Freeman Bell has a passion that may be familiar to many young people today. He wants to make videos for social media to share his life. But instead of just sharing his life, he wants to teach people about his background.
“I like to share different things from my culture,” he says.
Bell is a student in the newly revised employment and community studies (EACS) program in the Faculty of Academic and Career Preparation at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU).
The program teaches students with diverse learning needs employability skills, social justice, communication, advocacy, and technology. Part of the course component is to teach or perform something meaningful. Bell decided to teach his Haida culture to the class.
“We were thinking about how we can get out into the community and learn through doing, plus classroom work,” says Simon Driver, employment and community studies instructor.
Bell decided to take the class on a field trip to the Museum of Anthropology.
“I used to live in Haida Gwaii and I showed my class the artwork my uncle has at the Museum of Anthropology,” says Bell.
“Freeman hadn’t been to the museum since he was a kid, so it was interesting to see how he connected,” says Driver.
While some of the students had some knowledge of Indigenous culture, it was new for others.
“Some of the awesome learning that happened was the conversations. They asked about the food and culture,” says Driver.
Back in the classroom, the learning continued when Bell brought in some traditional food.
“I brought deer, some meat and fish,” says Bell, adding that he wants to learn to can meat so he can teach others how to do it.
Other projects in the class included a student teaching everyone to navigate a space using a cane, safe social media spaces and a piano performance.