 Maryam Khorbir, she thinks, the way things are going right now, that it's actually the people that are literate in Nishnab-e-Mwin that are going to be the ones that will be able to perpetuate it and pass it on On the one hand, people want to emphasize the oralcy, the orality of our language And of course that's important and that's what's needed But what just doesn't seem to be happening is people that are fluent right now, that are of childbearing age still, the majority still have not been able to make that their language of their home and to make it a natural transmission of language and knowledge and culture in the home So what ends up happening is that the language isn't passed on but the cultural protocols and cultural knowledge just transmitted in English naturally in the home as well as in the community to a certain extent and through different programs So one of the things that I've seen, one of my other teachers used to always say when I was a Shkabe this guy has died now maybe at least 10 years ago now Anyway, he would say of the work we were doing, this is not a program And I never really used to understand what he was getting at But here what had happened where people were coming to the ceremony and it was part of their program to fulfill their program whatever they were in, let's say they were in a justice circle and that was part of the program was for them to serve time there or they were on OW, I don't know if it's still called OW and part of their, get their hours or to just go there and help out at the ceremony And so I was like, is that what he's talking about? That this really isn't a program that really the people that are to lead it in that aren't program people But I see now increasingly which is a good thing that actually has to happen is that a lot of these programs have funding and they're funded Yet on the other hand it's when it becomes your paid job or say it seems that there's an element of, I don't know if you're getting overtime for healing work, ceremonial work, something seems amiss to me but he never said it that way So anyway it just made me think that we're making a lot of stuff into programs rather than what he would always say is practicing to be good Practicing to do your best to be a Nishinaabe and what he used to say, Gijaya Nishinaabe, kind-hearted Nishinaabe So there's those that he wanted people to believe and he would say try and believe that and that was the hard part is really believing it and keeping it But if you're on a program then it kind of relieves some of that belief because if you're getting paid to be there you're going to show up That's what I think he was getting at was that if they're paying them to show up and they show up and then they're done their hours then they don't bother coming in let's say this used to be a four-day ceremony that we were doing and then they didn't their hours the first two days then they don't bother coming back the next two and it's because they're on a program So I can see on the one hand that there's basically pluses and minuses, pros and cons to everything So when I see the amount of programs that are made and over this whole area I see that maybe some of the belief is being diminished in a sense because of that sacrifice isn't really there per se So I see that what education too is basically where I worked at Lakeview School we were making these programs, we were recording the elders and then we were also translating different documents into Nishnabemwin and earlier I had problems with translating things from English into Nishnabemwin especially if it were done very literally but on the other hand you got to realize that our language and our culture are always changing although some people say, I've heard different people speakers say that they speak the way they spoke the way our ancestors spoke 500 years ago which of course to me is impossible but that's what they assert that they speak the true Nishnabemwin and others don't And so that's the other part is this whole competition of dialects and dialect affinity which one is the purist and that kind of thing and to me it shouldn't really be about that but it is likewise the stories when we move into written forms you can see this this actually happened with the Bible the Bible was an oral tradition a collection of oral tradition stories and then there were variations of those stories and then somebody had set them down and then said this now is the word this is the book and then after that King James apparently was the one that gave it also a royal decree they put them all together and make them into one so I see that happening with the Meshoma's book of course to me what Eddie Benton was able to accomplish with revitalizing the Medewin is just awesome he really helped out a lot of people and then also with that book a lot of people use that book but the thing is when we have just one book like that you end up silencing other stories so to me instead of relying on one book we got to actually look at more of these stories and put more stories to it and try to prevent this kind of Meshoma's book becoming the next Bible in a sense so we have Basil Johnson of course did a lot of great work as well but I still don't see, especially at Lakeview I didn't see how teachers were using those in their curriculum and it just seemed like everyone wants to remake their materials which is fine because what that really shows is as a teacher you're trying to understand it yourself and if you understand it yourself you make or remake it in your own design but if you just implement it maybe you're not really fully understanding it you're just delivering it so I see the need to do that on the one hand so this... I was just reading this book this morning actually by Pat Ningawas and it was about the stories her grandmother I mean her mother told her and she wrote them down in Nishnabe when this Pat Ningawas and she's from Laxul anyway it was really funny the story was actually titled Naniboush Kwaikkazo Kabane when Naniboush pretended to be a woman and it's a famous episode told all over but when I started reading it I never saw it actually this version was actually started off with the famous version of the Shadai dance that they call where Naniboush tricks those ducks to come and dance in a lodge and then he ends up breaking their necks and then he ends up cooking them so I laughed at this version because usually in all the versions Naniboush tells his ass to keep a watch out he says, go up and keep a watch out if anybody comes wake me up and so usually the kids like this story because then Naniboush's ass is just farting to try and wake him up and he farts louder and louder but in this version that Pat's mom told there's a sidebar Pat ends up assuming the role of her mom as the narrator because the story is going along and then the mother says Naniboush told his bum to wake him up so he was talking to his bum and his bum said, yeah I will do that and then the mother but it's actually Pat of course says I wonder how his ass sounded when he talked so it made it sound like he really literally talked so usual versions are the ass just farts anyway then the actual the ass doesn't just fart he says, hey wake up, wake up to Naniboush so Naniboush wakes up because he says the ass says there's people coming around the corner and I see them so Naniboush wakes up and he looks over there and as the people see Naniboush waking up they hide around the corner again so when Naniboush looks there's nobody there so he says to his ass there's nobody there and he says no there was somebody and he says, ah you so he goes back to sleep and then again the ass says hey, hey, people are coming they see the duck you put the ducks in the sand Naniboush wakes up again he says, no there's nobody there you dumb ass and then he slaps his own ass that was the funny part that I never seen or heard that version where Naniboush actually slaps his own ass and I thought it was just funny so that part gets the sequence of these stories always get told in different ways depending on the storyteller and the ones that I learned from were there's William Jones texts Ojibwe texts collected by William Jones and he went to Boy Fort in Minnesota as well as Fort William in Ontario by Lake Superior and he recorded a fella named John Binesi and Waasey Gwinnashkank the one who leaves his footprint shining in the snow and then Madasso Ganj Tenkla a man of a fella and