Living and Practising Values of Gratitude and Respect in a Sámi Educational Context

Being out on the land, experiencing oneself on the land and engaging with the surroundings, including the land and water, are central parts of Sámi life. In this article, we explore experiences and tell our story from our visits to two cold springs with a group of children and educators from a Sámi early childhood centre. We discuss how educators and children, by engaging with traditional stories and cultural values of gratitude and respect contribute to decolonising pedagogical practices. The explorations and stories in this article are based on our ethnographic fieldwork. To put it more precisely, we present a story following the Indigenous methodologies of storying that account for experiences of the days when we engaged in adventures because of the invitations of the educators who told traditional stories beside the cold springs. The present was entwined with the past and previous generations in their storytelling. Living such an adventure created spaces for shared learning and decolonised pedagogical practices. The values of gratitude, respect, and a sustainable lifestyle were lived through the stories told and what children and educators did while being on the land and fetching water. The central Sámi values include the need to work in harmony with the land and water.