APPENDIX

G. Working with Limited Resources

What should a teacher do when resources are limited?

When planning cultural experiences for students, it is best to keep groups of students small. This is particularly true when using a resource person or an elder in the classroom. These people usually find it easier to work with small groups, especially if they are teaching a skill.

Small groups pose a particular problem however, when resources (including human resources) are limited. Fewer students can be exposed to the resources for shorter periods of time. One way to maintain small groups and get maximal use of the limited resources is to use interest centres.

The teacher can plan several centres. While one centre can be the cultural experience, the other centres can focus on parts of the experience, or the integrated activities from the academic subject areas such as language arts, second language, science, etc. The students can move from centre to centre maintaining a group of 5-6 students working at the cultural experience centre.

It may be that just one group gets the opportunity to work with the resource person. In that case, the activity can be videotaped, and used by other students as a resource at a later date. These students can follow-up the video with an activity which is based on what they observed. Simply watching a video without actual hands on experience is not an adequate cultural experience on its own.

In situations where material resources are scarce, such as the availability of moose hides for learning the tanning process, not all students will be able to have the experience. Here again, a small group can be given the actual experience, with the others simply being able to watch a video of the experience. Students chosen to have the actual experience should be those who are "ready". Others can be given experiences with more available resources such as beaver or muskrat hides.

Another way to organize interest centres is to have several centers with different parts of a key experience. For example, on the topic of rabbit, one centre can have an elder telling stories with the aid of a parent, another centre can have a parent helping students to make snares and review photographs of rabbit snaring, while the teacher can be helping students at another centre to skin, cut up and cook rabbits. To prevent disruption, of course, each centre should be in a separate room if possible.