Save the date: Jan 31st at 10am PST
Our Next Interview in our Heart Skills Talk Series
With Maureen Curran, by Jamie Black MA.
Live Streamed & Recorded on Zoom
interview held at
10am
Tues Jan 31, 2023
Wild Craft Play ‘sCool Community of Support
~~~
About Maureen Curran
Mother, teacher, land and water protector, life long student
MSc, BSc (hons)
Maureen is a settler on this stolen land who is passionate about redirecting our education system to learning about how to be better allies with Indigenous peoples and learn from them to respect and restore the world we’ve so long abused. Her past four years have been spent joyfully uncovering the beauty of place based learning alongside SFU student teachers in the SEEDS (social ecology in an environment of diversity) module. She has spent 24 years of teaching high school students in the Coquitlam school district and is a life long advocate for social and environmental justice. In 2021 she ran for the Federal Green Party in the riding of Burnaby South, to bring attention to the issues of climate change and dangers of fossil fuel expansion including the local TMX pipeline. As part of the “Protect the Planet” team (https://www.stoptmx.ca/
) and alongside Indigenous land protectors and other peaceful protestors, Maureen has been a part of numerous pipeline blockades. From August 2020 through to September 2021 she was part of the climbing crew who camped on platforms and in treehouses that blocked the pipeline path, and continues to help document and bring attention to the destruction of nesting hummingbirds and ongoing damage to salmon spawning grounds. She was also arrested for blocking work trucks entering the TMX tank storage area on Burnaby Mountain, and joyfully did her resulting community service at Mossom Creek Salmon Hatchery and New West Farmers Market, and continues to support events and lead tours that help reach out to families and community members about the short and long term costs of Canada’s reckless pipeline expansions. Maureen also brought together concerned students, parents and activists to help bring forward motions to support the call for a Fossil Fuel Treaty and as a result BC now has 10 municipalities that have joined this world wide movement. https://fossilfueltreaty.org/endorsements/#cities
Recommended Resources
- Braiding Sweetgrass (and now the YA version is available!) by Robin Kimmerer
- Potlach as Pedagogy https://indigenousstorywork.
com/potlatch-as-pedagogy/ - Wahi Wah https://www.
portageandmainpress.com/Books/ W/Wayi-Wah!-Indigenous- Pedagogies - Articles and info about Indigenous led programs on land based learning which is where I am trying to find the leadership and wisdom keepers to be our leaders and keep us working on finding our colonial bias in our attempts to rediscover connections to land.
- Locally: https://cheakamuscentre.ca/
programs/indigenous-cultural- programs - https://hginstitute.ca/
- And back east https://www.
socialconnectedness.org/wp- content/uploads/2019/10/Land- Based-Education-Pamphlet.pdf
~~~
How the Heart Skills Talk Series came to be…
This Heart Skills Talk Series has come together over the past years after many conversations, surveys and inquiries with groups of over 300 people in and connected with our Wild Craft Play ‘sCool community of support.
What initially began as deep conversations with skilled and committed people, made me realize that their stories needed to be shared, and people want to learn more about this topic.
With my skills as a digital story-crafter, and inquiring with certain folks about their willingness to have live conversations, we pulled together this talk series.
I have had many people say to me, why don’t you just tell the world about this, because you are the one person I know that has the most knowledge on these topics, but, to me, sharing this kind of information comes more easily when it is a discussion, and it deepens the inquiry into places that I might not have gone on my own. Each interviewee can be seen as both a window into the psyche of other, similar folks, as well as a mirror for folks who may not have scratched the surface on these harder, more vulnerable topics.
The thing is, if we don’t talk about these harder topics, bring up what is uncomfortable, and aren’t willing to be vulnerable, then we miss out on the opportunity for overcoming great fears and misunderstandings. We may be dimming our light. And if there’s one thing my masters taught me that those who are willing need to let our light shine.
~~~
Past
Interview on Place-Conscious Education with Wendy Kotilla, Founder of Youth Ecological Restoration
Future
Upcoming Heart Skills Talks will:
- Continue to unpack this topic of Place-Conscious Education
- Open discussion on other topics such as
- Facilitating Coping Skills in Nature-based experiences
- How to lead engaging play outside
- And more…
~ Jamie Black MA
Researcher
Behaviour Interventionist
Consultant
Founder of
Wish to learn more about our interviewer Jamie Black MA? Click here.
“Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkest fear that most frightens usYour playing small does not serve the world
There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that
Other people won’t feel insecure around you
We were all meant to shine as children do
And as we let our own light shine
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same
As we are liberated from our own fear
Our presence automatically liberates others”
Marianne Williamson