The Crying Tree

A gnarled tolkien-like box elder (or manitoba maple) used to live on our front lawn right beside the curb. It was a delight to our children - the perfect climbing tree, filled with dozens of burls and natural places to sit or stand, half sheltered from the street below. When one of our kids was really upset or angry, and we had used up our meagre bag of parenting tricks, we would take them out to sit up in the tree until they had calmed down. As they got older, we could sometimes just send them out to the Crying Tree when they needed a break from whatever was brewing inside the house.

Lu was just a baby when we first used the tree for Comfort. I set her down, wrapped in a blanket and screaming, on the first burl-ledge and stood there thinking about why I got so upset she got upset. The twilight and fresh air, the play of fall leaves above her, seemed to work almost instantly, and when we came inside we had a name for the tree.

The last formal visit to the tree belonged to Kate and Finn, who climbed up to the big fork to have a deep conversation about something, now forgotten, that was very important at the time. In between these mileposts, it was a fort, hiding spot, guardpost, cat-perch, and tower in a castle. In addition to children, it was host to many woodpeckers, especially in the last few years, and was part of the squirrel highway that allowed safe passage along the street, out of reach by cats.

The tree has been dying for few years, a victim of whatever had caused the teeming burls, and it became clear that we had to do something with it before the rot set in. The City of Prince George made our decision for us, and came with chainsaws and a woodchipper to take it down last summer. We salvaged as many burls as we could, and handed them over to a local woodturner (Greg Clarke) to dry the wood and work them into something we could keep. He fashioned 20 or more objects from the tree, most of which we received today.

The Crying Tree bore witness to our laughter and tears, to our street barbecues, to our comings and goings, and our attempts to make a Hobbit-home out of our house. It had the power to calm, and was a source of fascination for neighbours and strangers alike. They gave it names like the Booby Tree, the Gnarly Tree, and the Schmoo Tree. On account of the low growths and step-like architecture, many of the kids nearby had their first solo tree-climbing experience here. I can remember at least three conversations when we were all talking out on the street and some kid asks a parent "can I climb this tree?" and the parent looks at it for a bit and says "yeah, of course, why wouldn't you."

The Crying Tree was a staging area for many games and role-plays that I was never privy to, a source of secrets and schemes, but it was the Comfort it gave to my kids when they were sad that makes me most thankful. The tree will have to continue this important work now as the Crying Bowls; maybe there is still some role they will play in the emotional health of our family.

GeoNarratives

For educators and others: this post is intended as a beginning, a draft for a Gr. 11 student project design. Your feedback is welcome, particularly about communicating these lofty ideas to students so they can understand it, managing steps in the project so they don't get lost, assessment suggestions, and weblinks to examples of similar projects appreciated. I'll also be seeking "critical friends" feedback at Mumbleypeg 2013, an annual meeting of the Pacific Slope Consortium. Virtually all of the students at my school have conducted Heritage Projects or Echo Projects of one flavour or another in Social Studies 9, 10, or 11. This means that they have spent considerable time gathering evidence and stories about past cultures and locations, mainly ones within their own family. For my current group taking Geography 12 and English 11 together in the Language and Landscape Program, I want to provoke them to examine the role that geography played in those stories, and to engage in writing and other creative expression to deconstruct these narratives. We will be assigning a significant number of our learning outcomes to this project, and working through it off and on for about two months.

Enough preamble; here it is:

GeoNarratives: Cross-curricular Project-based Learning about People and Places

Each of us has rich stories in our past, stories that woven together with places. For some, it is the tale of our ancestors as they endured challenges that we can only imagine. For others, the people, places and stories are more immediate, still present within our lives. In all cases there is direct and indirect evidence hiding in language, food, and song, and written into physical and cultural landscapes. 

This project will require building a “geography” and creating a “narrative” -- specifically:

• heritage inquiry: taking the stories from your personal and cultural background and examining patterns, geographic relationships, and significance -- applying critical geographic thinking to an authentic context 
• creative non-fiction: writing and creating narratives based on research -- perhaps there is some short cross-over into historical fiction and personal myth-making, but at its heart is the telling of a story that connects to your heritage 
• embodiment: putting your senses, your artistic side, your physical presence into your research and presentation -- creative expressions of the parts of your research that you find most compelling 

 Aside from the critical thinking and creativity involved, some specific skills will be developed:

• careful use of technology: placing a digital stamp on this project -- use of an online portfolio, use of technology for research and/or expression, experimenting with something new 
• literature review and wordtake: surveying the reading and media that relates to your inquiry and using some of it to explore Self and Other, or global issues that impacted your own backstory

This is a broad framework created by your teacher, but it is important that you design the questions that will allow this to be meaningful to you. As your teacher, I can provide as much structure as you think you need to be successful with this project, including narrowing down your topics, suggesting courses of action, and helping you embed “benchmarks of geographic inquiry.” With all this in mind you are free to take this project in new directions, as long as we consider certain learning outcomes that are basic to English Language Arts and Geography, including a high standard for writing.

