 Tell me about your program. OK, so I just finished a semester at in Chelmsford with the high school students there. And there I was teaching native art and Ojibwe language. But Ojibwe language is my specialty, so whatever school I'm teaching at, and that includes here, I'm always teaching Ojibwe language. I just started teaching native beliefs and native studies as a combined course of study here at this school. But my specialty is Ojibwe language. So what age group are you teaching? OK, so my students are in age ranges from 14 to 18, meaning that they're grade 9 to 12. Because it's an open course, all the courses that I teach are open, so students are, it's an option for them. As long as they're able to take an extra credit outside of their compulsory credits, then they can take my course. So anywhere in age range from 14 to 18. What would be the aim of the program that you're teaching? Because I teach three, it's almost like three different courses, but the Ojibwe language course specifically, I guess we could say that it's teaching the language, so we're teaching concepts of the language. I always tell my students that they're probably not going to be fluent by the time you graduate my course here, but you will have a good grasp on the basics of the language, right? So we have many introductions, basic vocabulary concepts, and how we relate the words to their root word meanings. So our language is based on our environment around us. So if I can teach them the meanings of these words, and more specifically the sounds of Anishinaabemowin, then it'll help them remember and connect to these words, connect to the meanings of the language. And that's what's going to make them more fluent speakers, or put them on the road toward fluency. And my goal is to introduce the language in a way that is going to motivate them to learn the language, not just Ojibwe, but to learn any language. Like they have to have that immediate interest to keep them going, to keep them wanting to learn it, right? It motivates them. So I think exposing them to learning the language in a way that motivates any learner to learn something. And I think if you keep it interesting like that, then that's the goal of the program. Keep them interested, keep them motivated. Is this program an example of excellence in Indigenous education? I think it is in the way that we teach it. I'm really thankful for the opportunity I have here to teach the language because I am passionate about it. And I think that our board in particular, the way we work for our programming in Indigenous education is they give us that opportunity to design a program that's going to fit the needs of our learners and to help them exceed, to help them excel. Based on their individual backgrounds, their individual learning needs. And I think when we design our programs, how we converge and how we meet and discuss our ideas and the innovation that I guess we discuss and how we can change our programming. How do we make it better? What new things can we introduce for our students? I think we're very fortunate that way. We're not teachers that teach from a textbook and teach page by page kind of thing. But we're able to take the students out and make that connection to the land. When I'm teaching the language or native studies, we take trips out to the sugar bush and we learn about the language that's involved in that by doing. And I think that's important. How do you measure the success of your program? So do you notice a difference or change in participants at the end of the program? Is enrollment high? Is the demand for the program high? And if you have some form of evaluation for the program? Well, I think enrollment is always a concern, right? Because especially now, I think most of the boards can feel like that slight decreases in enrollment based on the demographics that we live in. But for my programs in particular, I find that I'm very busy. Like I have very busy programs. The school is kind of art and performance and music based. So I think that the Indigenous programs here are very busy. Like there's a high interest for it. And if I was concerned slightly about my enrollment by the end of last year thinking, oh no, I don't have enough students registered or I have less students registered, usually by the time the program starts I usually have more than enough students to run the program. Like right now, I have 23 students in my Ojibwe program. And really when you're teaching a language, that's probably perfect. When you have too many students, I do less one-on-one. And I like to do lots of one-on-one. I like to do lots of hands-on activities. And I think in Native studies I have just as much if not more students. So I think demographics, like we're kind of an inner city school here. So I think we're meeting the needs of the families that live in this area. And it shows the success rate. Like last year when I finished the program, I'd have students coming in to see me that, you know, haven't taken my programs. They see what we do, they like what they see. And then they say, oh yeah, you know what, I'd like to do that too. You guys are making mittens. Oh, I want to make mittens. And they see how it fits into our program. And they think, wow, I didn't know you guys do that. So yeah, so when they come back the next year, they already have an idea. They have a plan that oh, I want to take that. So the interest is there. So I'm not really, I can't really be too concerned when the enrollment is down because usually by the next year or the next semester, I have more than