Celebrating Widening the Circle

Ruth Ayres has a link-up on weekends where people link to posts that are celebrations about their week. I love this reminder to celebrate every week.

This week I'm celebrating Widening the Circle. It's a wonderful education conference that I've attended at least six or seven times now. I've posted about it before because I always learn something new there. The focus is on Native American and Hmong Indigenous education. I appreciate learning traditional ways of living and teaching. Forrest Brooks (see the picture above) shared how to interact with others in good ways. We shared and learned from each other about ways to have peace in our lives and ways to interact productively. I also had the opportunity to share about how to create inclusive libraries. The conference is something I look forward to every year because I get to connect with new and old friends and improve my teaching and my life. I'm so thankful for the people who make the event happen each time.

Celebrate!

Ruth Ayres has a link-up on weekends where people link to posts that are celebrations about their week. I love this reminder to celebrate every week.

I am celebrating community today. I participated in the Widening the Circle Native American and Hmong Indigenous Education Conference. This is not the first time I have attended so it was a time of reconnecting with people from past conferences and making new connections too. I love this event because I learn something new each time and always enjoy the people and of course the absolutely amazing food.

This year was a first for me though as I was asked to be a co-presenter. Our topic was Hmong and Native American Materials for the Classroom and Library. I was able to partner with an amazing librarian, Yee Lee Vue. She has won several awards for her work with Hmong Outreach at the Appleton Public library. Here's a video about her program. She is very knowledgeable about Hmong children's literature and I was so happy to work with her.



I also appreciated the other sessions I was able to attend: One was about inter-generational trauma and how that affects Native youth and another was A Critical Analysis of Hmong Representations and Portrayals in Children's Literature. Both were excellent.

Celebrate!

Ruth Ayres has a link-up on Saturdays where people link to posts that are celebrations about their week. I love this reminder to celebrate every day.

Wow! I have so many things to celebrate this week.

* Today I attended Widening the Circle - an Indigenous Education Conference, which is why my post is late. I've been to it in past years and it's always a fantastic learning experience. I will be writing more about this for Slice of Life on Tuesday. One of the messages was to advocate for our students - to "speak the truth" which was also a message at another conference I attended earlier in the week: Culturally Responsive Classroom Practices. Both of these events were times of encouragement and learning. They were also opportunities to connect with others who have a passion for the same issues. It's energizing to be with people that are working for the same purpose.

* The We Need Diverse Books campaign had all kinds of things to celebrate this week too. They have many initiatives planned and in progress. They kicked off a fundraiser and have already raised almost $25,000 of their $100,000 goal. It's exciting and shows that diversity in kidlit matters to many people.

* We participated in Read for the Record and also had a Family Reading Night that evening. It was the same day that I was away for a conference, but I still got to read with families in the evening. Our announcements explain what that was like.

* I was able to attend a presentation by KaYing Yang at the local university. She showed this video which shares the story of Hmong Americans in their voices.

She discussed immigration, gender equity and domestic violence. It was an evening full of learning.

* I am still enjoying my drawing class. We got to see a demo of print making. It made me want to buy a gelli. We also discussed pictures based on the material in the book Picture This by Molly Bang.

* My daughter is now a licensed driver!!!!! I did NOT have to get up at 5:30 this morning to take her to the high school to go to Minnesota for a competition. 

* Finally, I have been winning many things. I won books from two different blogs this week. I also won two books as a door prize at a public library event. At the university lecture, I also won the door prize which included candy, a nice candle and a few other misc. items. Clearly I should have bought a lottery ticket this week. ;)

This was an extremely busy week, but I really appreciated the learning opportunities and connections with people.

Rethinking Thanksgiving

I spent a wonderful evening at Widening the Circle: Native American and Hmong Indigenous Education Symposium. It is fantastic that they offer community dinners as part of the event. Tonight's meal was called Rethinking Thanksgiving. We ate wonderful food and much of it is native to this area. Much of it had been grown and harvested specifically for this event. We had wild rice, amaranth, venison, bison, turkey, sweet potatoes, corn soup, and much more. I was very thankful to be part of this special tradition. It is a great feeling to share a meal and fellowship with so many people and have that sense of thankfulness for all the work that has gone into the meal from the planting of the seeds to the actual cooking and serving.

I also loved that we were greeted with the Ojibwe word Boozhoo. I was happy to hear this as I just purchased a book with that title. I had not been certain of the pronunciation. Now I know! :)

This was a great evening of sharing and learning. We heard from Dr. Gregory Cajete, Director of Native American Studies at UNM, about the purpose of indigenous education. He explained that the goal of indigenous education is the well-being of the individual and ultimately the well-being of the community. He spoke to our need of being in relationship with the place we are in and also our responsibility to the place and our community. I know I will be mulling these things around in my head for some time.