he also recorded a lady named Marisa Rent and this was around 1900, 1910 so those versions he wrote them down in Nishnab-e-Win and he translated them into English so I always liked using those because they have to me a more authentic voice to them and then I had to what they call transliterate so take that old orthography and write it into how we write now so of course those episodes are in there as well the Shaddai dance and then and then Pat Ninguas sings the song that Nanabush sang there in the book and all he's saying is in this song is I bring a dance to you I bring a dance to you now the version I heard from that Anton Troyer recorded with a late media leader Archimose about this song was he sang the song too but he made it, it was a different one and it was don't look don't look if you look if you look if you look if you look if you look if you look if you look your eyes will turn red so that's what the song Nanabush is singing at that time when all those ducks are in that lodge And so when he's doing that, Pat Ninh has a different song, and Archimossi has another song. And then I have this other recording, and it was put together by an anthropologist named Thomas Venom. And he called it 100 Years of Minnesota Ojibwe Music. And so he has on there these recordings that Francis Densmore did. And Francis Densmore did a book called Chippewa Music. And she recorded a lot of midday leaders at that time singing different songs. And then right up to the 80s, where you have Keith Sakola's Indian car on there. Anyway, one of the songs is a fellow singing that Nana Bush is singing to the ducks, too. And it's a different song. So the point that I'm making is there's all these different variations, but the main events are the same. And that when we end up writing stuff down, the good part is that you can see the variety. But what I see actually happening is that actually some people are starting to prefer that it's just one. I think they want to make one version. Nobody's ever come out and said this, but how they actually, how it ends up being said is that's a, well, the way I heard it was this, which is usually the way it was done anyway. You just say, this is the way I heard it, and you tell it. And so you add on to the story. But now it seems when it's being written, then it's like, no, this is the version. And then so others start saying, no, this is the version. But one of the things that I liked, I recorded a chigging elder, Luis de Bosque, talking about when he was a child. And it was at the sugar camp. And he says, at that time, those days, a storyteller would go around to all these sugar camps and he would tell these stories. And he said that their payment for that was food and course syrup and whatever else. But they go to all these different sugar camps and they tell these stories. And he says, the one day they tell one story, next day they tell another, then they come back the third day and tell another. But then what the parents would do at that sugar camp is they would get their kids, now your turn to tell that, tell those stories. So that's how they were actually trained to tell those stories. And he says, but it was always so fun and funny because all the kids took a turn and then he says, I forget which one of his cousins always messed it all up. So it wasn't about memorizing it, wrote. Like it wasn't reciting the rosary. It was actually trying to be out, do each other and tell the story the best. So they had what he called artistic license to tell these stories, to try and make the best story the funniest one, but also to stay true to it. That's the thing that's missing in our education right now I think for our storytelling is that we actually will get the kids, and this is a part of what I'm doing, but we're at a chicken and egg thing because we need people who tell those stories the way they used to and then how you can actually mix and match episodes. So that's why I started off by telling about Pat Ningawas's book that I was reading this morning where it was about Nanibush Gikwe Kaza, pretending to be a woman. Her version of that story actually started with the Shaddai dance, and usually that's a standalone episode. So anyway, you fill those in, you can put those in in any episode because that Nanibush story is really his life, and there's no actual chronological order to it anyway. So as a storyteller in the moment, you can draw up on different episodes and tell them. What we're doing now is we're teaching kids from books these stories, and that's good because they need to get the story first because nobody in their house is probably, it's unlikely that anybody's telling them their stories in the home, especially in Nishnabemun. So then the next part is though that I think is that you'd add on other versions of those stories in lieu of having different storytellers come. That's what I forgot to say that Louis said, then the next day a different storyteller would come and sometimes it'd be the same story told a different way or another told, of course it never told the exact same way. Anyway, so this idea of a oral tradition where different storytellers are telling the same story, but of course using their artistic license to do so is, but maintaining the integrity of the story is the main thing. So I've seen and heard three documented songs with that story and of course that just leads me to think there must be more versions of that song that Shaddai dance. Anyway, that's the thing that we need to reincorporate in our teachings. And I read this one book and it was an anthropologist who actually wrote the intro to this book and I liked it what she had said. Well, she actually said I'd actually like to make a book and put all these stories, the versions of this story in one book and your job as the reader is you have to go through and read all the versions and that's your first starting point. Rather than just reading the one version and then moving on to the next story or episode, there were some called them episodes and you have nanobushes, like. Anyway, there's a, and then of course people are making new stories for that thing, for nanobushes as well. So it's, there's just this idea of using nanobush or nanobujo as the foundation, one of the foundations of that. But you do have to maintain some of the integrity of it. One of the things that I talk about, I haven't talked about this in a while, was what I liked. If you read the Mishoma's book, the flood happens because the people aren't living by their instructions. And he's gonna flood the world, cleanse the world. And people don't like this when you say, well, that sounds like the Bible. That the Bible says the world was flooded because people weren't living to their instructions and God had to cleanse the world and that's what he did. So they don't like that. Like if you talk to three fires people and you mentioned that, they're gonna put the hate on you. But if you actually look at all these other stories, you see that actually the story, the flood story is actually tied to Nanobush and his wolf. And it's in that Ojibwe text, but it's also in Paul Radden collected it and then also a fellow named George Cabello say from Garden River told the story. And that story actually goes all the way out and if you read a book of stories, I mean a book called Sacred Stories of the Sweet Grass Cree by a linguist named, the linguist named Bloomfield collected it, Plains Cree people and they have the same version, but of course it's a Weesaki junk and his wolf. And then the long and short of the story is basically the Nanobush gets this wolf and the wolf episode is in the Michelin Bus book too where Nanobush and the wolf and it's a bigger teaching that is conveyed in there about them two companions and then they end up separating and they say that whatever happens to the wolf will happen to the Anishinaabe. So it's a great teaching too. But in that, in these other versions collected, Nanobush loses his wolf and he ends up having a dream that he says to the wolf, if ever you're gonna pass by water or jump in the water, throw in one of these sticks first, I had a bad dream that you were gonna drown. So he gives them these sticks and so he says even if it's just a little puddle, make sure you throw this stick in there. So one day Nanobush's nephew, well the wolf, that's what he calls it, my nephew, is chasing down a moose and then that moose is of course running away and then there's a, you