 I started teaching here about three years ago, but I was currently, before that, I was a student at the University of California, and I started teaching here about three years ago. I started teaching here about three years ago, but I was currently, before that, I was a student here as well, so I come from Pre-K all the way up to eighth grade, and then I went on to another school, a public school, and then I went to college, and then I come back to teach. The Opposites and the Freedom School was formed by parents that wanted their children to learn the language and the culture and the ceremonies, and they didn't want no outside disturbances, and so they formed the Freedom School and they did it. It started in, actually, I remember my mother telling me that one of the classes were in my grandparents' house just down the road, and they would have some classes there, and they would teach the kids and stuff, and yeah, right in their living room, in their kitchen, so that's where it started, and then we gradually made it to this big school, and we're supposed to get even bigger, so. I would say children from birth, well, it was supposed to be birth because we have the language in us too, but now it's like 18 months into however long they want to stay here. We'll go all the way up to 12th grade if they want. We actually have one teacher that went to 12th grade, and then now he works here. Really? Went right from 12th grade to here, who works here, yeah. That's pretty cool. So it's like all up to the student, if they want to keep going, we'll keep going with them. Like, all the prophecies say that we're supposed to lose everything in our way, so the purpose of the freedom school is so that we keep our language going, and they keep learning about the ceremonies and what to do, and stuff like that, and to create more speakers. I think it's really important, because what's funny is in our community, it's split between two. Like, well, there's a lot more splits than just the two, but mainly for long- course ways, traditional ways, it's split into two. I find here that don't matter here. Our aim here is for them to be speakers. So we have both Long-Causes children that come here, and they learn the same thing throughout the whole thing. They learn all their speeches, and all their opening, they all learn it. So that way, when it doesn't matter which Long-Causes they attend, they can go in and keep continuing the ceremonies and stuff, and our ways of life will keep continuing. So it's really important. Grade one, I have to teach from language arts to math to science to everything. I have to have the whole umbrella underneath in art. Can't forget art. curriculum is all based on the opening itself and everything surrounding us. So the opening is like your people, your earth, your water, your food, your fish, everything. So our curriculum is based on the opening, and each month it changes. We're creating more language, and the more language I think we create will create less intergenerational trauma. Like I think it lessens it a little bit more, and then how we create to be thankful for everything. From the littlest worm out there to the biggest tree, you know, like we're always thankful for everything, and being thankful creates healing in itself. Being thankful for things instead of focusing on all the negative things. So I think it would be, I think it is a healing process, and for them to keep growing up like that from pre-K or the language nest all the way up, their way of outlook is different. Yeah. And I see it in my own, because my kids come here, and I went here, and my husband went to a different school, and he has a little bit more of a negative outlook view of things, and I'm constant, like me and my children are constantly like, nope, it's this way. Look at it this way, and then he always comes to us to see what our point of view is on things, and then when we give him ours, he's like, oh my god, never even thought of it that way. And I think it's because of the way the school differences is, because we're thankful for a lot of things here, and in public schools they don't really have to, they don't focus on any of that at all sometimes. I know it's kind of slightly changing now, but it's not enough of a change to be pushing them to really have gratitude and stuff. So when I explained that we do our curriculum by the opening, say it's right now maple season, right? So our children right now are learning everything about the maple, how to make maple syrup, why we give thanks to the wahtagili, I actually do not sap, that's what it is, in English. So like why we have to give thanks to that, and what the stories are behind that. So they know how to tap a tree, they know how to identify the maple tree, and along with the maple tree and the stories, there comes other trees in those stories, and so they learn how to identify those trees, and then that's just for this month. Or like for my class, we fit it into a week, so yeah. So we try and fit everything in within the semesters, and when it changes, they learn, when you get into the older groups, they learn more survival things on how to make your own fire and stuff like that, all depends on who comes in to teach too, because some of the teachers can't go out there and it's real hard. I have a hard time identifying trees, and I always pray, I'm like, please be the right tree so I don't teach my kids. That's a maple tree, and they'll tell their parents, that's a maple tree, and they'll argue with their parents, not ah, do not deal with it alone. They'll be like no, she told us it's a maple tree, and it's not a maple tree. And then they learn about birds, they learn about fish, they learn about the rivers and how it cleans the land around us, they learn about, um, what else, I can't even think, oh they do a lot of gardening, a lot of gardening throughout the summer and the spring. So right now we're, um, my class will start doing gardening soon. I think I'm going to do it, start it next semester though, because we're kind of only got two more weeks left and I don't want to try and squeeze it into one week, I want it to, like, be a longevity thing, so throughout the semester. If our students are able to return and teach the language, that's got to be some kind of success, I think anyways. I mean it kind of stinks that we're not all first language speakers, but we still know