enough students. And it's telling that interest that the students have is telling in how successful the program is. So one of the things I've done in the past was have a QR code that the students can scan and they can see pictures of what we do in our program. And they like what they see. I'm a huge advocate of taking pictures as part of my assessment because sometimes if I'm working in one area of the classroom but I take a picture of the entire classroom and I see the students engaged. Well, when I'm working one-on-one, I may not see everybody or I may not get to everybody. But if I'm taking pictures of the students at work, I can see, I can gauge their interest and I can do more observational assessments that way. But I do have my rubrics and my checklist and my other types of observations that I do. One of the things that I like to do in these courses because they're open, I'm not bound to have an exam in my classes. So usually what I try to do is I try to do enough written and oral tests throughout the semester but at the end I usually do some kind of culminating project or culminating task with the students. Something in which they've had input on. So like one semester it was moccasins. So the students were saying at the beginning of the semester, oh, would I ever like to make moccasins, right? And I warned them. I said, jeez, you know, that's not an easy task. I said, I've made moccasins before. I can teach you how to make them but it does take a long time and it's very tedious. You have to know how to sew and we have to make sure we get all the material. So I did a cost breakdown of what it cost and I made sure they know, you know, it's not cheap to do this. If you want to do it, I'll access the funding. So I accessed a grant to do it and you really have to plan for stuff like that because that's a project that takes, you know, it doesn't take a week for them to make it because I'm with them for 70 minutes a day, which I like because, you know, it's different from elementary. Elementary is only 20 minutes, you know, 20 minutes per class. But 70 minutes I said, yeah, I think we can do it. So we started in November. We finished for the first little while. I think we were doing it once or twice a week and then come December we were doing it every day, like every class. And then, but it was really nice because they'd come into class and they'd say, okay, can we take out our moccasins and work on them? And like some of them were doing beadwork and sometimes I teach when they were doing beadwork and that works out really well because they're quiet, they're focused and it's a different type of learning, right? I think you use your brain differently when you're doing hands-on activities like that and they're paying attention in a different sort of way and that works out really well. And so they would work on their moccasins every day. Sometimes though we would just do just that and it's meditative. Like sometimes they'd want to play music. Sometimes there'd be nothing. Like sometimes it'd be quiet. So they were able to finish it, I think, in about eight weeks because these are students that, you know, sometimes there's a few of them that had never sewn before. They couldn't even thread a needle. But then they were doing this and what they did was amazing. Like when they showed the school staff what they made, it was like, wow, you guys did that. I can't believe that. Can you teach us how to do it? Like everybody wants to learn how. But I like doing those types of formal assessments as culminating projects, culminating assignments at the end because it shows me what they're capable of doing and I think it shows them, like more importantly, what they're capable of accomplishing. What is indigenous education to yourself? So like how would you define the word indigenous? I think it's any time that we're able to connect all the elements of our culture, right? For us here in our area that would be Anishinaabe. I centralize the teachings in my lessons through Anishinaabe. Although we talk about other tribes all the time, I make that connection for them because we do have students that are Inuit, right? Or Mohawk or whatever, but primarily we're Ojibwe, right? So I make those connections through language, through land, through cultural traditions, right? Through food. It's everything, right? It's everything about our culture. And I think if we can incorporate that when we're teaching or incorporate, we can implement that in all areas of our curriculum and cross-curriculum too, right? Like there's so much math and science that's involved in so many of the things that we do. Like just taking a trip out to the sugar bush, for example, right? There's math involved in that. You know, and I teach that even in my course because when we talk about SAP, you know, how much SAP are we getting in our buckets at the end of each day? Or you know what I mean? We have to measure that. So yeah, when we can connect the language and to the land, to the culture, to our traditions, because it's all interconnected, I think that's Indigenous education, right? And it's central. And we're talking central to this area. So we're utilizing all our local resources. Is the term Indigenous the one that you would normally use? You know what? It's funny because we talk about that in our Native Studies or Native Beliefs course which is going to be called Indigenous Education or Indigenous Studies. What does Indigenous mean, right? Indigenous can mean anyone that's Indigenous to a particular area, right? It may not mean that you're Native or that