Interpretation of Words and Education

The sixth day of class started with a reading facilitation that centered around the use of Venn diagrams, poetry, and painting to further our ideas of education within the Western world, the Indigenous education system, and rituals.  Our discussion really moved me to think about the way we define and use rituals and routines in our daily lives and even in our educational system here in the western world. 
The online Merriam-Websters dictionary defines the word ritual (as a noun) as 1. the established form for a ceremony; specifically: the order of words prescribed for a religious ceremony, 2. a: ritual observance, specifically: a system of rites, b: a ceremonial act or action, c: an act or series of acts regularly repeated in a set precise manner. 
The online Merriam-Websters dictionary defines the word routine (as a noun) as 1. a: a regular course of procedure, b: habitual or mechanical performance of an established procedure, 2: a reiterated speech or formula, 3. a worked-out part (as of an entertainment or sports contest) that may be often repeated.
I thought it was really interesting to compare these two words and to think about the roles that they play in our society today.  I find that the word ritual, to me at least, means something that I do on a regular basis that I do for myself personally that has some sort of spiritual meaning in my life - for example, I would define a ritual as wearing my necklace and ring every day, and hardly ever taking them off or going anywhere without them.  Whereas, I would personally define a routine as the schedule that I carry out, or the order in which I do things - for example, getting up in the morning, and showering and getting dressed before brushing my teeth, and then going to school - the order is the routine, the constant. 
Dissecting these two words and then connecting them to their roles in education made me realize how many rituals we have lost within our western educational system, while the main thought has become routine.  The schedule within the classroom, or school system has become more focused on the idea of having a set schedule, a set regimen which the students must follow, during which the students must learn a set amount of information so that they can then get good grades on the standardized tests scheduled for them throughout the year.  If we get back to our roots, back to the ideals of rituals and the thought of community and place-based education, I think we'll get back to the idea of connecting to our community and then even the natural area that surrounds that community.

We painted a few pictures to depict what we saw when we closed our eyes and listened to this poem.

Fire

By Joy Harjo

a woman can't survive

by her own breath

alone

she must know

the voices of mountains

she must recognize

the foreverness of blue sky

she must flow

with the elusive

bodies

of night wind women

who will take her into

her own self

look at me

i am not a separate woman

i am a continuance

of blue sky

of the sandia mountains

a night wind woman

who burns

with every breath

she takes