James – Spiritual development

In the Western approach to learning sometimes we get scared of spirituality because it’s such a …we maybe sometimes even equate it with religion, and so that is not the approach of the Indigenous approach to spirituality. As I said in our curriculum, the relationships of respect really talk about respect for oneself, others, the land, and the spiritual world. And so that spiritual aspect or spirituality in the early learning world really probably are happening in a lot of the Indigenous places where, as I said, we place emphasis on opening prayer or the practice of mindfulness, being silent and remembering the presence of Creator, ancestors as well as Elders who are maybe in the room. ​So just remembering those are all aspects of spirituality as well as ceremony. As I said in the Northwest Territories, the ceremony of reciprocity to pay the land, to pay the water. If you’re going outside and being on the land with children, that ceremony, those ceremonies are really very important.  

As well as protocol, remembering Elders in the room and that children learn how to be with Elders. As well as in the Northwest Territories we have the spiritual aspect towards our Dene laws. And these laws are really, really beautiful and the first two are very, very beautiful for children. It’s learn with each other and share what you have. And so very much that concept of kindness and sharing and being a capable person with each other, just like what we talk about in the Western world of pro-social skills and development. ​And so that aspect of spirituality should not be forgotten.  

It is once again, when you’re talking about a capable person philosophy or scholarship, you’re talking about the body, which is important – sleeping and eating, looking after exercising, looking after a body – the mind, of course, of development. And in the Western world we talk about all sorts of cognitive developments not to place so much emphasis on cognitive development. We concentrate on reading and writing as indicators of success for children. But to remember the other aspects of the especially we’ve got the body and the mind, but especially the heart and spirit of children, which is sometimes forgotten in Western education as being a very, very important aspect of celebrating the heart and the spirit of children. Because although it’s not visible to us, like the head and the body, they’re very, very much present as children grow and develop to be the capable person that they are. To remember those four parts of the human being and spirituality being one very, very important part that must, that can’t just be put off to the side but is the balance of all those four parts of the growth and development into a capable child.