you're an Indian or that you're a Manishnabe. So it could mean someone that's Indigenous to this area. And they understand that. But if we're talking about Indigenous Studies, they know that while we're talking about, you know, if I'm talking about myself, well, I like to be called Anishnabe, right? That's like, you know, Jibwe, that means the one who is lowered. They're lowered from the Creator down, you know, into the universe. So yeah. And I always say, what do you want to be called? If you're a First Nations person, do you want to be called First Nations? Do you want to be called an Indian? Do you want to be called Indigenous? And I think that, I don't know, it's up to the individual, like their own perspective, right? And that's what has meaning. Yeah. That's what has meaning for them. So it's funny because I taught them that my dad, well, he grew up in an era that he likes being called an Indian, right? And to him, that's what he is. And it's so funny because he says it all the time and he says it's such a loose term for him. And I kind of giggle when he says it because it's not what I call myself, but for him, you know, like he was, he grew up, like he was an adult in the 70s and they heard that term all the time, right? From Indian affairs. So that's what he calls himself and he's fine with that. If someone calls him an Indian, he doesn't find it derogatory, doesn't find it racist or wrong. So, you know, it's whatever someone wants to use or identify with. What is your vision for the future of Indigenous education? Well, I think we need to maintain where we're at now. I think it's working toward the goals that we've set out for ourselves. Like, I guess, for me, that would be like I'm passionate about the language, like I'm here because I want to teach the language and I think that's important. I think that if we're going to maintain a certain level of cultural connection and that understanding of that interconnectedness that we have with our land and the culture, I think that we have to maintain our language and it's funny because I go to all kinds of conferences, right? Language conferences and that. And there's different perspectives, right? There's perspective that, oh, like, our language is being lost, right? And my own, I guess my own thoughts about that is that, you know, people that are fluent, it's definitely more rare, but I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to hold that perspective or that belief that our language is lost because I have enough hope for the future that, you know, like, I'm an example of that and then I have students that I teach to that are an example of that. They're a testament that our language is going to thrive and it's going to continue because last year, for example, I had a student who is taking a post-secondary program to become a native language teacher, too. And that's a compliment to our language, like, that we have those young learners that are still willing to take on that responsibility. So it's about sense of responsibility, right? And achieving our goals toward the future for maintaining our language. And if we maintain our language, I think that it makes this easier to preserve our culture, to preserve our traditions because they're connected, right? Can you think of any types of information that if you had now it would help to achieve your vision? Oh, yeah, it's everything we do here every day. It's, um... it's probably our elders, too, maintaining that connection, right? Like, for myself, like, I have my own go-to resource people that I speak with on a daily basis and that would be my parents. And I encourage my students to do that. I encourage my own children to do that. You know, you have to spend time with your grandparents. It's important to spend time with me, but it's more important to even spend time with them because that's not going to last forever. Like, you have to see and feel the value in spending time with our elders and our community people that have all these gifts that they want to teach to our younger generation. So I try to encourage them to see the value in that and how do I do that? I do that by sharing my own stories of what life was like for me growing up, right? Like, I have family members that all went to residential school and went to different institutions where racism was prevalent where there were struggles, right? So I think it makes them more aware of how we live today, like, what's good today, like how they're living a good life, you know? They have more than we had when we were younger, right? Like, my family wasn't a rich family when I was growing up by far, right? We were poor until we got a little bit older. But yeah, so that's important and I encourage the students to just spend time with our elders and to value that. I think they understand that. Just getting back to, like, achieving that vision, I think it's important for us, like, as cultural resource people, as language resource people to get together on a regular basis, and that's what we do. Like, when we converge and we meet at our language gatherings, our elders' gatherings, we have to be open to those. Like, it's important to maintain and to keep doing that because when we go there and we converge like that, we're developing programming, right? And it's important. We're developing and we're sharing our resources. We're developing curriculum. We're meeting with people from the ministry and things like that to provide that input that's so important for the future of our students and our community, our families, right? So that's important, too.