GeoNarratives at a glance -- considering the impact of geography on the stories from one’s past

The final presentation of your GeoNarrative will take in four parts:

1. sharing the part of your portfolio that shows your heritage research, literature review, and critical analysis (the conclusions you have made about both the topic and your learning)
2. sharing some or all of the creative non-fiction (or historical fiction) that you have built around your research 
3. sharing a performative piece that you made to express or symbolize the deep part of your learning during this project 
4. use of at least one effective of digital technology in the process of project creation or presentation 

Project Steps (not always in this sequence):

1. look at and assess example of creative non-fiction, heritage inquiry, and “geographies” 
2. develop questions and designs for your project 
3. accumulate primary and secondary evidence and conduct a variety of research 
4. co-develop aspects of your project and evaluation criteria with student groups and the teacher 
5. create the pieces that make up your project 
6. prepare the pieces for sharing, including presentation 
7. share and present your project 
8. reflection, celebration, and evaluation 

Examples of stories that would work well as GeoNarratives:

• immigration experiences, so different depending on location and time period 
• wartime from civilian or a soldier’s perspective 
• grandma’s garden, grandpa’s workshop; practicing bygone skills and trades 
• working on the land; pioneering and homesteading 
• outdoor lifestyles, a tradition of hunting or fishing 
• managing a farm and family, homemaking in the past 

Examples of global issues that could be examined within your project:

• a study of racism/tolerance, language acquisition, or labour market among new immigrants 
• evolving role and treatment of women in various places, cultures, and time periods 
• aboriginal ways of knowing and relationship between First Nations and the broader society 
• the power of wealth: studies of “class” and differences between rich and poor 
• citizenship, rights and democracy: how much freedom or “agency” did historic groups really have 
• the idea of sustainability and the relationship that different peoples have with the environment 
• grief and hope: how did historic groups cope with challenges (could tie in to religious studies) 

Examples of evidence that would support a GeoNarrative:

• non-fiction, documentaries, history books and websites, academic studies 
• novels, short stories, works of fiction and poetry from the time period and place that you are examining 
• artwork or crafts such as paintings, architecture, sketches, sculptures, carvings, jewelry, tools, heirlooms 
• primary evidence, journals, memoirs, recollections, artifacts, photographs, recipes, travelogues, interviews 
• genealogical websites, graveyards, government records, family history books 
• existing “human geography” connected to your topics (studies that parallel your inquiry), historical atlases

Examples of a performative piece:

• musical creation (e.g. write a song), interpretive dance, historical re-enactment, water colour painting, original poetry, food creation, a model or diorama, puppet show, simulation, class activity, video reflection, narrated slideshow, interactive display, build something

Examples of a digital stamp:

• use of QR codes to link to key evidence, like a reader’s guide for someone to understand your work 
• creating an attractive space in your digital portfolio to display some of your work (lots of applications to try for this one) 
• using video or computer animation for part of your project 
• conducting interviews via Skype and archiving part of it as portfolio evidence 
• use of social media for “curating” (assessing and organizing) research or telling/sharing a story

Examples of a projects that put together many strands of inquiry:

• Cigar-Box Project http://www.thinkinginmind.com/cigar-box-project/
• Seven Geography-themed projects from High Tech High http://www.hightechhigh.org/pbl/
• Learning Geography in the 21st Century http://mahara.umeedu.maine.edu/view/view.php?t=ymiKptgDcakl5JUIeJ1k
• Zombie-based learning - Geography curriculum http://www.zombiebased.com/

Note on the image at the top: this is a map of the Molotchna colony -- home to Mennonites who left Prussia to settle in this part of South Russia from the 1780s onwards.  After WWI and the Russian Revolution, many of these Mennonites fled to North America, including all four of my grandparents. One of my own GeoNarratives is very much connected to this time, place, and people.

