 My name is Holly Yusufi. So for the past few years I've been doing cultural arts engagement. I don't know if I call it a program, it's just an opportunity for schools, for people who are interested in learning more about the cultural arts and kind of what I call the original arts of the land. When I grew up I found that you know the art that we were learning was more western and you know we didn't have a huge focus on the traditional arts that my mom and my grandma were doing. So that just kind of became an interest for me to to try to help more people learn how to do cultural arts. So in my program or what I offer schools is there's a lot of opportunities I actually don't even know how to put it all together. So I try not to be a one-off craft, I try not to be just come in and do a project with no history connection. So one of the things that I encourage is that before I go in to do actual hands-on art experiences is that we have a conversation about culture and how arts fits in culture and not just First Nation culture but all cultures in the world because you know every culture in the world has their own forms of expression and you know the forms that we used a long time ago were the original ones here, so I mean I like to tell people about that and then I like to talk about how I go about collecting, preparing natural materials for a lot of the arts opportunities. So in a regular classroom setting I can't do that all within one class block. So I also think that when I do that talk beforehand and I kind of have a I provide opportunity for the kids to experience like washing fish scales or dying porcupine quills that you know like what are we going to do next you know it kind of creates a I guess a further inquiry like they would their interest in right instead of just kind of this is all your supplies and this is what we're going to make right so before I go and do any art I feel like that kind of stops it from being just a token craft or a token activity that we get to learn more about even the relationship to the land because a lot of my material does come from the land that as our our ancestors have always had a relationship with the land and we encourage to continue that so that's a neat part of my job is that the connection to the land too and I get to kids to just kind of experience that and you know know that that's what our ancestors did for you know thousands of years so I hope that kind of sums up what I do but I mean it's it's just natural to me to go and share and that's what our family does so well when I first designed this cultural engagement that I go into schools with my first audience was students so I former employee of Edmonton public schools and one of the things that I had the opportunity to do was to pilot this this project while I was there and I found that it was easy to go into elementary schools because kids are just more excited for learning I just had this idea that all people were already set in their ways and that high school kids don't want to be involved just from experience right so I first designed it for elementary school and then from from that just going to different schools or different programs offering it through teacher professional development and things like that I learned about taking all of my my activities and making adaptations so you know okay so that all ages could do it so my original target was was elementary school but now that I found there's a huge demand for what I do there's a lot of people that are interested in bringing in cultural arts into the school whether it's because of all what's happening with reconciliation or learning about residential schools or people just trying to incorporate the history the original history of Canada that you know there's a high demand for it so then I started to play around with different ways of delivering information first for simple topics so for example like porcupine quillwork porcupines are or the quills are dangerous they're sharp so right away you know you don't want little kids playing with it but how could you create an opportunity for them to to understand the concept of quillwork so I mean being able to do that I've you know I've opened my audience a little a little bit more and then there are places where I've been to quite a few times you know so I feel like maybe those quillers can be advanced by now but they we can go into different variations of quillwork so starting with basic understanding you know my my original audience was elementary school but now I deliver to early learning all the way through high school including teachers and staff staff PD retreats so just to people who want to have a cool cultural arts experience but then it does teach a little bit a little bit of history and I try not to scare people off I mean try not to make it too hard make it easy enough so that people could complete and have a have a cool experience the original audience that I had developed this with like the pilot project in Edmonton which was really in my heart I wanted our First Nation Maintain Inuit kids to see culture in the city to find a sense of identity because we know we all know that when we have a strong sense of identity we can pretty much tackle tackle anything but coming across a lot of young kids that you know might have grown up in the city don't know their extended family in their whatever from whatever First Nation community they come from so one of the beliefs that we always had at our at my face of employment was our halls walls and resources should reflect our population and the schools that had a high indigenous population were kind of my they had a soft spot like I have a soft spot in my heart for them because those are the kids that probably needed the most that connection to identity because you know you are First Nation when you are in a group of you know other people so whether that's a comfort in identifying yourself as okay it's okay that I'm different because I am First Nation but then what are those things that I can do that make strengthen me as a First Nation person so a lot of my projects I hope that you know the children or the people that participate came up with a with a stronger sense of identity with a passion for exploring further into the arts you know a long time ago I was taught that you know our our forms of expression our arts our tools they're not just for economic or to make money they are their ways to help