Thursday 28 November 2013

The Mystery Skype

On Tuesday November 26th, our grade 11 class skyped a class that lives on reserve in Manitoulin Island so we could learn about their culture.

1) What did you learn from the Mystery Skype???

Something I learned from the Mystery Skype is how much the students feel singled out when going into the city. Some students said that they feel that the 'white people' keep their distance from them in the city and that they feel judged based on their ethnicity. They also said that the 8th Fire documentary made them sad about how the aboriginals that live in urban areas are constantly stereotyped about things that don't apply to them. Before the Skype call I didn't really think about how much native lives could be more difficult in the city, so that was a really eye opening thing to learn about.

2) What did you like about the Mystery Skype???

Something I really liked about the Mystery Skype would be how each class shared things about their culture. Many things were very similar, like some of the sports we play, and many things were different, like how they use traditional medicine and have different rules compared to us. I think that both classes learned a lot about each other's culture which was really interesting to be a part of.

3) What needs to be improved???

One thing that I think needs to be improved for next time there is a Mystery Skype would be that there needs to be a little bit more organization for making the questions because there was a lot of them and I think that we could have narrowed it down a bit so that the really good questions would not be so hard to find in the list.

2 comments:

  1. Hailey, I also learned about the difference between living on a reserve vs. living in an urban setting. This make sense to me, as on a reserve First Nations would be the majority population, whereas in the city, they would most likely be in the minority.

    I agree that our organization was lacking. I also think that our questioners may have gotten a bit of stage fright about asking questions.

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  2. Hi Hailey,

    The Skype call reminded me of how we do need to get past the surface to truly learn about others. We can wear the same clothes, play the same sports, and eat at the same fast food places (although we don't actually have any on the Island...it's a one hour drive for Wendy's, Macdonald's, and Tim Hortons), and still have profoundly different experiences, perspectives, and cultural practices.

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