know this, and I do not mention it to them.  Instead, I ask where they will take these treasures that they have so aptly colored.  CKP says, “We should put them all over the yard so that people can see the beautiful colors!”  Everyone soon agrees to this plan, and we begin the process of distributing the rocks throughout our playscape.  

While the children decorate the yard with their co-creations, I think more about our interactions with these “other-than-human” stones, and I wonder about whether our relationship to these objects reflect the honor that we seek to imbue.  “We acknowledge the people whose land we stand on,” begins the land acknowledgement at the bottom of this page.  And while these words convey our hopes, I wonder if they convey our practice.  In our relating to these stones, to these colors, to this place, are “our pedagogical and communal actions” honoring “the Native American tribes who have come before us, and those who remain here still?”  

I will not end this story with an answer to that question; rather, this blog is a living provocation for continual reflection and reformation of our values and practice. How do these words feel to you? What are we doing as a community to actively engage in the journey of justice for Native Americans? Where do we fall short? And how will we move forward together?

Navajo People. (2020). The Navajo Four Sacred Colors. Retrieved from http://navajopeople.org/blog/

*We acknowledge the people whose land we stand on- the Multnomah, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Chinook, Tualatin Kalapuya, Molalla and several other tribes along the Columbia River.  In doing so, we commit ourselves to the continual recognition of the historical violence done to their people by White people.  It is our hope that our pedagogical and communal actions may honor the Native American Tribes who have come before us and those who remain here still.

Living and Learning Together

“We’re driving a car!,” says TH, while he looks through one of our classroom’s books.  CKP joins him, and JA quickly follows suit.  They are occupying our reading chair in the back right corner of our room, which has ample space for their three bodies to fit in comfortably.  JA says, “I’m driving the car!,” while modeling the appropriate “10 and 2” hand positions on the imaginary wheel.  CKP is also “driving the car,” and I begin to wonder about the feasibility of this co-pilot situation.  Nonetheless, they share this role quite nicely, as they negotiate ideas of a way forward.  

As I think about this instance, as well as the other ways in which we are together (seen in the pictures pasted here), I think about the communal nature of our learning.  While I am a teacher of the preschool group, I am not the only one, and I’m not just talking about Shianne.  Each member of our group brings their own knowledge, abilities, and ideas into our time together, and it is from this collection of our many identities that we co-create who we are as a group.  The stunning thing about this is that they are such extraordinary community and knowledge builders.  Whether it be driving a car, sending sounds through a tube, harvesting tomatoes, or painting a collaborative canvas, they construct knowledge and meaning together, while becoming closer to one another as a group.  Even their conflicts over these meanings are soon followed by an invitation to share, to play together, and to collaborate anew.  That kind of fidelity in the pursuit of ideas, and in relationship to one another, is subversive in an increasingly individualistic society, and I have front row seats to it every day.  

With this being said, I do not pretend that children give us the perfect model for how to be together.  In many ways, the complexities of their relationships to one another are made possible by adult scaffolding, situational maintenance, and environmental maintenance, without which the same kind of communal learning may not be possible.  Though children are provocative in their relationships, they are still immature psychologically, emotionally, and of course, physically.  This renders a need for assistance, for a guide, which is a role that adults often fill.  It’s important that we believe in, and advocate for, the abilities of children, while not romanticizing their contributions.  

Children, our preschool children, are such competent protagonists in their own learning and community building.  And while we recognize their limitations in this, we also celebrate the way in which they navigate our living and learning together! 

The Complexities of Inclusion

Grief

“I want to see the picture of my Mom,” JA says, as they run to take a quick peek at the phone that I’ve pulled out of my pocket.  “Teacher Cody,” he continues, “I miss my Mom.”  

Connection

TH is playing in the “dome” (Or the “jungle gym,” some may call it).  He’s making food and serving it to CKP, who is also in the dome.  JA sees this and says, “I want to get in.”  I ask what hole he wants to go through to enter the climbing structure, and he quickly chooses one of the triangle openings closest to the ground.  He sits next to TH, and TH offers some of the “food” that he’s prepared.  JA smiles at this, looking up at me and commenting, “He just gave me some food!”

Consent 

JA is sitting in my lap inside the classroom soon after rest time.  TH, who is sitting across from JA and I, says to JA, “Can I hug you?”  “Yeah,” JA responds.  Reaching over into my lap, TH extends his arms, clutching JA  tightly before letting go.  JA turns to me with a big smile and says, “That person just hugged me.”  “I saw that.  What did you think about it?,” I ask.  “I liked it!,” he says.  

Since JA’s first day with our Preschool cohort, he carried a complexity of emotions through our gates.  When he left The Nest, he left his peers, their families, and teachers.  Furthermore, he left the place that had comforted and nurtured him for so long.  What had become so familiar to him was now replaced by the unfamiliar.  What was known has now become foreign.

This foreign place, people, and social processes make up what is Tumbleweed.  And as Tumbleweed, we interact within a tapestry of social patterns, cues, feelings, thinking, etc.  These patterns come from the stuff we have woven into what it means to be a Mom, what it means to be a Dad, what it means to be a child, what it means to be human.  And each family’s weaving looks different, shaped by the threads of practices, customs, traditions of family and context- all combining to create the tapestry of culture(s) and cultural processes that we engage in with one another.  And though we seldom acknowledge it, these things are not easy to digest or comprehend because  their intricacies and dynamisms are legion.

In the brief stories shared above, I highlighted only three experiences that are included among the multitude of feelings and interactions that shape the inclusion of a new child into our community.  Grief, connection, and consent expose the sadness, the joy and the negotiation of all these experiences.   And we celebrate JA’s journey in traversing these experiences.  But they do not convey the whole of what he experiences each day, as he walks onto our grounds.  

I say all of this in hopes to convey one reminder: Inclusion is a most necessary task, and it is a task of a whole community.  When JA, or another new member of our Community, is experiencing the complexities of learning the communication, rituals, social patterns, etc. in which we have built, we are all called upon to respond.  We are called to seek their full inclusion (children, parents, family, and culture) into Tumbleweed, while also recognizing the challenges that they face.  We are called to allow the thread(s) of their selves become woven into the tapestry of who we are.  We are called to include.