Reverence for the Ordinary

Résumé

For two decades I have heard the lament “We are not meeting the needs of our Na­tive students. School has no meaning for them." I want to know what does. My inquiry takes me to a northern Alberta Cree community. Since 1993 I am a peri­odic visitor, researcher, and friend in the lives and stories of traditional educators. Inspired by Trinh (1989,1991) I ask, "What is important for people to know around here?" Because the work is in a culture where answers to face-to-face questions are not always spoken, participants respond in various ways through photography (like me), modeling, storytelling, intuition, the metaphor of a

Giving Circle, or doing ordinary tasks. As we examine local knowledge (O'Brien & Flora, 1992), Connelly and Clandinin's (1994) narrative research methods complement our reciprocal learning/teaching relationships. What emerges is a reverence for ordinary Bush Cree way of life and some useful home-to-school con­nections for teachers and teacher educators.