could tell that it's a dry riverbed. It's a, all the way to rocks are that it's dried up. Anyway, so the moose runs across there and then in that split second, the wolf decides it's dry so I don't need to throw the stick. So he jumps up to jump on the back of that moose and as soon as he does that and he didn't throw the stick, all this water comes rushing down and it washes that wolf away. So that's what happened and Nanobush's wolf gets washed away and then so Nanobush is waiting for his nephew to come back because the nephew was the hunter and he cooked and everything Nanobush had it made with this wolf. So one night goes through and he's like, well he'll be back in the morning and he's waiting for him all the next day and he doesn't come and then at night he's really worried and then he doesn't sleep that night. So that next morning he goes, looks for tracks and then that's what he sees. He sees the moose tracks and the wolf tracks and then he sees them both going into that big river. Then he knows what has happened. So he follows the course of that river then he gets to where that river mouth is. Where that river mouth is at that lake and then that's where he sees the kingfisher and the kingfisher is laughing away and just totally amused. And he says, what are you watching? He says, oh, all these nidok are playing a ball game with Nanobush's nephew's head as the ball. So that wolf got killed. So this is what gets Nanobush wants to get revenge. So long and short of it is that this Gishkamansi, this kingfisher says that after Nanobush tries to capture him, anyway he ends up telling that bird was brown then but Nanobush tells him, I'll make you pretty like the sky, blue, if you help me. So that bird tells him, they come out and sun themselves here every day when it's really hot. And the last one to come out will be the chief. And when he comes out, he'll lay right in the middle. And he says, but I'll give you, he gives him one of his nails, his talons, karji. He says, when you make your spear, make sure you stab him in his shadow, not in his body. And he says, because if you stab him in his body, you won't kill him. But if you stab him in the shadow, you'll kill him. Anyway, so he ends up, of course, Nanobush and the heat of the moment stabs the shibuji in the body. And so he lets out a big roar and that's when the first flood happens. He floods that world up. Nanobush runs away, he runs on top of a hill and then the water is upside. So Nanobush then realizes that, you know, I didn't kill him. So he makes preparations and he makes that log wrapped. And then that's when he decides that he's walking around and he meets the, what they call, Makkakeem Demue, old lady, old, old lady. And she's the one that's, she has a basswood bark on her back and she's going around singing and she's tying this basswood on tree to tree. It's a good visual. It's like now, you know, when you watch war movies, when they have these wires to trip a bomb and stuff. Or even if you want to think of it now as the internet or whatever, all this wire, basswood bark all over. So she's singing this song and Nanobush meets up with her and he says, oh, what are you singing? And she says, oh, this is the song I sing when I do my doctoring. My grandson was wounded by Nanobush. She was maybe your Nanobush. He says, no, I'm not Nanobush. Let me carry that ball of basswood bark for you and you can tie it. Okay, so they go along and Nanobush says, that's a nice song. I'd like to learn that. She goes, oh, well, just start singing along with me. So she teaches him that song. And when she's done, then that's when he clubs her, clubs her over the head. Then he flays her, takes her skin and then he puts it on. And now he ties those rattles that were on her ankles and then he starts dancing and singing that same song. But she had told him that if Nanobush tripped on that rope, a big rock would come and smash him. So that's what people used to say, sometimes you're driving by and there's a field and there's this big boulder on the middle of the door and then that's what they would say, oh, that's where Nanobush must have tripped that wire and got her away and a big rock came and landed. So Nanobush goes down and he knows that he has to go underwater to go meet, see that shibji that he stabbed. So then he goes down there and then that's when he actually sees that. And then he stopped at different times when he passes the way. But this time, I'm just telling the short version here, then he gets in there and he actually takes that spear out and then he stabs that shibji in the shadow and this time he kills him. And as he's running out, he takes that toad skin off and then he starts running up the hill and then that's the flood. So it wasn't the, in these versions, these other versions that are told, the flood actually happens, but not because the creator is mad, not because people are living ill or bad or juju ebzi, okay? So they weren't living an evil life. It was, the flood was because of the actions that the underwater middle took against Nanobush and Nanobush got his revenge. And then that's when he, then the whole story starts up again, hey? About, of course, Nanobush remaking the world. And so it's a recreation story. When we look at different versions of these stories, put them together, then we can start looking at getting a bigger understanding and looking for the meaning in the stories as well, the motifs. So the best, to me, what I've been working towards by working with speakers and recording them is to try and get the flavor of the spoken word now. Because we do have the written versions and then, which is fine. But the thing is, if you actually have children at one point able to tell the story in our language with the same, using the same terms of phrase, and actually we're not people that have used much intonation in our language to convey information, it's usually done with what they call emphatic particles. So that's what we're missing in our language instruction. The other part is that I think we're missing is, listen to the speakers talk and then they just change little things in one word and then they all start laughing and they're just playing with the language because they're just twisting words, really. And that's the thing that we don't have in our language programs is the students aren't taught the structure of our language. They're more taught phrases and what they call stock phrases. What's your, what's your clan? How many are you buying? Where are you from? Manishesh Nakasian. And then they do numbers and colors and then even getting the foods and stuff. But then when you actually get talking about the way a bird is flying or the way a fish is swimming, then that's where you would start to put words together differently. And so we're just, I feel like we haven't gotten that far yet actually because our language is what they call a glutinative and that means taking word parts together, morphemes, and sticking them in the appropriate place to make different meanings. And that's where the descriptiveness of our language lies, but we don't seem to teach that way. So anything that's due to colonization or just the practices? You can't rule out colonization and anything, especially in education, but I think part of it is we, the other thing that I think is happening is we end up saying that we have an Anishinaabe method of teaching language. But I don't think, I've never seen anybody actually articulate it other than say that they're raised in it. But when you're raised in it, that isn't actually teaching it. And so the people who say that I find are mixing two things up, two different concepts up. If you learned it as a child, you just, you acquired it. You weren't taught it per se. And so now when we're in schools, we're actually teaching it. And so when we're teaching a second language, there's a lot of second language methodologies out there. So of course, one of the things is communicative competence where you're actually trying to get them to be able to communicate their needs. And so when you're doing that per se, sometimes you don't necessarily get at the descriptiveness of the language because it's more functional. So to me, when you're just doing this functional stuff, that's one level. But then when you get past, if you master that functional level, then you get to the next level where you're actually getting more descriptive. Then that's where I think we're just