“Learning is ultimately a subjective experience tied to a place: environmentally, socially, and spiritually.” (Cajete, 2005)
We did two important things before we left for our site placements after week 1 of the course. First, Michele gave us a piece of paper and asked us to write down our Hopes and Fears of our upcoming experiences. We sealed our thoughts in an envelope and handed these to Michele to keep until the end of the course. She also passed a ball of red yarn around the round table, asking each of us to hold a section. She tied the ends together, forming a complete circle. We were connected to one another with this yarn, a physical manifestation of how I think we were all feeling at the end of the intense first week. She wished us luck, and collected the tied yarn.
Fast forward to the last day of our course, at the end of week 5. Michele handed our letters back to us. We all giggled in trying to remember what we wrote; it had seemed so long ago that we had revealed on paper our hopes and fears. I think we all had this sense of knowing that new knowledge from our site experiences surpassed anything we had written or imagined. My Fears were typical: that no kids would come to our summer reading program (far from the truth!), that we wouldn’t have enough to do at the library (we had a very busy two weeks!) and that Katelyn and I would get sick of each other (it can happen when you’re with someone 24/7 for two weeks).
Physical remnants of this course: a piece of red yarn, a blue piece of paper with my hopes and fears, my name tag and shirt from the summer reading program, handmade wild rice knockers, an LOOCOO sweatshirt, and lots of recipes.
My Hopes were my pie-in-the-sky ideals for my experience: meeting language speakers, learning more about Caryl and the LCO community, having a small but meaningful impact in the library, and connecting more with my classmates. And what’s best about getting this letter back on our last week of class: realizing all these things I hoped for happened, and more. I had never expected I’d ever be interviewed on the radio about my passion, or be able to learn how to harvest wild rice and make my own wild rice knockers, or to learn some Ojibwe!
At the very end of class, I started to feel a sense of imminent doom. I did not want class to be over. I had spent much of last summer writing the grant for this project with Omar, Michele, and Jake. I had waited optimistically for word on whether or not our project would be funded. And when we received the grant, I spent the rest of the summer anxiously awaiting the start of our class. These past five weeks I had spent intimately learning with my five peers, Michele and Omar at the lead. In a perfect world, we’d continue on the same path together, forever!
Michele then brought out something I had forgotten – the red yarn. We passed it around again, creating a circle, and stood. We all had a chance to say some final words: some shared thoughts on how special this experience was, mostly thank yous, and yes, even some tears.
We ended class when Michele cut the string. She cut it so that we could each have a little piece to keep with us. Who knew a piece of yarn could have so much meaning? As I’ve started a school library job in Madison, I’ve decided to keep the piece of string in my car as a reminder of this intense, awesome experience.
Our last class photo, with our red yarn strands
So…where do we go from here?
Well, as Fall begins, so does a new semester of SLIS classes, with a new cohort of students. Katelyn and Mary are leading the TLAM Student Group with a slew of fantastic community activities: Indian Summer in Milwaukee, book club twice a month, and a guest presentation by The Ways director Finn Ryan in November. And that’s just scratching the surface.
Some of us TLAMers will be presenting to the Northern Waters Library Consortium up at Lac Courte Oreilles in September about evaluating American Indian children’s literature. And Omar, Janice, and Robin will be presenting at WLA about serving Native patrons at your library. In November, we’ll have a Convening Culture Keepers mini-conference hosted by the Ho-Chunk Nation in the Dells.
And of course, we’ll be busy planning for our institute next April. We’ll work as a team, incorporating the ideas we received from talking with Culture Keepers, to plan hands-on, intensive workshops. Our new chapter of the TLAM Project has begun!
-Robin