The purpose of the lesson, really, was to get the grade 8 classes to understand about aboriginal culture and how hard it must have been to eke a living in a hostile climate. As luck would have it we  had a freak snowstorm the day I planned to teach the lesson so the ‘hostile’ part about weather seemed even more realistic.

I told each class that they were to choose groups of 6, and they must imagine being sent to live for two weeks, starting today, on Nose Hill, one of our biggest urban parks. They were not to take with them anything other than what they had in class right then- so they could take the binders but not any coats, hats, mitts. One group was to plan how to find food, one how to provide shelter, one how to protect the group from the coyotes and other wildlife that do live in the park and one was to handle the problem I gave them of a small group from another class that was also on the hill with a truckload of food that they were not willing to share. The last group I asked how they would handle it if one of their own group stole from another in the group- what would be their system of justice?

I gave them 10 minutes only to plan.

Well an adult might have laughed off the assignment as too vague, too theoretical, too dumb. And a real adult put in the situation might actually have panicked and given up in a frozen mass within a day.

Maybe that’s why I like to work with kids but these kids rushed to the discussion. The room grew very noisy with chatter, drawings abounding, earnest crisis mood and the shock of nervous laughter.

We reassembled.  First I had them analyze how they chose their group leaders, gender, experience, vote or draft because we were to analyze how small societies structure their governments.  In a way that part of the lesson had bombed a bit because most classes had voluntarily grouped themselves according to gender so the gender of the leader was as foregone conclusion. But the point had been to show them that the Iroquois tribe was unique because it often chose a female leader.

But then we got to the nitty gritty. How had they solved the problems?

 Food.  They said they would use a celphone and call for pizza but I told them of course this was not allowed. They thought of hijacking some biker going through the park, taking his food or forcing him to bring them back some. We laughed. They would use shoelaces and snare gophers. They would eat grass (some scoffed), and berries. They would create weapons to kill the deer out of penci ls, compass ends. They would hide and ambush wild dogs. They would run some animals off a cliff.  Water? They would make snowcones. They would use a plastic pencil bag to capture rain water.  They would build a fire with dry twigs using a match someone had.  They would keep it going with math assignment sheets.

Shelter? They would build a lean to. They would hide under bushes, make a tipi. One class said it would dig a deep tunnel and live there hiding from the animals. They would build a snow fort.

Protection? They would set up a watch all night in rotations. They would hit wild animals with textbooks. They would hijack passing cyclists and take apart their bikes to use as weapons.

And that other tribe? They would try to negotiate, offering trades of clothes for food. They would invite them to a potluck dinner and they should bring the food while our group would provide the music. They would if all else failed send in a team of a Trojan squirrel and steal from them. And as a last resort, yes, they would fight them for food.

Justice? Some said they would shun the offender or send him out of the group to fend for himself. Some would douse him with water and let him freeze (to shouts others offered of “What water?”)

Some would reason with him or tie him up for a while. 

And so it was – I noticed the creativity of kids, their enthusiasm to solve problems, their laughter – and their instinct I think to doing what sometimes might seem horrible or regrettable.  A TV generation? Not necessarily. More like a generation steeped in a survival mode, urban yes, but the mood is the same.

When one group said they’d sow together their sweatshirts to make one big blanket and I asked them who owned the blanket they said “We all do”.  They already had some very basic principles about economics, government, justice.  We went on to discuss socialism, monarchy, aristocracy, gender bias, healing circles, restitution, revolution, war. They understood- and more. 

It blew my mind.  The bell rang. They picked up their binders, still full of the math assignments and compasses, the pencils and the heavy texts, and walked out into their lives again.