not, as pedagogically, we haven't gone to the next level. And so to me, how many, like I often talk about this, how many, if you go on YouTube, how many lessons are there on colors, numbers, clans, and where you're from? Like if you just go on YouTube and you say, oh, jibwee, beginner, oh jibwee, that's what you're going to find, like just 100, the same thing. And it's like, well, how does somebody know then what's the next lesson? Nobody knows what's the next lesson on these when you go on the internet sometimes for these. I've seen recently that there's been a couple, but there's no actual gradation to actually make how somebody progressed through that. So I think on the one hand, yeah, it's colonization because, but the other thing is, I don't think we've had enough time as a people to really look at our language and our pedagogy and then to try and put the two to get merged, best practices of the two, because even I've seen some people do immersion and they've participated in immersion and they weren't getting anywhere that I could see. After a year in immersion as adults, I didn't see that they had any significant appreciable acquisition of Nishnabem or even comprehension. But that's changed now. There's a group of young people and another fellow, Brendan Fairbanks, who's leading up there in Minnesota and then this other one group called Ojibwee Motanada. And I forget the young lady's name. I think it's Lucia Bonaccio or something like that. She's got an Italian last name. But she runs this thing, Ojibwee Motanada and they're getting young adults speaking. And now, of course, Jessica Shonyas, who was, used to be Jessica Benson and Monty Megaki and the Miskwankut race, they started a thing called Nishnabemjik and they're getting somewhere. But to me, why they're getting somewhere is they actually were effectively able to use tools that people like Mary Ann Corbier made that actually explained our language. But to me, what was happening, and I talked to one of the students who was getting somewhere before. And that's what they said was a lot of people, the speakers especially would say to them, these young adult speakers, you can't use grammar. We don't want to use grammar to teach our language. That's a way, man's way. Meanwhile, the ones that are actually gotten somewhere have an understanding of the Nishnabemjik grammar. So there's this, so to me, two things that are happening there. One, the adult fluent teachers don't really know in a sense or aren't properly trained as language teachers. And so they think that how they learned their language is going to be the same how we're going to learn as adults. But you can sit here and they can talk to you till they're blue in the face and you ain't going to pick it up. Or if you do, after significant hours, the other going theory I think is that you spent 7,000 hours. So one program is doing this through summers and they're keeping track of how many hours they spent. And then I'd like to see their charts after because one guy did a report on them and he said when he went to that class in the summer, this immersion class, and he couldn't tell who was the first year entry and the fifth year because they all weren't speaking Nishnabem. And then when the lead instructor went in and talked, he couldn't tell the guy who was doing the evaluation of this, he couldn't tell who actually was comprehending. So he couldn't tell if you and I were sitting in there, he couldn't tell if you were the first year or the fifth year or if I was the first year or I was the fifth year. So some really say, okay, it's just immersion. But to me, you got to use everything and anything. We all learn differently and that's what I think isn't really being acknowledged by fluent speakers who become teachers. They don't really recognize that. Everyone learns differently. And so why some people may want to learn grammar is because they need to understand, in their own mind, they need to understand how it's put together first before trying to speak it. So, and then others say that they don't need that, they just need to hear it. So one time I was at a ceremony and the ceremony maker's son was there. And so the ceremony maker is fluent, but his son isn't. So the son says to me, not a motion. So I'm a Shkaabe, so I go running up to him and I go, Winesh, he goes, not a motion. So I say, I go, Winesh. Then he points to somebody across the way and he says, not a motion. And I was like, oh, so what he really meant to say was not a moment, help her. But he was saying, not a motion, help me, yeah. So he didn't know that that's, and that's the thing, when you hear the word, you think it, he thought it just means help, not a motion, but it actually means help me. And he didn't know to say, not a moment, help her. So that's the thing that's happening. We don't know the workings of it and when we add different things to it. So then we end up making mistakes and although in the end, I understood him, but it took a while. So that's kind of the thing that grammar helps, you teach that, whereas he's heard that word a lot, not a motion. Whether or not he heard not a moment, I don't know. Or even if he heard not a moment, I don't know if he heard that either, not a moment again, not a moment again, or any variation. I don't know if he knows all that. So that's the thing is, to me, there is, I don't know if bias is too strong a word, but that if it seems too much like a white man's thing, they're not going to use it. And they'll disparage it, that's the white man's way. So one time I had to teach Mary Ann's course at Laurentian and there was many Nishnaabe students in there. But one guy, he obviously wasn't doing the work, but he drove to class. And so then he says to me, this is my name. And he says, I bet you can't find that in any dictionary. And then I say, well, maybe you're right, but I don't have any dictionaries on me right now. And then he, so he's in the means this. And then I was like, okay. So he wanted to challenge that, which is fine, that's a classroom is meant to challenge and ideas and stuff. Anyway, then later then he says, I'm not going to learn this way through writing. And I learned through listening. I said, okay, I said, there's CDs there, you'll listen. And you can do it. Then of course he quit. So I was like, well, I don't know, I'm not the one to make sure he stays in school. But it would be interesting to see now if he actually did listen and where he's gone with his language. So to me, I just think you gotta, I think people underestimate the complexity of our language and they also underestimate the effort that is required to acquire it. And then that's the thing. And I think the other thing that happens is we really don't thoroughly, if we adopt a methodology, a pedagogy, second language acquisition, I find we don't implement it properly and fully. So to me, it's like the analogy I make is that we made a program at Lakeview School and it's structured and scaffolded. And I often thought if this were condensed and the immersion kids had to do this and had the immersion part, they would actually get fluent quicker. But the way they're doing their immersion with the kids there, those kids aren't speaking because they're not made to speak, answer back and Nishnabem went. So they have a lot of comprehension, which of course is good, you need that. But they could be further ahead. And it's because the teachers there have a reticence to use literacy. And it's this idea that immersion is just oral. So if you actually use a lot of different methodologies and actually tested them right on, then you would be able to tweak or say, here's where this one did work, but this one didn't. But we don't do that. And part of it is like when he said colonization, part of it is funding. So it sounds, this whole half hour here, maybe it sounds like I'm crapping over our speakers and our teachers and that. But it isn't. We don't have the proper funding to actually look at methodology, test it out, evaluate it and then make modifications. We're always just stuck in making new ones. And we actually haven't tested one out to this works because of X, Y and Z, but A, B and C didn't work. So I'm gonna modify this and do it this way. And then we end up just chasing all these new fads, like apps and if you look at some of the apps, really, if you look at the app, I've seen a couple of apps. I can't say I've seen them all. But it really is just the