 Arlene, could you tell us about your program? My program is the kindergarten program at Opa Gawson, and we have five-year-olds who are ready to tackle the Alberta curriculum. It's the first, so we follow the Alberta curriculum quite closely, but we also try to bridge the cultural part of our language, ways that we do things in our families, so we try to bridge that and bring it into the classroom. We share a lot of our culture, whether it be Cree, Blackfoot, and any other students who we have in our programs. We share lots of our ways, and we try to incorporate, we try to bridge that, I guess, gap that sometimes I think is really missing in our curriculum. Sometimes we don't focus too much on where we come from. It's more about where we have to be at a certain time with the curriculum, so we have fun kind of trying to figure that out. An example might be when we do our events, or let's say, for instance, St. Patrick's Day, I usually bridge the gap or try to bring it together by comparing NAPI and the NAPI, the trickster and NAPI, the leprechaun into the classroom, so it's kind of a comparison. We say, well, NAPI does this too, but he does it this way. The whole thing is through play as well, so we had a lot of fun last year when we did Counting Coup. We used Coup sticks, so when you count Coup, it's being able to do something without getting caught. We had the head start in the kindergarten classroom watching out for each other and trying to get the Coup sticks from their classroom and trying to accumulate the, see who could accumulate the most sticks. But anyway, so we found with the teachers, there was humor, there was all kinds of things that were brought into this through play. The kids sometimes, I think, were wondering what's going on, but we were like really trying to coach them and guide them through this. In the whole event, we had a lot of fun. We were talking about the times and remembering the times that maybe so and so did this, but it was so funny because we didn't know. So somebody was hiding in the TP and we thought they were all gone out for recess. They were outside for recess, but they weren't. So it was quite an eventful activity, but bridging those, trying to bring it into the classroom and through play is another way to teach our kids some of our traditional ways. I know way back when they used to do Counting Coup with raiding a camp for horses or whatever. So we were using sticks and it was cute. The kids had fun and I think in the beginning, the teacher brought his class in. We didn't have a clue that we thought they were showing us their wonderful work that they were doing in the classroom, but all this time they had an ulterior motive of taking one of the sticks from us and figuring it out way after was quite hilarious because we were older than they were and they even told us, but we still weren't getting it because they weren't able to say the words properly. So then from there it all started. We were determined to get the stick back. So it was cute because we were watching out and seeing when they weren't in the classroom. So it really, I think, helped to get the kids thinking your environment is really important. We always have to take care of things that mean a lot to us and take care of them by not leaving them out in the open. So yeah, that was just one example. We try to do things through dance. We have this Building Better Brains program and it's like musical freeze. The kids love it. What we do is we play a Paolo CD and we have the kids dance and there are actions when we stop the music. They have to do the action quickly. The kids are always saying, when are we playing musical freeze? They love it. So yeah, doing things like that. Finding ways to bring whether it's music, language, when we're reading a book. If there's animals in the book, we will use Blackfoot words to identify the animals. We try to use the language more and more. We try to find ways to bring it into the room. Another thing that we've started a couple of years ago was the iScience program through the University of Lethbridge. So when we do the science program, when we do the dinosaur unit, we usually tell them what we know about dinosaurs and what dinosaur was found on the blood reserve so that they have that knowledge of their own, what's in their own backyard too. So kind of bringing that to them so that they know. And a lot of even adults, some of them don't even know that the Moses art was found near the St. Mary's Dam. So yeah, so doing that for them, I love finding out. The more, I think it's a learning lesson for me, always looking, creating an awareness for them is a really big part of learning and they get excited. Yesterday, I was really surprised to find that one of the boys who was in my class last year had a rock in his pocket and he said, don't you remember? He's in the after-school program now. Don't you remember? You gave it to me. This little boy has held on to that rock and it's like a part of the science curriculum too and it really, like it, it made me feel really good because that rock meant something. He said it's a special rock and so he carried that with him and it probably reminds him of, you know, some of the things that we did in kindergarten when he was, when he was in my classroom. So, and I didn't know about that until just last night. So there's things that you find out every day that you don't realize like they're the willing and so open to learning and it made me think, you know, it makes me try harder even to want to know more for them and to teach them what I know. So yeah, I'm not afraid to not bring it in because it's I think very important for them and yeah, so that's kind of my take on my kindergarten class is try to give them as much learning experiences as possible and finding ways to bridge our culture to bring it into the classroom and try new ways to approach the curriculum by always looking for ways to like a different take, a different take on let's say you're rhyming. You could use the Blackfoot words to rhyme as well, you know, not only the English version of it, but so yeah, looking for ways just always, always keeping your eyes and ears open to find new ways and not to limit in any way like there's always something new, always something there that needs to be discovered. It's not routine every day is a different kind of day. We add on, we're very flexible with teaching the kids new things especially when it comes to culture because there's always something out there for them to learn and the evolution of learning to like it doesn't stop once we find out something it's always you can always add on to it so that it makes it more interesting or more appealing to their likes. Yeah, so that's pretty much the program and that's why I think for me one of the first things that got me to thinking about teaching kindergarten is being a librarian for 16 years and not having the resources, written resources. I mean there's a lot of oral stories but not having the written resources in the classroom is very limited. We have a lot of adult written material but not a whole lot for children especially Blackfoot legends and there's a lot of Cree legends that I've come across but I would like to see more Blackfoot material for kids. That would be something that I would like to to really see more of and I'm always looking out for anything that that could fit into the into the