Aboriginal Beliefs, Values, and Aspirations in Contemporary Society

• Where just a few students in the classroom are Aboriginal, avoid talking about just those few.
• The teacher provides copies of several Aboriginal stories of origin for the students to work with and
should themselves be well acquainted with the elements of several stories, such as works by Basil
Johnson and Joseph. Bruchac.
• The teacher should be prepared for students to share creation stories from their own ethnic
backgrounds for further comparisons, and should intervene if students have developed the belief that
any one cultural belief is superior to any other. A response might be “All spiritual beliefs will be
treated with acceptance in this classroom. Everyone has the absolute right to believe as they do, but
no one has the right to tell others that one way is better than the other”.
Teaching/Learning Strategies
1. The teacher surveys student knowledge of creation story content by asking students to identify
examples of creation stories with which they are familiar.
2. The teacher works from the list produced by the class, adding stories from a variety of Aboriginal
groups across Canada (e.g., Iroquoian, Haida, Cree, Inuit, etc.). The teacher can review or introduce,
depending on the experience of the class, significant themes from each story which identify the
commonalities and variations between stories.
3. In order to facilitate student comprehension of the video to follow, the teacher provides students with
a prepared organizer with guiding questions or headings to assist in understanding. Common features
to be considered could be: role of the Creator, relationships with Mother Earth, Father Sky,
Grandmother Moon, Grandfather Sun, Water, and living things. Living things can be subdivided into
plants and animals, which inhabit land, water, or air.
4. Students view the video, Raven’s Feather Dance, and complete an organizer. Review the answers as
a class.
5. Students analyse components of Aboriginal stories from a variety of cultures (e.g., Anishnabe, Cree,
Haida, Inuit, Iroquoian, Miqma’q) using a list of guiding questions or the suggested headings.
Students compare traditional beliefs and concepts associated with various Aboriginal cultures.
6. Students are encouraged to probe elements of balance within nature and within behaviour as
exhibited in the creation stories.
7. Aboriginal stories can be contrasted with non-Aboriginal creation stories from students’ own cultural
experiences.
Assessment & Evaluation of Student Achievement
The purpose of this activity is to have students discover similarities and differences in a variety of
creation stories both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. The categories of the organizer, which students
complete, depend on which creation stories are chosen. Peer review should ensure that the organizer is
complete. Guided discussion with the class opens the door to the next activity, which more closely
examines the symbolic and moral content of traditional stories.
Accommodations
Videos could be substituted when students have weak reading skills. For enrichment activities, students
could explore creation stories of cultural groups beyond Canada’s borders and present their findings to
the class.
Unit 2 - Page 4
• Aboriginal Beliefs, Values, and Aspirations in Contemporary Society - College Preparation