same. I've taken the old books that they had and looking at the numbers and colors and where are you from and what's your clan and what's your father's name and that. You know, that's all basic stuff that you need. But then it's like, okay, what's the next part? How are you outfitting the student to learn more and to become an independent learner? But they're really based on, again, what's called the stock phrase method. You learn all these phrases and then that's where you get people saying not emotion when they meet an automobile. So that's the kind of thing that we may make apps, but we don't make them structured to go on to different levels. Or enter generic. And it's not like, this is actually, I made this app for kids and I want them to use it. And I made this one for teenagers. And I made this one for adults. You know, it's just, no, we're going to hit them all. Yeah, and so you end up with, so we made an app. We made two apps, actually. And an immersion school out in Minnesota actually wrote to us. And our app was that bobby bow turn. And the intent, though, was to actually make it like a game. And when I was a kid, my buddy had a game called Simon Says. And it had four colors and four corners. And then you had to repeat the patterns. So it would go green, green, blue, yellow, green. And so you had to keep that sequence going and the sequence would get longer. So our app was actually using the syllable chart. And then we had the syllables colored. So those ending in long O or specific color, those ending in long A were a different color. So then it would generate this on the iPad and then the kids have to follow. But really what they're learning, because it would say it wouldn't just go beep, it would say de, bow, be. You're learning all the different, the short bow, the distinguish between short bowels and long bowels when you're playing that game. And then the next phase of that game is made a niche boggle. So they would say the word and then you have all those syllables in a matrix. And then the kid had to pick out the right syllables to spell the word. So it's like boggle you find the words. So it was teaching them to spell. And the next part was taking images of actors and actions and places. And then they had to make the sentence. So we had birds, sky, river, lake, road, school, whatever. And then crawling, flying, swimming, running, walking. So then they had to then pick the right words based on the picture. So that one is currently being made. So it's actually trying to teach at different level a suite of apps. So again, but that being said, we're still at the very beginning, the next phase that I made it at was wanting to make was to actually have then to tackle what's called morphology, putting those words parts in, and then actually learning how to manipulate that. So one of the examples I often use is, Ghi-wep-to, he's running home. And then Kwon-do-wep-to, he's running up the stairs. Nisand-do-wep-to, running down the stairs. Bindigep-to, comes running inside. So Nimba-to, he's running away, Bijba-to. So then the kids end up learning, yeah. So that's the stuff that we're not teaching. Yeah. And then you use those same things, and instead of saying, Bato, you say, Biza. So Bijbiza comes flying in. Nimbiza, he flies out. Ghi-webiza, he comes driving home. So you've learned how to put these together to make new words, and that's the other part that we wanted the next phase of the app. The criticism of that is it's very Jogunash structural based on linguistics, and so that's what people have said to me about it. But to me, it's like, OK, what you're actually, what we're trying to teach them, how we've been teaching the kids in the school now, thus far, hasn't worked. Part of it, a big part of it, of course, is the amount of time spent on it. But to me, the other part is effective and engaging activities, learning activities, as well as resources aren't there. So sometimes you still get a black and white photocopy handout for your work, and it's like, you know, the whole school has iPads. But when you're doing Ojibwe stuff, it's still handwriting on the paper. So there's a lot of room to make things. So I just think that what we haven't been able to do yet is, you know, yes, colonization happened. Yes, school as an institution is a colonial institution. But you know what, we're still taking over then. But we haven't really managed yet to say, OK, this pedagogy at some point, I guess, is colonial in some way. But at this point, we can actually appropriate it for our own means. And now you look at people, like I met a guy from Wiki, he's doing, he was in Scotland, and he was doing, I think he was a biochemical engineer. And it's like, well, somebody would go around and say, well, he's a colonized. Yeah, and it's like, he didn't learn anything off the land. You know, meanwhile, I'm like, I'm really proud of this guy. I don't even know him. And I'm like, yeah, there's an Anishinaabe biochemical engineer. And then there's others that are doctors, like Ronnie Wachekishik's daughter, and I'm proud of her. But then people are like, you just hear people very simplistically say that we all learn to live off the land. And it's like, yeah, we do. But there's so much more to our world, too. And not everyone wants to live in the bush. Somebody wants to watch Netflix. We're having your nails done. Yeah. I just find it interesting because I noticed when I did my university, I did a college language course. I did a university, I think, almost two years. And I was in a stressful time. And it's getting like a rash, like, compared to all my other courses. I thought that was the toughest one. And I think I had to do some kind of emotional things. I was caring like, oh, what did I learn to this? You know, I was going through all that. But then I find myself that I'm able to understand more, like, just the way, I guess, I was taught, you know, if I hear someone speaking it. And then I'll probably just tell them to slow down a bit. And then I'll catch, like I've done a little sin-grained day, so I'll be able to understand more. Or sometimes it depends, I say. So I just find it interesting. I've always heard it, or I've always, and then I've kind of repeated it in my mind. And then that will help me, you know, comes time to actually say something. Or when I'm reading it, it will help me, like, both ways. And I just got reminded of that, which you talked about. And Marianne was telling me before that the same kind of thing, that people end up really having a strong reaction sometimes to her course, because if they fail especially. But then others, I know one lady from Chigeng, she goes, oh, never, very easy. Because you're just learning patterns. It's just like, but what Marianne found was people that were in sciences and maths found that really easy. Because it really is all just a formula. Yeah, yeah. And all they're doing is making the appropriate slotting and the appropriate information. But she said people in the arts just couldn't wrap their head around that. And they had a hard time doing it. They do excellent in their social work courses and stuff and theory. But then you get to actually just plugging in, where does the past tense prefix go? They put it at the end or, you know, not that bad. But you know, yeah. Yeah, but you know what? It depends, eh? Yeah, yeah. And that's the thing. Again, getting back to this, people learn differently. So when you mentioned that you had a rash in that, what Marianne and I, not just Marianne and I, but others had talked about was, when people talk about this cultural competence and then all the amount of shaming now that goes on with language. Like, it used to be worse. It doesn't seem as bad anymore. But let's say 10 years ago, there was this real, maybe I just haven't, maybe I just stopped seeing the people that I know say this. But if you don't speak your language, you're not true Anishinaabe. You must have heard that, eh? Yeah. And that, about 10 years ago, that was the big, supposed motivator. And of course, they called that a negative motivator. And then of course, when you're, when it's negatively motivation, it's like, you're not Anishinaabe enough. And then you're trying to sort this out and get an A and you're failing. Then it's like, I'm already not Anishinaabe. Now I can't even do it. I'm even worse. So it isn't building up, it isn't building up your identity. So I read the RCAP Royal Commission on