 My name is Shayan Havorka, I'm now Shayan Bartlett through marriage, and I am currently a member of the Red Rock Indian Band, formerly a member of Matatchewa and First Nation. I am an Ojibwe teacher with the Superior Greenstone District School Board, working at Georgia Neal Public School. We're working on a translation project with Nelson Education. As an Ojibwe teacher I often find that there are numerous great resources out there, however they're often in a dialect that's not conducive with the local dialect in the community or they're not comprehensive, there's only like one or two resources within there that we could use, and they jump from level to level, and I've always dreamed as a teacher to have a resource that was comprehensive from a beginning language learner, all the way up to an emergent language learner beyond. And we had received the Circle of Life series from Nelson, which we're all in English, and the Circle of Life series is based on indigenous culture, traditions, and heritage from Ontario, taken from, Nelson worked with elders from across Ontario to make sure that it was accurate information that they're representing indigenous cultures, traditions, and heritage of Ontario in a respectful and proper way. And I read through all the books and they're wonderful books. As an Ojibwe teacher though, they weren't really conducive with my programming, they were great for guided reading in the core subjects, which was great to infuse indigenous learning within the primary sector of the school. But I thought like, okay, well maybe there's a chance that we could get these translated into our local dialect because currently we have no resources unless they're self-created for use in our schools in the local dialect. So I contacted Nelson and asked them if it was a possibility to completely translate the Circle of Life series into our current Ojibwe dialect from Red Rock Indian Band, Lake Helen First Nation. And they went through their paperwork and we established that yes, it was a possibility and I just needed to go out and find some funding. So with the help of the Ontario Arts Council, I was able to receive funding. And now we have funding to translate all 56 books from a level A to a level U reading. So that's like from pre-beginning reading all the way up to emergent reading, past emergent reading actually. And on top of that, we also received funding to do audio recordings so that the people who are reading the book or teachers who are using the resources, they might not be able to pronounce the words properly and that we see that a lot so there'll be an audio recording to go along with each book. And we are also creating soundscape music in the background just to add a little bit more life into the audio as you're listening to it. When you're going through the content of the books, it's very open to all ages. So I think even as an adult, you could go through the series and be learning culture, heritage and tradition while learning the language and not being the kid and not being bored with these books because it's not like the C-spot run books. My target area personally is for the younger people. However, our school board is already considering buying the entire series for all the high schools as well because a lot of the language programs there are starting right from ground zero with a lot of the students that are in the program. So these could be used as listening centres. And also there are some communities that are interested in bringing it into their communities so that they can offer different resources to their members to assist in trying to revitalize the language. Our aim is to revitalize the language and also to create a comprehensive resource for the native language programs within this area. When I started it, I wasn't thinking of like I'm going to do something excellent here. I think my initial idea was to create something that my students could use and something that would assist me in giving my students a real authentic program that was meaningful to them in the language of their community. So that was my idea. And I think as a teacher, when you're understanding what excellence is in a classroom, it's understanding your students and especially from the language perspective, understanding the the dialect within that region, respecting it and being able to connect with the elders in the community to ensure that what you're teaching is what's in their community. Because technically native language, it can be any language or dialect taught in a school as long as it's a native language. So I could be teaching Cree and it's still a native language. However, I really wanted to offer my students their language and people who know and understand the language know that the language is connected to their community, which is part of the reason why there's so many dialects. So it just gives the students a more authentic learning experience. And I think it's more respectful as well. And in line with that, again, not not saying that it's excellence, but I think it brings it up to that a different level. When we're talking about the TRC recommendations, and we're looking and also looking at trauma, past trauma in education, like with with the the comfortability of Indigenous people in education, I think building community trust and relationships really helps kids feel good in the school, really helps community members feel good about education, and also helps the teachers feel more connected within the community itself. So this project is also connecting all of these different people and bringing valued relationships out. And so I don't think it's what I'm doing that makes it excellent. I think what makes it excellent is that we're building a trust and a relationship within the community, between the school, the school board, the principal, teachers, the students, the parents, and the community members. We're already seeing, even though it's going to be a while before they're in the school, we are seeing success already as other education facilities outside of this area are already waiting for the series to come out. I believe because it is a comprehensive series, it is built on an actual guided reading series that is well known and respected in the education. What's the word I'm looking for? Environment. So now we can't drop it because there are other school boards within Northern Ontario that are waiting for this to come out. So I think on an education level, that that's already showing the level of success in there. And Nelson had said that they're probably going to use how we're doing it as a model to do this with other Indigenous languages within the province. So I think that shows success. I think the other success measure that I'm seeing, even though they're not done yet, is that community connection between the school and the community itself is getting stronger. The people in the community are excited about the project. They're excited that it's their language in these books and that these books are very well done. They're very professionally done. They're a very reputable company and their language and their thoughts are in it. Next week is Orange Shirt Day and all educators are asked to talk about Orange Shirt Day. So we can bring that to our students and we can teach them about residential schools and we can teach them why every child matters. We can teach them about the stories of Phyllis Webstat and Cheney Wenjack and all the other thousands of stories. We can also teach them land-based living. We can teach them the language. We can tell them the stories of the pre-colonization and when the connections happened. We can talk to them about, I talk to my students quite a bit about Indigenous music, not just hand drums and powwows but also the other artists and I'm a little bit biased because I am a musician but how contemporary music also tells stories from the Indigenous perspective. But I think what real Indigenous education is is that when the teacher themselves is getting connected to what they want to bring to the students and really feeling understanding what it means to know that piece of information and how it's connected to other pieces of information and I think also as far as the schools can turn Indigenous education we really