enough to come back and continue and work and build on it, because I know the teachers that are returning and that have returned, we're not stopping learning, we're gonna keep, we keep going, we keep having language classes, we meet up with, um, first language speakers and we're always constantly throwing out words and we're always learning more words, like when you come here, you come here to teach and you come here to keep learning. That's what I found, because I was scared, I didn't want to teach on the outside and teach Mohawk, because that's what I probably would have ended up teaching anyways, was Mohawk in the outside school, and I didn't want to do that, because I was like, they don't give you resources for that in other schools, like a teacher that goes to Sam and River, which is one of the schools that are up here, they don't get the out, the out thing that we get, like, we have first language speakers in our house, like, in here, and we can go right to them and say, I don't remember this word or I have no idea what I'm talking about and they'll help us all the way through and they'll help us translate everything and stuff and it's amazing, I love it, that's what I love most, is that I can just be like, okay, help me. When we go out, because we're always in the community, you can always find us doing something out there, because we don't have to strictly be in our classroom, we can just go out and we always get community, like community members, I was like, oh my God, those are the freedom school kids, listen to them talk, oh my God, look what they're doing, like, oh my God, they're so free-willed, that I was like, look at there they are, so yeah, I find that, I think that's one measurement as other community members noticing what our students and they're working on, what we're working towards and they're noticing it, just even on the grateful level that I was talking about, like, a lot of people notice that, oh my God, your students are so different, because we have a Boys and Girls Club here and some of our students go after school to Boys and Girls Club and then most of the main stream schools take their kids to the Boys and Girls Club and they all meet up there, while the workers at the Boys and Girls Club always tell me when I pick up my kids because my kids go and they're always like, oh my God, they're so amazing, they're so polite, they're so respectful, they have so much respect for anyone, no matter how mean they are to someone and they're like, they're so cool to just have around them, like, aww, thanks, yeah, so that's how I think we see it measured by, because there's no really, no telling how to measure it, right, so just people noticing, like, if you can notice then I guess we're doing something good, right, and then I love the aha moments from the kids, like, aww, I get what you were saying, because we do a lot of sign language, like, not sign language, I wish we could learn the sign language, sign language, but we do, like, we make up our own, so for like, in the opening we say, I could be in my classroom and start, like, I tried to, we had a couple incidents where, like, almost turned into bullying, but it wasn't just there yet, so I had to nip it in the thing, and I started talking about respect and I was trying to tell them what respect was in Mohawk, and I'm, like, doing a whole bunch of straight, and I'm trying to, like, this is what you do, this is, like, trying to explain it, and then one of the kids were, like, aww, and then I was just, like, a light bulb, and I love those moments, those are the best moments in school. There is a huge difference from when they, like, well, my students from coming in to leave it, and just where they are right now, there's a big difference from when they come into my classroom to now. They sit there when they're playing, like, I don't have to sit down and play with them, I could be at the table working on something real quick, and I can hear them talk into each other. It might not be, like, your full grown-up words, they might be doing baby Mohawk, but they're still trying to make the connection between their language and what they're playing, and that, I think, is, like, I don't know, it's amazing to hear anyways, and sometimes I give them, like, a little surprise at the end of the week if I hear a lot of Mohawk throughout the week, so that's when they really try, they're like, oh, what are we getting this week? So they try real hard to speak a lot of Mohawk, or if they don't know anything, they'll ask me after they, or they'll say it, and they'll be like, oh, man, that was English, and they'll ask me what to say, and then I'll tell them. So that's one way, I guess. Okay, so when I went to school here, there were 72 students, and this year we have 94, I think, or something like that. It's around the 90s, or at least the higher 80s and lower 90s. It's around there, right? I remember them talking about it one day, and I was like, holy, so we did go up. It's just, I do find the classrooms, the classroom sizes are a lot bigger from when I was in here, because fourth grade right now has six students, and when I was in fourth grade here, there was only three of us. So that's at least half an increase, so I would say it's doing a lot, like, really good. And then there's even, like, some years where she can't laugh, like, when she does enrollment. She can't let other kids from different families, because we do a lot where if you're already a family member, if you have a child in here, and you have another child that's coming to be here for four years old, they get first picks to come back in. So, like, they automatically come right back in. And last year, or the year before, she didn't have to ask anyone new. She didn't have to put it out there through the community and that. We were looking for enrollments, because we had enough that were, the parents are having babies, and they're coming in more. So two years ago, and then last year, she didn't think we were going to have enough, so she let out the calls, and we'll have, you can sign up your kid or whatever. And then it turned out we had more than enough and it was a big class. There was, I think it started out with 16 students. Wow. And then this year, for Pre-K was 14. We do, like, annual report cards, and then we do annual anecdotal report cards. So, anecdotal is like, we kind of touch base on what