Red Fife

I was giving a lesson yesterday on the big immigration drives during Laurier's time as prime minister (1896-1911) and the work of his minister Clifford Sifton.  My lesson was all over the place, I talked about the CPR and what John A. Macdonald had in mind. I had maps and digital images of "last best west" posters on the go, textbook stuff, a short video clip, asked students to relate the immigration stories they were digging up in the computer lab with their heritage research, etc. We talked about dryland farming, boat rides, sod houses and various people's ancestors (including mine). We found a few of "our people came over" as a result of Sifton's campaigns. I had an recent news story lined up for a current events connection but the streaming video wasn't working on the browser; luckily a student new what I was trying to find (Canadian gov't decision on uniting families of immigrants) and read out another version of the story he found on his iphone. I wanted to introduce them to the concept of critical inquiry benchmarks, thought this was the day to do it, but didn't remember to do it (although I suppose we practiced about 5 of them). Typical chaotic Thielmann lesson, a little bit of everything... yes, some "21C" but lots of 20th Century stand-and-deliver and even "random century" stuff thrown in for good measure (shared story-telling). It bugs me that our educational leaders try to create a divide based on technology where it does not really exist. This lesson is essentially the same as one my father might have given 40 years ago.

Anyways, I made a brief reference to red fife, the wheat that fed Canada until about 1904, and a student chimed in that her family had found a bag of red fife stored in a grandmother's attic. This is interesting, because the original red fife all but disappeared when it fell out of favour in the early 1900s (replaced in large part by Marquis wheat), although it was bred with other varieties to become the "grandfather" to other important wheats. A few farmers have kept the grains, fewer still have kept it growing in small plots, and apparently it has made a bit of a comeback as an heirloom grain with good nutrient and protein characteristics, as a landrace it has an honourable spot in the discussion about genetic diversity and ecological resilience. I imagine few students, especially KT, can envision their great-great-grandparents picking up a bag of red fife grains from caring neighbours at the turn of the 20th century, to begin their Canadian Prairie odyssey. Afterwards, I read through my own "family book" today and realized that this was the same variety of wheat that my great-great-grandfather Jacob Loewen broadcast seeded on his new 160-acre homestead in Dalmeny, Saskatchewan, 1902. I think the students "got it" when I tried to explain that even something like food can have a impact on the social and economic development of a nation. Of course we all asked KT "what did you do with the wheat?!" ..."we threw it out -- it had mouse poop in it."

IT

"It is really raining outside" my 5-yr-old daughter Lu says as we are driving towards the art gallery for Sunday afternoon drop-in crafts (our alternative to church). It was more sleet than rain, maybe even snow, as the road was slushy and the cityscape was whitening. I wasn't sure if she was saying this because we had an argument about rain vs snow. Earlier she said that snow was slower, rain was faster. Hard to argue with that.

"IT", I thought...it is raining? I ask "who is IT?"

She pauses and responds "the clouds have decided to really rain today."

"The clouds decided? The clouds are IT?"

"Yes daddy."

I could have drawn this out.. the purpose of IT. I considered and then jettisoned the notion of having our monthly discussion on whether something exists beyond ourselves, something higher, something lower. something connecting, something animating, but we had scooched by city hall, the art gallery was in view, and we started talking about parking lots and swimming pools and who would be in the art gallery, etc. 2-yr-old Finn, of course, was just watching the sleet as Lu and I yakked on and on like the external processors we are. Sort of.

While this was happening my mind dwelt on the nature of IT, the fascination of why we construct an IT to balance the world or prop up a supposition, an OTHER to act as scapegoat, deity, friend, or foil, a THEY to posit origins, causality, and establish credentials. I wondered whether the use of IT correlated to the rise of individualism (and the reminder that I need to read Charles Taylor's book Sources of the Self), or if IT (the referring IT, maybe the cleft IT) fulfills a need to be feel connected to a community... as in IT takes a while to do this, IT's interesting that you say that. Maybe IT is a grammatical lens on the origin of consciousness (IT is the self that makes things be, but IT is also the rest of THEM that makes a self possible). I tried to analyze a stereotyped modern perspective on self... was the digitally-raised teen more reliant on the construct of IT than someone of my generation? Was the stereotype valid considering that I also believe that SELF drifts into OTHER in a virtual environment. I wandered into Daniel Dennett's ideas and the arguments about who the SELF was that constructed IT and I was also thinking about the renovations to city hall and the compacted soil, the rainwater sitting on the mud midst the elms and ashes. Also, was IT rainwater if iIT came from sleet? All these things came to conversation and to mind as we drove from Patricia and George St to 7th and Quebec... 2.5 blocks!!! Amazing I didn't crash into a tree. Is IT any wonder why I appear to many to be drifting off or distracted? This junk swirls around in my brain all day long and I can't shut IT off. Someone please help me and switch my brain for one that focuses on deadlines and gets things done.

