Aimee Cree Dunn
English, M.A.
About
 |  |
|---|---|
 |
Raised rural in the Northwoods of Wisconsin and Michigan without a television or similar entertainment, books and the forest figured prominently in my childhood. These and my mixed-blood family's peripheral involvement with the Anishinaabe community in northern Wisconsin provided the foundational inspiration for my teaching and writing career.
​
Growing up in the woods with only small tourist towns nearby, as much as I loved school, heading to the big city of Duluth for my college education was a shock. From a high school of 400 students total to a university of around 10,000, from the forest to an urban area of 100,000, it was difficult to adjust to the crowding and the anonymity of Duluth and the University of Minnesota. Academically, I enjoyed my five years there, taking courses in everything I could from astronomy to dinosaurs to Irish history as well as, of course, Native American studies, Ojibwe language, and various literature classes.
After five years at the U of M, I transferred with a 3.88 GPA to complete my last year across the river at a much smaller university. I craved the feel of the cozier educational community I found there. As much as I enjoyed my educational experience, its academic challenges, and my professors at the U of M, my time at the University of Wisconsin in Superior felt a bit like finally coming home as it provided that "small town/hometown" atmosphere I'd been missing at the larger university.
 |  |  |
|---|
The difference in my two undergrad experiences highlights for me why small-scale institutions can be so important to people from rural areas, sometimes making the critical difference as to whether or not they continue in their education. Drawing on this understanding combined with my years of teaching, I feel strongly that we need to encourage those educational experiences that can help people remain connected to a small community, ideally their home community, whether this be through online education or attendance at tribal and community colleges.
​
Part of this has to do with the fact that small communities help people connect with each other on a more frequently personal basis, allowing space for relationships and thus deeper understandings than may be possible in more highly populated situations. Connections and understandings are key to the work I do as a teacher. A great quote from one of my favorite UMD professors sums it up well. As he prepped us to discuss our most recently assigned utopian film, sci-fi story or Zane Grey novel, he'd remind us that people need to dialogue with each other because it is in sharing our ideas, opinions and perspectives that "we get at that truth that lies between us."
​
For me, stories are a key means to helping us all do just that whether these stories come from oral traditions, film, poetry, literature, fiction or non-fiction as well as artwork and music. Anything that helps us see the world from another's perspective. Although I'm not greatly familiar with Marcel Proust, he once said, "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." I couldn't agree more.
​
Stories, whatever form they take, hold the human heart. Their power stretches back to time immemorial sharing lessons, humor, insights, history, perspectives and more. Teaching stories and the art of storytelling, be it fiction or non-fiction, connects us to an age-old human tradition. In listening to and discussing these stories, we come closer to that "truth that lies between us," to that truth behind the universe that is "the answer to the ultimate question," as Douglas Adams writes, "of life, the universe and everything."
Whether its listening to the stories the land has to tell, coming to understand the insights of a traditional story long-told, or being touched by a character's experiences in a richly textured film or novel, having the chance to share those stories with others through courses I was able to create and develop as well as through prose, poetry and fiction of my own are two of the most meaningful aspects of my work. Sharing those stories with others is why I do what I do. Stories can, have and will change the world making it a better, more caring place to be.
In my Kinomaage classes, students are guided in learning how to listen to the stories of the land.
"[O]ur relationship with land cannot heal until we hear its stories. But who will tell them?"
- Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass