Braiding Sweetgrass

 I'm writing this entrance slip quite late and I have accumulated some knowledge during my two week practicum that changes how I would've have written this one month ago. Thinking on it now, there's a trend in mathematics that you define what you need and within the confines of which you need it. For example, a quadrilateral is defined as a four-sided polygon. We take it further by confining it within the boundaries with which we will see, study and use them; usually at least one set of parallel lines and all angles being less than 180 degrees. This type of approach although useful to serve a specific purpose could be considered a disservice to the imagination of people and to the things themselves. 

In Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer's "Braiding Sweetgrass" she talks about a bay - or more accurately, to be a bay. In English we've used the word "bay". In Ojibwe, the word used to describe the same thing is "wiikwegamaa" which translates to, "to be a bay". Her explanation on a bay being alive and that it is not dead and thus cannot be referred to as a noun but instead a living, moving being as a verb is something that truly captivated me. If you go to a bay you can see the current from the sea/ocean. You can see the tide rhythmically bouncing off the shore. It is being. 

I think the grammar of animacy itself as Dr. Kimmerer calls it is something important that can be shared and discussed in every classroom - especially with younger students. Adding this layer of recognizing plants and animals for something outside what we as humans interpret them as will allow one to show a more wholesome level of respect to their surroundings.