Teaching Values First

Many have said it before, our priorities are all wrong. We just need to read the news and listen to its message. As a global culture, if you will, we value the wrong things. We sacrifice too much because we ignore and deny our role in this world. Dominant culture teaches that money is all important and that accumulating facts equals education. We teach that material wealth is more important than absorbing an ethical way of living here on earth. In the absence of ethics, our tribal nature becomes a toxic identification which so often leads to violence.

Ethics begins with respect. Respect for all living things and property of others. Respect for what nature is telling us and what science is teaching us. We are great at ignoring the warning signs that our priorities are all wrong.

The other day the dual language Annishinabeg school came to learn about maple syruping at our nature center. These Native American Indian school kids were from a poor neighborhood and it is likely that they also had stressful family situations. But there was something amazing about this group of children. They listened and behaved without constant scolding. The school's teachers had their priorities right. It was obvious that the first thing they taught them was the age-old traditions of their people; to respect one's elders and the natural world. Almost every other class has to be told to treat the museum artifacts with respect. They have to be told not to pound on the exhibit buttons. Not this group. These children, from a disadvantaged place in life, listened patiently for 25 minutes to the introduction. They went outside without needing to be told to listen. They all brought with them a small offering of tobacco leaf which they dropped at the bottom of the maple tree in gratitude for the sugar they were about to extract. We all got to teach and did not have to discipline. That day they taught me much more than I taught them. Did I mention that these students were only 4 and 5 year's old? Maybe they aren't so disadvantaged afterall.