 What is it called and what age groups are represented in that program? Who participates? Well I am a teacher in a K-3 school and I teach grade 2 which is ages 7, 7 and 8 year olds. What is the aim of your program from your perspective? Well currently we are in the middle of a curriculum restructuring at the provincial level. But as it stands right now I try to infuse Indigenous education throughout the entire curriculum, LA to social studies and math to try and bring my experiences and to help students understand and learn more about not just, you know, Cree culture but a lot of Indigenous cultures. So would you say then it's sort of to pass on more than just one goal or objective with respect to that? My main goal is to have students that are Indigenous see themselves in everyday society because we've always been exempted in Western education in the past. So I want them to feel that we've always been here and we always had our own way of living. The different Indigenous cultures have similar beliefs but yet we live different ways as well so I want them to recognize when it's their culture that they have something to bring to the table. And we were always part of Canada's fabric. We should have never been excluded. Can you please describe some of the different activities maybe in the program that the participants are involved in? Well our curriculum itself has an Indigenous focus on the Inuit. But I try to incorporate more into language arts, reading, using books, using books from Indigenous authors. And I use Indigenous art a lot because a lot of our students are very artistic. And then with science, the ways we use materials in our environment for survival, for medicines, I will try and introduce things like that so that they can recognize how big of an impact we actually had on society. Does that involve bringing in other people from the community? I have brought in other people. Mostly my parents who my dad has knowledge about ways of Indigenous medicine. And while he's not necessarily practices it, he does have knowledge about it. And he'll share that knowledge, what lichens were used for, to heal people. Even what the weather is like because we do weather at this age. So the Indigenous calendars, how we learned about the passage of time and stuff. Some of the trickster stories, like we sappy-chack and stuff like that, I'll get that from my mom and dad. They retained a lot of that information from their growing up, even though they went through the residential school system. They still remember that stuff from their parents and their grandparents. So it's still valuable. So then how would you say that, do you measure the success of the program that you're utilizing there? Is your bringing in or infusing into the curriculum? My measure of success for my students is their sense of belonging in the classroom and into their school. Because a lot of times we get kids who don't see themselves, don't see their pictures of students like them around the room or in the halls or in the schools. And now they're getting to see that more and there's more acceptance of themselves that, hey, I belong to this place. This just isn't for other cultures. I belong here too. And so they feel important and that should always have been that way. So do you see a difference then in your students at the end of like, you know, as their progresses? And can you describe to me maybe how they are different? I see them blossom as academic learners, especially in their reading because I'm a literacy expert as well. So because I can bring in like indigenous folk content books that they're looking at reading books and stories about people like them themselves and their culture. So then they just sense a pride that they hold their heads higher and they speak, use their voices and they don't hide what they know. And when they see, you know, they see me as a role model. And they're like, hey, maybe I could do that too because I've had students come back and say, you know, I want to be a teacher. So if one measure of success is like enrollment, for example, is enrollment increasing? Like, is the demand for maybe even your class higher than, like, do more kids want to come into your class? I haven't necessarily experienced a demand for, you know, especially indigenous parents to have their kids come to my classes because they don't believe they know that they can ask for that. They can advocate for myself. I mean, I do get a lot anyway. And some of the first things when I meet the parents and the parents come in, the smiles on the parents' faces when they see that I am indigenous, that they are just so happy. Because they know that their child is going to be in a safe place. And it still doesn't necessarily mean that they are still attending school every day. But a majority of my students do attend school and, you know, eventually you could hear them telling their parents, I love my teacher. I love going to school when they start out there, they're not so vocal. So if you were to have some form of evaluation of what you're doing in your classroom, what feedback do you receive? I have, like, I support a lot of teachers in my school. I provide them with resources. I point them in the direction of where they can find resources or locate maybe a certain topic that they're looking for. Well, maybe look at it this way. Maybe you could do this, use this book this way. But I always encourage them to. If they find a book in their life, I want to use this in my class. How am I going to use this? And I'll ask, first of all, where is this culture located in Canada? Who are the people? Because I don't want them going around thinking we're all the same culture. We are not painted with one brush, we're all different. So first of all, identify where this group, where the story originates and then see how it will go from there. Because I think we should be reading Cree stories to Cree students and if there's materials for the beaver or for the denny, we should be reading those stories to the region that they belong to. Because a lot of books we have right now are all about dream catchers and stuff. And as far as I understand, in our area, that wasn't traditional to our area, but it doesn't mean we can't learn about it. It just means make sure you identify where the material is from before you just assume we all do the same. What challenges have you faced and how have you overcome them to make your program a success? You know what I mean? Like to make it work and how you see it coming to fruition. The challenges I find is finding enough materials, especially for our high-level area. There's not a lot of materials on the denny-ta, their own made materials for here. There's not even a lot of Cree stuff for this area. So what we're doing is I look for stuff that is Cree-based and then I apply it to where the Cree people that I come from. How are they similar? But then I'll teach that in comparison as well. That Cree people here, this is what we do, but the Cree people in this area do that. So that's how I try to work around that. But in general, I just want them to understand that we are different. We are different in our own groups. So we might change up just so that they can develop critical thinking about the different cultures across Canada and across the world. My question now is from your perspective, what is Indigenous education? For me, Indigenous education is teaching about our people and how we should have always been included in the formation of Canada. Especially teaching it to non-Indigenous people that it's almost like we were just wiped away and there weren't any people to start with. So I think when we teach the children that they see themselves in society, that we are not on the outside. We are right in it and we should always be in it and that we have a voice. And I think that's what Indigenous education does. It's an equalizer for us. It has equalized my standing in society. So you talked a lot about literacy because it's something that's really important to you. So if we were to focus on that specific area in Indigenous education, have you already communicated to me then what that looks like as for your students in your program? I don't, like I use Indigenous resources when I can get them, but generally they also get a lot of just regular mainstream trade books and stuff that are available. But I will use those to incorporate, if it applies to something in my life, to my culture, I will also, that's where you can do the infusion. It's when you're reading a book and because we're storytellers, our background is our old traditions, that that could be a jumping off point for something in my life or something I've learned about an Indigenous culture. You know, hey, you could do this with that and lead off into that. Because I also want them to understand that we do have our own histories that our families have that we should be telling this. And the big difference between that I've noticed with working with a lot of non-Indigenous people is that I am a storyteller. The way I've learned is through stories and that our children learn very well through that. And so that's what I try to use for literacy. They come from that tradition and we just got to apply that to reading and then, you know, because they're related. If they don't have that language-based learning first, it's hard for them to learn to read. But we get a lot of good results with the programming I have in place. My last question then is, what is your vision for Indigenous education, say, over the next 10 years? So like, you know, for our people, what would you like to see achieved or progress that you hope will be made? Well, as a professional in my building, I belong to like a division-wide program which is called an FNMI cohort. And my intention was always to teach others to know where to look for things and how to go about this. And what Indigenous perspective or in culture, things like that, how to do that, even if I'm not there. Because I think that's what our goal is, you know, from my parents. You know, they teach you all the things to be, you know, that good person you should be, so that when they're not around you continue to be that person. I think we need to do that with our Indigenous education. If we get the resources developed, if we get, you know, we get in contact with elders, that we're passing on and teaching our next generation how to do this themselves. And that's what we used to do with our cultural teachings as Indigenous people. And that got lost from the residential schools. So people think they don't have it, but we do have it. It hasn't lost. You just got to find it.