 My very first recollection of getting involved with language is I signed up for the Certificate of Immersion Teaching Program at St. Thomas University. I completed that and after that then I was involved in teaching some of the university courses for that course I graduated from then we had to teach other people how to teach language so I was involved in teaching adults at that time. And then I taught at St. Devin Elementary I taught there kindergarten grade five for six years maybe after Christine Solis died I took over for her. And then I left there and I've been teaching then I went to Chief Harold at St. Mary's and I've been teaching there for I think I've got six, seven years there as well. When I was there though I was only teaching the K-3, K-4 kids, students because they've already got a language teacher there that does the other grades right so. And then I taught some adult classes there as well for parents who wanted to take language while I was there. I didn't do that very long because the interest kind of started dwindling so I just stopped doing it and I've worked on other projects like with the language we've made CDs I don't know if you've seen them they're called they've got books with them too storybooks and CDs for SAID first it's a SAID first program. I did some work on with Jeff Baer on the Samagwan series on APTN so there's some of that translation there that I worked with Henrietta Black and Victor Nallen and all them so I had a little part in that right now we're working on curriculum for two-year-olds so yeah there's a little committee of us there's only five people on the committee and we meet once a month and we're developing like songs and rhymes and stuff like that translating those kinds of things and then we're going to put a put them out right out on the website so that people can go right in and learn them and teach them. How would you define education from an indigenous perspective? Indigenous education? To me indigenous education should be designed as a holistic approach like you're going to be including language and culture and all the things that's needed so that our children will learn about us about themselves and they'll feel good about themselves. Like when you're at a meeting or something and you hear somebody speak Malice it's like you automatically connect to that person and I find our kids aren't connected today they've lost that because they don't have language so I think that's really important that you include language in the culture so they have a good sense of self they know who they are and where they came from and feel proud. What is your vision for indigenous education over the next ten years? For the next ten years well it looks to me like today that there seems to be a lot of money out there now to revitalize our language for one thing so I would like to see that next ten years for that to grow each year because I think our language it is we're losing every day and we're losing our elders our speakers and we're not going to have very many resource people if we don't do something drastic with it and I'm a firm believer of immersion this core program thing doesn't work I mean it's similar to how I was taught French but I went to school I can tell you what a door is and a window today but that's basically it and I think that's how we're pushing our language and it doesn't work you might they might learn a few things and you know people say well it's better than nothing and it is but myself I think you've got to immerse the kids but that's a really big task because we don't have the curriculum developed to do that kind of thing and we're lacking in a lot of teachers to be able to teach it to so there's lots of lots of work to be done if you go that truth but I feel that that's true to God because I mean when I think about how I learned it I was immersed in it that's how I learned it that's all my mother spoke to me my grandparents we were just talking the other night I used to my aunt used to own a store on the reserve there and she used to get me to sell newspapers and I remember walking around the community never heard of any English and I would have been like maybe 10 11 years old there wasn't any English around that anywhere I ever where I walked with those papers and stuff been totally different now but anyways I'm a really real believer in going the immersion route that's why you got to do it and teaching them like with this two-year-old program we're working on I think that's a good thing to do too the sooner you can get that language to the kids you know the younger the better aside from funding what information materials or resources do you think is needed to achieve that vision well we are very fragmented the people that work in there in the language I think we got to get together as a whole and work together as a common goal to produce resources and stuff for everybody can use them but we're all like there's a little group here doing something a little group doing you're doing something and nobody's sharing anything and we're all kind of like reinventing the wheel which is such a waste of time so you got to get together as a whole and have that common goal and work together and that's not happening and then we get into the problem of whose writing system is the best like that just makes me totally sick I'm sorry they've been fighting about that for 25 30 years who really cares how you write it write it the way you want to write it just get it out there like but we've got some strong people with you know this is the way this is right way this and as long as you have that too we're spinning our spinning our wheels so I just think we got a bit arguing about that and just do the work that needs to be done well I mean there's a lot needs to be and a lot but I think we need I don't know we need a committee or something where an organized committee where they can bring everybody together and meet on a regular basis and work at what we need to work instead of working in little groups and not sharing anything because I think anybody who teaches language is always in the same position they have no resources they start from a blank piece of paper which is what I had two years ago and I was just telling Jen I said I just going through my files that I've been working I just retired in June so I had lots of stuff so I've been going through all my files and all the stuff I've accumulated and everything but I'm passing a lot of stuff on to the teacher it's Chief Harold so it doesn't go unused but we need we need a lot of resources people resources and like books and stuff and and really when you think about today all the the computers and everything now that we have we can use to make things easier that's encouraging and Ron like Ron does his online program that's something all these little things it's something