Eight

Educators contribute to the profession.

For me, the second principle best relates to educators contributing to their profession. FPPL 2 is all about how learning is holistic, how it is reciprocally connected and personal. The principle “reflects the Indigenous perspectives that everything is interconnected, that education is not separate from the rest of life, and relationships are vital” (Chrona). Thus, learning happens in the collective and the individual, and in the relationship between them.

It reminds me of a quote, one of two juxtaposed quotes that face each other on a gate, tucked away on the University of Northern British Columbia campus.

Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself

Chief Seattle, 1972

^{Photo from Pexels by Pixabay}

Thus, contributions from educators to their profession are contributions to learning. Educating is the craft, yet perhaps learning is the craft just as well. Contributing to the teaching, then, contributes to the learning. After all, isn’t teaching just “making” learning happen? As I discussed in my introduction to the standards, it seems more difficult to differentiate the two in more holistic worldviews, or when they are considered more deeply. 

Learning Principle 2: Learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential, and relational (focused on connectedness, on reciprocal relationships, and a sense of place)

Moreover, as I elsewhere stated, since learning is embedded in memory, history, and story, learning is just as perpetual as the human consciousness that allows for memory, story, and history!

As I claimed in my discussion of standard two, education has many narratives, and so, teaching and learning in education is embedded in its stories, historical, remembered, or constructed. Either way, contributions to the field keep the narrative alive. Whether history is being reframed or revealed, or memory is accessed or altered, ultimately, the story is being extended. Thus, contributions to the profession are changing the connectedness, sense of place, and relationships between the knower and education, allowing for new learning. Welcome, principle six, and hello again there, principle two.

^{Photo from Pexels by Anya Juárez Tenorio}