curriculum and into the program. I think you may have already answered this but what are so what are your students what is the learning objectives in terms of when you go to design your curriculum what do you want your students to walk away with? It depends on what grade you're teaching and with kindergarten having that respect getting along with one another yeah we've been working really hard with having them understand that sometimes we have different feelings we're not we don't all feel the same so you might have let's say a student in the classroom who is wanting to play the game and they they're not happy because they're not playing the game the way they want to play the them to play the game but then you have another student who has a totally different view of how the game should be played so there's constant conflict between the kids on how they should play the game when they go out for recess to play tag they are at first always fighting so we're trying to get them to be problem solvers figure out okay how can we where can we meet in the middle so that we're happy about playing the game and understanding all the rules together not just one set of rules so there's that part where you're really trying to get them to get along together be um but be responsible problem solvers in the in the world I guess this this is their first experience some of them are just coming from home and not having any kind of social experience so it's a first and first impressions are usually pretty big so you're trying to steer them into this into this way of of getting along and understanding that other people have different ways of thinking and viewing things it's not just one set way there's always things that we can do to so that everybody is happy you know just one person is getting their way there's other people who have a different take on it and it's okay that they have their take on it too it's not so yeah getting them and I just realized this week that um there are some students who are still having a bit of a time with it but there's some students who really are getting it like if somebody's not having a good day we won't force them to play with you kind of thing we go look for somebody else to play with you know and then maybe when he's okay about what he maybe he might be sad about something maybe something happened before he got here like couldn't find his favorite shirt or whatever you know so depending on how their day is going really depends on how what they're bringing into the classroom so we're trying to get it have everybody on on the same page it's really hard when they're not it's like that's where all the conflict comes in um yeah it's it's fun but when they do have the balance is when they do get it you know and they oh so if so and so it doesn't want to play with me today I can go play with somebody else and it's okay you know so it's just having them helping them guiding them through that whole process of getting along with one another at the same time um learning to to read is a big thing for me so literacy is something that I really focus hard on in the class it's so important for them to have that found leading foundation built like the sounds of the phonics the sounds of the the um letters so that they can um go into grade one just starting to read or I think I had one student last year who was reading but the time he left my class and that was the first for me it was a real real big thing and it was that's what made me try even harder to so this year my goal is two students so yeah it's um it can be really uh like you can you can go in other directions uh when you're teaching because you have to be at that level where all the students are you you have your students take something away whether it be um knowing half the sounds to knowing all the sounds so that's something you know as long as there's one or two it's it's okay I think I've done my job as a teacher would be nice if I could have the whole class but good with the progress that I have right now because this is my going into my fifth year so yeah just kind of already having that um experience with the other students and just building on that and then making it more the next year because it's always a different dynamic set of dynamics in the classroom every every year it's different you know there's there's either more students less students um they might come in with um learning disabilities you know there's all kinds of things that you that come into play when you have a classroom full of students and meeting all their needs is really um a uh challenge but when you get to that um challenging part and you start to see successes is where the balance comes in and it makes you try harder as a teacher to what to get to that point of of having um your challenges met um and then once you get to that point you just move from there and then you can add on to the the whole curriculum so yeah so literacy culture really big in my in my room and trying to come to an understanding that that it can work and it can you can build on it it can become more and it can be more fitting for for everybody in the classroom um yeah so I think that's kind of the the biggest thing for me at this point yeah so not to mention the Alberta curriculum is is another thing that we follow so whenever like even with math we do the Blackfoot numbers and um it's kind of funny because when I was growing up I had to learn French and um so we do the the numbers in Blackfoot French and English so the kids and they love it I mean three languages and I said you should do um Spanish just to get them just to let them know that there are a lot of other languages that you might encounter so it kind of broadens their learning perspective we don't just teach one thing it's we can teach with you know whatever it's almost the sky's the limit let's do this if you know it then just bring it in it's it's okay yeah so I kind of surprised myself as far as as should I do this and we did it one day and the kids loved it so counting and they're watching like they watch you like a hawk so if you miss a number they'll let you know teach me you forgot and it was funny because I was missing the number 16 for some reason I said oh my goodness I have to brush up on my French too so if you don't use it you lose it is what I told them so if you don't practice it's it's you'll have to relearn it again so yeah so we took I took them through the technology part of it in the classroom um went online and we went into the French dictionary and I thought this would be cool to have the black foot like just be at the tip of your fingers to be able to bring it up on screen and we can learn it that way because it had like the sound buttons and I found the number that I was missing and I took the kids through that whole process they had it on the screen and they were yeah it was it was fun it was a real learning kind of thing for both me and them as well so we found so we problem solved we found out where I was missing the number and we made it good again so I think you've hit on the next question okay but just to ask um in your opinion what makes your classroom or your curriculum an example of excellence in Indigenous education I think it's just being open to to whatever you can bring into the classroom and not limiting so if there is I always find ways to fit it in I'll always figure out something to to um to fit