we learned, but mostly it's like on what your child is having trouble with, and what he's excelling at. He or she is excelling at. So that's your anecdotal. And then we just talk about, like, what they see at home if they hear any words or something like that, and then, excuse me. And then the report card is a big four-page thing, and we go through and we number, like, so one is they're kind of, like, they're there, but they need more help. Two is, like, they're there. They're just not showing there. They're there, right? So then three is, like, oh yeah, they're there. They're good. And then four is, oh my god, they're amazing. So, and then it's just asked if they can do the opening, if, like, if they're nice to each other, they have respect, and then it's, like, if they can do the math work that we're doing, or if they're having trouble, and it's just asked how their fluency is in everything, to every subject. Get asked about every subject to how well their fluency is. And then even for social songs, we have a subject for that, like, that and their social songs, and then how they do in the social, like, how they act in the social, because that's a big part to being respectful to the singers and the speakers, right? Because if you're talking amongst the speaker that's supposed to be announcing what's coming, you're not going to hear, and you're being disrespectful for them, to them. So our students know to be quiet and, like, so that we, they almost get graded on it, but, and then it's just, it's not really a grade. It's just, like, oh yeah, they do real good. So it's usually a four, because they're very respectful when it comes to the socials and stuff in the songs. Everything is a challenge outside from the school, because it's all English outside. Everything's a challenge. Every day is a challenge, because, um, not many speak. So every day a year, the child's leave here, the children leave here, the child, the children leave here, and everything outside of the school is English. Yes, our community has made some adjustments to be more, um, to have Morgania Geja in there, but I find it's still very challenging to face all that English that's out there, and then to come back and have our, like, it's almost like they leave and then they come back and we have to restart over again. Yeah, sometimes it's like that, sometimes it feels like that, like you get a little bit, um, oh, you feel a little, this, I'm trying to think of the word. Yes, discouraged, because they come back and they're just speaking English and I'm like, holy man, where'd all this English come from, and then we have to back it up a little bit and restart over, and so that's kind of discouraging sometimes, so that's just the whole outside world up here is the whole challenge, and the only way we face it is face it head on and keep going, keep going, don't give up, just keep going, like, yeah, it's discouraging, but you can't give up, because once we start giving up, we give up everything, and it's like, um, I had an opportunity to leave here and work at another school, and I was just like, I can't, I can't leave here because if I leave here, everything we work towards and the things my children work for, because I have one that wants to be a speaker and I have one that wants to be a singer, so everything they work towards, and they're only like five and six, so they have big dreams. Big, little ones. Yes, and I don't want to discourage them, so I'm like, we have to keep working, like, I can't, I can't give up now, I gotta keep going no matter what, and that's, my biggest thing is who watches me, is, that's what keeps me going, like, I got all these kids watching me, I need to keep going, I can't give up. Well when high school they used to always ask me, what, what are you gonna do when you grow up? I'm gonna be a teacher. What are you gonna teach? The freedom school. They're like, well you still need an education, I'm like, no I don't. I'm like, what I needed was to stay there, that's what I needed to do, and when I was in here I did stay, because when I was in school here, we went from pre-k to sixth grade in all immersion, and then seven and eight, you had to get in gear and learn how to speak, like, not speak, but read and write English, everything in two years to go into, like, the bigger school, your high school, right? So that's when I was here, but now it's different, now we go from immersion all the way up. We don't teach them any English here, nothing. Indigenous education, I think mainly language, art, because Indigenous, and I find that like, in order to be, like, yes, your bloodline and everything, whatever, Indigenous, all that kind of other stuff, all your outside influences what makes you Indigenous, I think the biggest thing is your language, like, that, if you want to claim you're Indigenous, then you should be able to speak, right? Even if it's a little bit, I don't even care how much you speak, like, as long as it's a little bit, like, even if it's like, no, don't do that, or yeah, good job, like, stuff like that, or just saying segue to people, I mean, anything's an improvement for Indigenous education towards language, because I think that's what it should be, like, the way of life after, is after the language, because you need the language in order to give things to your way of life. So that's what I think, anyways. Because we have a lot of whata stuff, we have a lot of whata in our curriculum, so those are already all printed books and stuff like that. But we can always go to our elders and ask them, like, if there's something that wasn't in the book and we wanted more info on it, they would just say, all right, here you go, let's start talking, and you write it all down, and you just listen to them, yeah. That we keep creating speakers in our long courses don't have to give up having speakers in their long courses, because that we here are providing them. Like, I really hope, I don't know if that's the right word to say, but I really hope we can be able to say, oh my god, look at him do that, like, oh, I taught him that kind of thing, like, oh, I taught him how to say that part, or something like that, I don't know, that's my hope though, is that they can go into the gun assistant in the long course and be able to continue the ceremonies, that's what my hope is, is that it will just continue, and they won't ever stop learning.