All grown up

My Nephew Matt has moved to Squamish! He's the first of my siblings' kids to leave the nest and has set a unique standard for doing so. After years of biathlon and related training, he is off to work with a world-class team near the 2010 Olympic venue. I think he might be a year too young to compete at Whistler, but he has kicked some butt this year, winning the PG Iceman and grabbing a gold for his age category at biathlon nationals. We're proud of Matt and a bt anxxious, too... will he starve? Will he understand the saltwater and the cedar? Will he fall victim to a shameless timeshare scheme?

Finn

Finn, our son,
born 4:55 am, Tuesday, April 17th

weighed 8 lbs 7 oz (3.83 kg)
length 20.7" (52.5 cm)
head circumference 13.8" (35 cm)

Of our daughter Luthien I said she came from one place of wonder to another, slowly, with great pain, and many scientific interventions. With Finn, the story is quicker and more connected with the elements. Following building contractions for days, Kate entered active labour at about 1:00 a.m. on the 17th. After a check-in at the hospital at 3:30 a.m., a rushed ride home brought Kate (with the midwife and the doula) in at 4:30 a.m. to make noise and bear down, waiting for the big black watering trough to fill. Someone cranked the heat and I dimmed the lights (pleasant to some, but I found it rather spectral). At about 4:50 Kate slid into the tub and pushed a few times as the baby and her body led themselves to "outness" and Finn came rushing out. The midwife Ruth (not my mom) caught him in the water and placed him on Kate's breast, where, after some gurgles and squawks, he fed and we all started to breathe deeper.

Finn's eyes dark blue-grey, some dark hair, red skin and white wrinkled hands and feet. Digits long and ears close to his round head. Cry is soft, but his neck is strong. He has slept well, some 4+ hour stretches, and is latching with relish. Peeling now less red, no white, skin and hair becoming fair.

The name Finn comes from Gaelic or Old German meaning fair. In Scandinavian languages, it would refer to Laplander. The story of Finn and Hengest (a version of which has been written by Tolkien) in Beowulf and the FIght at Finnsburg has Finn as a Frisian king. Now there is also Twain's Huck Finn and the Irish hero Finn and the giant Finn who built the cathedral in Lund.

Fin is also a root word in Tolkien's mythology meaning skill in Quenyan. It is found in Finwë, his sons Curufinwë, Fingolfin, and Finarfin, and many others. They were a powerful family of Noldorin elves, and none were more skilled and beautiful than Finwe's eldest son who was named Fëanor by his mother (Sindarin for spirit of fire). Fëanor wrote alphabets, crafted three powerful gems called Silmarils, led a rebellion against the gods, and was exiled with many of the Noldor to Middle Earth, thus setting up much of the history that Tolkien described in his books.

Some of these strands have resonated with us, and may make more sense as our children grow. Perhaps our Luthien has more of the charactersitcs of a Fëanor, and maybe Finn will have more of the grace and calm of a Luthien Tinuviel than his Noldor namesake. The name Finn appeals to us for many of the same reasons that Lu does, something easy shout as you watch your child run towards the edge of ravine or what not, but their longer names speak of our hopes for our children in some ways, which are probably our dreams for ourselves. Like many of Tolkien's characters, there is much grief to balance joy, but hope also comes from strange places. For our fiery and talkative daughter, we bless her with peace and patience, and for our (so far) gentle son, we bless him with bold words and deeds.

Help me pick our baby's name

MALE (pretty sure it's a boy): Alec, Aragorn, Avi, Bëor, Fëanor, Fin/Finn, Hemlock, Lewis, Lief/Liev, Mac, Max, Oromë, Ossë, Owen, Pierre, Rowan, Thor, Viggo

FEMALE (just in case): Arwen, Claire, Freya, Galadriel, Hilary, Lauren, Olivia, Rose, Yavanna, Zoë

be kind!