Selkirk Secondary aboriginal education students, along with their counterparts from Golden Secondary and David Thompson Secondary in Invermere, were proud to launch their book “Connecting with the Elders” this week.
The Elder Project was brought to the Rocky Mountain School District by poet Wendy Morton. This is the eighth such book for Morton, who has been working with school districts around the province.
Morton assists the students in getting to know Elders in their community through informal interviews, and then helped the students compose poetry to express their feelings.
“Elders who shared their stories offered a window to deeper understanding of their experiences growing up in Canada as Aboriginal people. We were blessed by their honesty, and we were equally blessed by the commitment of the young people who listened to them and turned their words into poetry,” says Golden Secondary principal in the book’s forward.
And from Aboriginal Education support worker Rhonda Haws from Selkirk: “The students of Selkirk Secondary were eager to participate in the Elder Project. They threw their hearts and minds into the poetry they wrote for the Elders, learning history from a very personal level. Not only poems were created, but connections between the students and the Elders. There was magic in the room.”