Aboriginal People and Yvonne Ebert put together a report that I really liked. And it was called, The State of Aboriginal Language Instruction in Canada. So she wrote all to all the First Nations and she asked them to send in information of their education philosophy, their language philosophy and any of their language resources that they had and lessons and lesson plans and all this. So she analyzed that. One of the things that she found, and this I think is still true, is that all of their language or education statements, their mission statements, were that we are gonna teach the language so that the people will have a strong identity as Anishinaabe people or whatever nation they are. That was the intent. And then what she, I think she's a, Yvonne could be a man too. Anyway, she says, but when you look at all of their resources, it's very grammatical and structuralist in nature. It actually isn't made to foster identity development, especially if you're learning grammar rules that doesn't actually foster the development of an Anishinaabe identity, is what she was saying. So she says basically the goals of the program are a social identity, social identity, but the actual tools and means used to do that are grammatical structuralist. So she's basically saying you gotta change that, make it more in line with what the goals are. Because that's one of the things too that I found hard. Well, what is that? Okay, well, you show me a word, but I need to have it broken down so I can understand it more and visualize it. Just one word and that's what it is. No, but I wanna know how, you know what I mean. So I find that in resources, they don't break down those words or they don't depict a visualization and it's all. So I think more of that should be, that could be done and it would help people like visual learners are. Yeah. I think that would make progress, learning. So that's the thing is, what I think is, on the one hand, the other thing is, I think not Anishinaabe say stuff like, well, we adapt it to the world all the time. But now there seems to be this kind of undercurrent or sometimes unsaid thing of not taking white man's pedagogy and teaching, especially teaching language. And like 20 years ago, the elders I used to talk to would actually say stuff like, don't teach a white man your language because then they'll turn around and be teaching it back to you. So that's the same kind of sentiment, I think. And this is part of the colonization thing whereas, and structures of power and knowledge making, where it's, you don't want to give that to the white man because then they turn around and say, no, that's wrong. But what we're doing now is we're actually, you see where these younger people are having success in it and they actually have used what linguistics has offered and they're getting further ahead. So to me, if you base it actually, if you actually did a study on who's acquiring language and how they're doing it, you'll actually see that they've used a lot of grammatical structural materials and then made it on their own as independent learners, made it towards their social identity. But when you're dealing with kids, they're not independent learners yet per se. So you have to actually provide that for them, eh? So what I try to advocate is that we actually look at the whole field of teaching and take the best and try and incorporate it. But there seems to be to me an inherent bias that, no, we're going to do it on our own. And sometimes it's like, somebody already figured this out somewhere else in the world. Let's use it. But there just seems to be this, no, it's not Nishnabe, that's not Nishnabe way of doing it. And then they just kind of close the door on it. So I've seen that happen and what I really hope happens is we get more of an open-mindedness as Nishnabe people and it would be, to me, this of course is apples and oranges, but it's like saying, no, I'm not going to take nylon net because it's not traditional. When I go set a net, I'm going to use just natural fibers to catch fish. And it's like, it's way easier and more durable and it lasts longer to use this nylon net. But it seems like, I don't really, I've never heard any fishermen say that, but that's the analogy I think of it as with teachers. Yeah, like, no, I'm not going to use that nylon net. I'm going to use the vegetable fiber one, the cedar bark and that's what we're going to use for the catch fish. And I'm not going to use a gun, I'm going to use a bow and arrow. And it ain't going to be fiberglass, fiberglass bow or fiberglass arrows or even the crossbow is going to be made of hickory, you know? And that's what we're going to use to do because it's more traditional. And it's like... As a tool. Yeah, yeah, as a tool. And to me, that's what I look at these resources and the pedagogy and methodology as tools. You can still use the tools, but from an indigenous frame of mind and indigenous goals, your own goals, to achieve your goals. But I think we get some of these things mixed up. So I went and did a workshop there two weeks ago at an immersion program and they got great instructors there. Anyway, so I did two days and I wanted to use this methodology that we're using with Lakeview to try and show them maybe if you mastered this, maybe this would, you know, conceptually, if you got this, you'd be able to go further ahead. So I was learning guitar to play guitar a while ago and then one of my buddies says, once you get that F chord, and there's this, you know, you could play the F chord a certain way, but if you played it a different way, then he said, and then others actually said this after, then every other chord is way easier. And it was almost like that. If you're able to get that magic one, then all the rest becomes easier. So I was saying to them, I said, sometimes our language, of course, is divided into four main verb types. And often what we do is we just focus on one verb type and teach that. And then go move on, add another one, verb type and teach that. And I said, but our language actually isn't, and we don't speak like that. We're just in one quadrant, you know? I know we gotta go slow on that, but. So I said, but if you actually learned that there's three types of verbs that actually mean the same, have the same meaning, and if you were able to learn the differentiated between those and understand them, then I think your learning will go further and faster. So the example I used there was for senses. So it says three of these verbs would be like, first one would be wabi, and that's just the act of seeing. And then wab man, he sees him or her. And then wab and dan, he sees it. So if you had those three and you learned to differentiate them, then the same thing. Nondam, he hears. Nondwa, he hears him or her. And then nondan, he or she hears it. If you learned those three and you kept applying those, I thought maybe you'd be actually able to catch on to something quicker, and it's kind of, it is kind of a getting that, either that F chord in, where you're not gonna get that F chord right away. You do have to practice with the C and the G first and get your fingers nimble enough. So at the same thing, you do have to practice conjugating different verbs and specific verb types. But if you actually then are able to put those together and then make the distinction later and make the right choices, then I think your language learning would go further was what I was saying. But back to the psychological issue. So we were doing our exercise and I was using foods because everyone talks about, everyone has to talk about food, so I wanted it to be something you'd use every day. And so with the thing we were talking about where I was using berries, because you know, one of the big contradictions is that strawberry is inanimate and everyone wants it to be animate because it's a heart berry, but it's inanimate. And same like blueberry. But raspberries and blackberries are animate. So anyway, you would use different verbs based on that. And that's what I was telling them. First thing you see, you know, you're going to talk about some, you have to decide if it's animate or inanimate. Then that affects the next choice of verb you're going to make and then how you're going to describe that and whether or not you're doing something to it or if you're just describing it. So for instance, if you had the strawberry, you know, you decide it's animate, inanimate. I mean, then you're