do have to be aware that there's local and there's more a bigger community and then there's nation and that those are three different levels and they are very different from each other from local to local and so the teachers need to really understand their local Indigenous histories, cultures, traditions and be sure that that's embedded in their teaching and being careful not to paintbrush things or check off like yes I've talked about treaty days, yes I've talked about One Shirt Day, yes I've talked about powwows and yes I've talked about residential schools so to be able to see the connections and where it fits within within our communities. Well I know with our school board right now we're putting a big focus on bringing the Indigenous education at a real level, a hands-on level and embedded level especially with the really young ones starting with the early years like some schools have daycares such as my school and bringing it into the kindergarten room and not just having what we sometimes refer to as the token activity but have it like as a a regular center where it's not necessarily always Indigenous and it could be other cultures that we're putting in there so for us you know we'll have like a listening center and we'll put on some powwow music or we'll put on age-appropriate storytelling or like I'll go in with my Ojibwe classes and work with the little kids we mix them up a little bit and then they'll teach them little animal names and play puppet games but just so that they're starting to hear it and and be exposed to it on a regular basis and I think as far as Indigenous education is concerned that's what it really needs to be it needs to be an embedded part so it feels not just feels so it is part of who we are as a community and that it's not this today we're learning about Indigenous well Indigenous we're on Indigenous land you know we are all somehow affiliated and affected and and we are all together Indigenous on some level right so when you have these kids that are non-Indigenous and they're learning Indigenous as a separate entity and not even realizing like little Sally next to them is Indigenous like they haven't made that connection because it's taught separately but when it's embedded in then it just becomes a natural part of life right because that's what it is like we're here now and we're part of this environment and we are co-existing as we speak so that should be reflected in how we're we're teaching too well obviously proper people and positions and I say that gently because I myself I'm like obviously mixed right so who's to say who is supposed to be in those positions however that being said I have seen positions filled that are Indigenous related by completely non-Indigenous people who really don't know but the positions weren't filled filled before and or nobody qualified applied for them and the positions needed to be built thus you get the person in there that's in the position trying to learn like 90 99% of the time they are working hard to understand but school life is very busy being a teacher is very busy and Indigenous way of knowing being and feeling is is more than just okay tomorrow I'm going to cover that I just need to like skim this enough to bring it to the class because you're missing that whole big connection picture and if you're missing it your students are going to miss it too if we're somehow able to revamp our hiring practices to ensure that the people that the people teaching the languages the people that are teaching Indigenous studies in any grade have the support of knowledgeable people I'm not going to use the word Indigenous people we say knowledgeable people to properly support that program so that it is a real authentic learning as opposed to what I've referred to as like a paintbrushed learning that's going to take time because there's other forces that need to be changed the other thing too that I think needs to happen is I find education a lot of times like Western education I'll call it Western education is very linear that we're going to start here we're going to get to here whereas Indigenous education is very circular it always comes back back it always comes back so we sometimes have somehow have to take make a line in a circle fit together so I'm thinking somehow we have to figure out how to make it a spiral right so it is still circling back and there's still a point A and a point B and but we're still coming back right however that would take a whole lot of everybody being able to think differently as opposed to the very linear approach but I do see in our board especially I do see shifts in thinking shifts in how we're approaching and more collaboration with community members and or with teachers that do know and I also see that teachers are starting to take more risks in saying like you know I really don't know that can you help me or where can I get help doing that which is great so you can have all the resources in the world but at the end of the day it's the knowledge that you need to really really create that embeddedness that we're all hoping and looking for I have some good hopes and that the elders that we're working with right now that hold the language it gets like they hold the old like they're they're getting up there we have to get this project done because we don't want them to get sick right yeah yeah but uh they hold that how do I say this nicely it's not urbanized like it's that old language so if we can get that down and preserve it somehow I just read an article by Boyden not too long ago I can't remember the date but I could send you the citation if you need it on the statistics on how many people speak the language how many people did speak the language how many youth are speaking the language now and there's 16 000 speakers of Ojibwe now I can't remember if it's in northern Ontario I think it's northern Ontario or all of Ontario but it's not a lot and out of the youth speakers they pulled 3000 but that doesn't mean all the youth have answered so there could have been a lot of people that didn't answer that still speak the language but looking at those bare bone numbers without knowing the unknowns that's still less than a quarter that have that are holding the language still so it's um I think it's the race is on to do what we can to to keep the language alive and creating ways to to so it's not just the people who hold the language that are okay you need to get into these classrooms and you need to help hang on to this language because you know everybody grows older and there's only so much a person can do so I think resources like this will at least help hang on to it a little bit longer and hopefully help in revitalizing it oh going back to resources the one thing that I do find ineffective and when you look at research it is ineffective two things two things number one starting in grade four doesn't work well it does work like it does help right but I think it needs to start in primary the actual language programs need to start so not just me taking my kids down there once or twice a week teaching the kindergarten's a couple of words we need to actually get the program running when they're little when they like to sing when they like to dance when they and they absorb every little thing that you tell them so that's one thing that we need to bring the language programs right into primary not starting in grade four and that's a government thing the government only funds grade four and up at the public sector anyway for most schools and the second thing is at least we have core programming and at least we have the language in the schools and that's fantastic because a few years ago that wasn't I know I didn't get the option of taking Ojibwe I had to take French so it's great that we have any kind of programming however when you're dealing with languages that are at risk you need more than core core programming and there's a lot of research on it that supports that the core programming doesn't always really have a good a big effect on revitalizing a language it's not it's fine for French because French is not a dying language it doesn't need to be revitalized but for a language that's really delicate right now it needs it needs more than that 30 to 40 minutes a day