going to say, is it red? Or you're going to say it's delicious or it smells good? Or you're going to say I'm going to eat it or that you like the taste of it or that you're going to store it, you know? So then you have all these different choices to make. But all those same verbs you'd use would be different when you talk about a raspberry because it's animate. Anyway, the young lady, she missed the first day then she came in the next day. And so we were doing a different exercise. So I made these cards where I had the verbs, the animate form of the verbs and the inanimate on the other side. So you had to choose, you had this little card and you go up to the berry and you would say whether you make the right choice, like so you're going to say Gishmina Don or Gishmina Na. And then you're going to say Maba or Manda. So you had to put these down. Anyway, so I gave everyone these cards and then I says to her, I knew she wasn't there the day before. I says, do you know all these words? Yeah, I know all these words. I says, oh, okay, so you're right to go off because I was getting them all to come up to the middle of the class and do this thing. And then she cracked. She just got really mad and was saying this is stupid and I don't know why we're learning all these different dialects, I don't want to, I hate dialects, I don't want to learn dialects. And then later on then she left and she was, of course everyone just went real quiet and they ain't got awkwardly silent. Later on then she was crying and stuff. And then the instructor said, he's just trying to help you. But then I was like, wow. You know, if you showed up there and then that was the thing the instructor came and talked to me after and he says, no, she shows up once in a while and you know. So and it's, but still, like you said, it's a hard thing, but then. So me, I knew I didn't do anything wrong per se and that I guess I could have, I didn't know how to either console or stop, you know, and stop the whole class. And then one of my friends said that, well, do you start with a circle and stuff? And I was like, no. I think the people that are there are supposed to do that as part of it, if they're going to do that. And the elder actually, that's part of that class, actually did her job well and went and console her and stuff, but there I'm delivering content. And I says, if we went into a circle then it would probably end up the rest of the day. And at the end of the day, to me, she's the only one that needed that per se. Maybe she didn't even need it. But the others were actually getting, it was starting to click, the lesson that I was imparting. And I thought, either do we set a step aside for one, or do we all try and go forward ahead with the rest? And I said, well, in my mind, I was already like, well, okay, we're going to go keep going ahead. So that's the kind of thing that different teachers have a different perspective on, like someone saying, no, it's all for one, one for all. And then me, I'm like, you're in a college program, you're an adult, yeah. And sure there are other life things going on, yeah. But at the end of the day, still you do have to, you're an adult, I guess. Well, I continue. But it can be traumatizing to people, yeah. And it's because of that I think is, not only do we have our elders said that, but actually there's actually this societal thing too, that if you don't speak your language, and or if you're not dark, either. You know, you're fair, you're a fair Mishnabe, and you're not gonna, you have it compounded basically sometimes, yeah. Anyway, so there's a lot of different things going on, but when the elders are saying, you're not Mishnabe if you can't speak your language, I don't say that, because I'm just like damning and condemning my own children and grandchildren to whatever adjective people say. Like some now say you're descendants of Mishnabe people, instead of being Mishnabe people. Yeah, see, here's that kind of stuff, yeah. Anyway, I'm like, no, I don't wanna say that, condemn them. So there's a lot of different things that, I think we need to be a bit more open-minded in a sense, and try different things, but the other thing, this was, I guess one of my last points was, when we made this program at Lakeview, I knew a couple of people would say, that thing's doing nothing anyway. And part of it is this buy-in thing. If you don't have people's buy-in, and the other thing is, when they don't actually test it fully out, so it's like, I say to people, like they'll say, ah, this diet sucks, so I quit. It's like, you're just two weeks into it. How do you know it sucks? And then the same thing with a workout thing, you know? Yeah, ah, it has a workout thing. Yeah, it's just treadmill sucks. And it's like, you didn't even test it right out. You gotta stick with it for, yeah, a while and test it right out before you throw it out. But I find we just throw it all out, right away. And then start to make a new one and say, yeah, I'm gonna do this this time. And it's really the same thing, just different bells and whistles on it, but really it's the same thing. It's like they have a bike, a pedal bike, and then they put on a new, different bell and a horn. Instead of actually getting a motorized bike, they think they got a new model, but really it's still just a pedal bike, you know? And it's, but they just put on, you know, those things, those flags. Yeah, well, sometimes they'll say is that you'll get tested to see how far you're going for your heart setting. Yeah. So it depends on how you want to push yourself. Yeah. You're stronger, right? My goal with that language program, so we have our elders, like I said, back to translating those petitions and treaties, so privileging our version of what happened on the island and of those treaties. And then what I wanted them to the students to do, I said, I don't think they're gonna be fluent, but what I, my goal is by the time they get to grade eight, they should be able to read this and decode it. And when you decode something, that means you're just able to pronounce it right. And then they should be able to paraphrase it and then also glean different information from it, but they won't necessarily be able to think their own thoughts on it. But if they, to me, as I said, the success would be if they take our, if they came and they wrote a report all in Ojibwe about what the treaty was and what the Nishnabe view of it was. In all of Nishnabe, then I would consider that a success of that program, even if they weren't able to do it without paper. So the, of course, the ultimate thing is if they were able to do that all without writing and just, yeah, think it and do it. But that would be an a whole immersion program. But, and then that's the other thing that's funny is these immersion programs seem to be like, no, you don't need reading and writing. And they say that Maori did it. And then whenever they say that, I've gone to a number of talks that Maori people have done. And they all said that what was critical to their success was having a writing system and that their immersion programs used reading and writing. And I don't know where some of our immersion instructors got the idea that immersion means no reading and writing. And like, so they could actually still be doing immersion by reading a script and they do a play together. And it's all written in Nishnabe and what, that's still immersion. But for some reason, some like, no, that's, you got to memorize the whole lines in a second. But that's not, and then looking at different, so they do start doing different, using different written stuff, but it just doesn't seem that it's a real engagement with literacy per se for expression, using literacy for self-expression in Nishnabe and what, whereas it's mostly still people have to, the teacher writes down and then the students copy. And that to me is, that's a stage, but the next stage is where the student then looks for information somewhere and then incorporates it and creates their own expression in their language, yeah. So that was what we were shooting for with our program. But it all gets, at the end of the day, it all gets down to political agendas too, so that program is being sunsetted at the end of June. Two years ago, a review was done of it and it had a good review, so now they're gonna, it looks like it's gonna just get set elsewhere, so. But part of it is, I feel like we had a good five years to prove what we were able to do and we had a couple of good instances, but in and of itself it wasn't gonna save the language either. But it would go, I think it would go to having a more challenging and sophisticated Ojibwe Nishnabe and programing that would have been what the goal was, the second language program. So a lot of people think if you're teaching Nishnabe and women as a subject and trying to use immersion techniques and your classes, let's say one class is 30 minutes, so you're trying to teach immersion to students for 90 minutes a week, that ain't gonna work. They're not gonna retain anything if you're just trying to use an immersion style per se or it's just orality or it's just oral language. They're not gonna retain it because there's just not enough time for that. But if you expanded the amount of time dedicated to hearing the language and using it, then that would work, but not using immersion for three 30 minute classes. So you actually have to change your pedagogy. So I think I talked about how I, maybe I'm gonna be seen as a conservative in the sense that to me, the lodge is the lodge and the school is the school. There is a place in between that can be used both. There is some where the two would inform each other, but I think largely I don't like to see the school being conceived or perceived or staged as the lodge. Yeah. And to me, it comes back to this what I was talking about earlier when that old man talked about program that if it then gets in the school, I think of that then as a program. And I always thought maybe again, then maybe I'm wrong, but I always thought that one of our most basic teachings was choice and free will. But when you put it in the school to me, and maybe I just got a Catholic hangover. When I went to school, when I was going to school, we had religion and we had to take First Communion and Confirmation and Confession, Penance and all this. And it wasn't optional. So I just see that as the worst case scenario that that kind of happens again. Where people start saying, you have to do this, you're not an Ishnabe enough if you don't do this. And I think that our society now is more diverse and that we do want to have our way of life maintained and maintained and strengthened and that's happening. But now I'm starting to see a shift. I was just talking to my wife there. I said I'm starting to see a shift where the people that I used to go to ceremonies with before were saying you can't do the ceremonies without language. You can't address the spirit in English. But now I'm starting to see, then this is just a trolling Facebook that people are starting to say, no, the spirit talks to me. And another guy had phoned me and he says, I'm being directed by spirit. And so everyone's, I was like, now that's one of the big things that we used to take people on to learn the language was that ceremonies had to be done and conducted in Ishnabe. But now it seems like that's starting to loosen up. People are now saying, no, no, we've been doing this ceremony in English for X amount of years now. And it's brought healing and it's brought good feelings for people. And I say, well, I guess that is hard to argue with. The result of that ceremony is to bring healing and good feelings and a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood, then it's accomplished its goal. And you did that all without Ishnabe. And to me, I just see that as part of the sinking that our impetus for learning it, it takes another blow. And I've said this, I used to say this all the time, but I'm confident that our ceremonies are going to last 30 years from now. Somebody's still going to be doing ceremonies. That's quite a lot. In our area, I'm not as confident that that ceremony is going to be conducted in Ishnabe at this point and 40 years from now even as well. So that's what I see happening is that the protocol and the order of procession of the ceremony will be preserved and even maybe even some of the songs, the actual invocation and communication will be done in English. And one of the other things that my aunt passed away a while ago and that I brought that old man to her wake and when they finished a church service and so then they brought a big drum and so these guys came and they sang a song on the big drum. And so they said, I'm going to stand for an honor song. And so I made the old man and another Shkavius at the back and that old man, he just stayed sitting. So I was going to stand up but then I was like, well, I don't know, I'll sit down too. So I sat there with the old man and then the other helper just sat there and everyone else was standing up. And then that old man, he was listening to that song and he says to me, they don't even know what they're singing. He says, that's my song. That's a song we sing when we bring that Sundance tree in. And he says, but they don't know that. That's what that is when you're carrying that tree in. This is what they call it an honor song. So to me, that always struck me that they thought these songs will stay but some of them, they might know the words but some might not know the context or the teaching behind it. And then others sometimes you hear them singing the song and the words they're singing is like, I don't know what you're saying. And then they tell you what they think they're saying. And all I just say at that point is there must be a dialect thing. But it's like, it doesn't, you're mispronouncing, yeah, yeah. And they're not speakers, so it's like, but they're like, no, this is the way I learned it. And I'm like, I'm sure whoever taught you it said it differently. I said that too for a couple of weekends. Almost a different dialect. So it's, I don't know. That's the thing. So that's why part of it again is you have people that learned in the lodge from the lodge people and then I don't know that drum group where they learned that song from. And then the other thing is here, this one song, I shouldn't say I hate it but they say it's a water song, and they sing it when they yell. And it's, you hear it everywhere. And it's like, and then, so one lady, we're doing the program and I says, why don't you sing an Anishinaabe one? Because that's supposed to be a Mikma one. She goes, no, that's, we can't change it. That's how we learned it. So I was like, okay. I says, well, for our program though we should learn words. You know, we've just changed the words. Because no, that's how we learned it. You're not supposed to change the song, which is true. Then I was like, okay. So I thought she learned this from an elder, this song. Anyway, so I talked to another woman in that singing group she's part of. I said, who did you learn that song from? Oh, Dora had a CD. And we played that on the CD and we sing along. And I was like, what? And you can't change that? And you learned it from a CD? You know what you mean? The other lady made it sound like she learned from a sacred dog, grandmother from Mikma country that was on a sacred purpose to bring it here. And so that just blew my mind that maybe I'm sounding real negative. But anyway, I just think of these things as, well, you know, they had their time and place. And I look at it as kind of like when we still sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star in Nishnabem, it had its place, but now we should be beyond that, but we're not. We're still singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and she'll be coming around the mountain in Ojibwe. And there could be good for teaching like the Wabim's Kadabah and go a bit of Wushin. It's a fun thing to sing in that. But I just think it has its time. We should be using our own more culture-based teachings from our area and our own song. Whenever you're learning somebody else's, you're privileging that over your own. And that to me is the, that's the colonization part as well. And part of it is the result of that colonization is because our knowledge were diminished, devalued as well as outlawed and banned. And so people didn't keep it going because of that. Only certain sects did they certain pockets here and there. But now that that's been removed, there's really no need to keep singing, should be coming around the mountain or Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star or Forever Jacques in Nishnabem. Anyway, those were when I was a kid. Those were the songs used when I was a kid. And it still kind of amazes me that we haven't moved beyond that in a sense.