your your mind and and your heart it's storytelling so it takes care of our health and well-being and that's kind of what I would would wish my participants come out with is recognizing that it's it's helpful not it's not just something to do that the more you do it you know it could be calming it could be relaxing it could be kind of your own therapy but you know it's it's pretty powerful when you can do storytelling in many different ways so that's kind of what I hope for for a lot of people that experience the cultural arts with me especially the kids but you know when I target the teachers I hope it's something that they can take into the classroom so that the kids can see themselves in the classroom because that's where they come from that's their own history so I guess another thing that that I want people to understand is I got to travel all over the world I'm a volleyball player so I got to go all over Canada played in the United States I even got to go to Europe but I found a lot of times I was defending stereotypes or I guess breaking myths about about us and it just kind of became my line of work I guess is trying to help people understand rather than getting mad at them you know that they don't know the real us and you know we have our own ways of doing being so creating that understanding for all people is that I mean in my heart I kind of think it will eliminate racism one day the kinds of conversations that I have because when I parallel cultures you know we're not all different we're actually kind of the same it's just that those tiny elements that make us unique are different and creating understanding is kind of I guess the overall objective but yeah my heart is with the kids because as adults we can design programs we can say hey these are cool these are going to work but if the kids don't love it they're not going to gravitate towards it and they're not going to just naturally want to do it all the time so I'm scared that culture is going to become too much of just a subject one day that we can just hey have this experience and you know they fall in love with it and want to learn more so when I go into school usually before I go I offer the variety of topics that I like to go in with and like I said I like to have a conversation to start with so the first conversation that I like to have is about culture in general all cultures in the world have common elements and for someone that you know comes from culture it's easy to say oh in your culture this is what you do in my culture this is what we do you know so we do paralleling instead of just pointing out the differences so for me that the cultural conversation is the most important thing that I take into the schools as it is a conversation that I can say you know when we learn about an art project you know we can go back to all those common elements and see how it fits so that's the first conversation I go into I call it like an introduction to culture it's it has those common elements that I can I guess refer back to when I do the cultural arts another thing that I like to go into the schools with is talking about traditional foods so my mom is Lorraine, she has been doing traditional foods presentations my whole life I don't remember time if she ever didn't do presentations but she liked to talk about how we can harvest the food from our own land from our community that it's a healthier way of living so being able to have a conversation with kids create an experience so when I go into a classroom and do their cultural or traditional foods presentation I take in little samples of all the food that we collect from standing buffalo and then we make a version what I call grocery store pemmigan but it's just because all their food comes from the grocery store so it's one of my popular ones a lot of people like doing that one it's simple it's fun it's delicious one of the other kinds of stuff I go in with I guess another topic is traditional games so I know there's a lot of traditional games workshops and stuff that people go to but when I do my presentation on games I like to talk about how there's different stages of learning in there and helping kids recognize that they're actually learning instead of just playing a game I feel that you know the traditional games equipment because it's made of natural materials I can talk about the relationship to the land again I can talk about you know when we're done playing with it we can give it back to mother earth it'll turn back into earth so those kinds of things but recognizing the different stages and games and sometimes we don't even know we're we're playing a game and learning at the same time so kids find it awesome when they they realize that they can learn through game and then sometimes I get the I wish I could play games all the time to learn instead of doing schoolwork so that's another one of my favorites so those are the kind of tune I wouldn't say artsy but the rest of them are more project focused so I like working with natural materials so the most requested one right now is porcupine quill work so there are places where I have done done a visit where the kids actually wash clean and dye porcupine quills before they use them which is I think a real floral experience right like they get to do that otherwise people that don't do that I just come in with colored quills already so they don't get to see that process so there's other materials that I dye I also dye horse hair moose hair fish scales the porcupine quills and caribou hair because they teach all kinds of cultural arts and one of the things through doing the natural material collection and washing and prep and dye I talk about how you know different groups of of indigenous people you know might not have used all these materials but you know we all have a common relationship with the land and a lot of our things are are harvested the same way and yeah so with the cultural arts I like to talk about well teaching quill work beadwork we're known we're known for our beadwork but a lot of times people don't recognize that our beadwork actually evolved from quill work so a lot of our beading techniques are old quill work techniques so having kids you know realize that you know like oh okay you know I get it you know those are kind of those those things that I like you know like oh that makes sense right so I like working with leather so a lot of times when we do a lot of our art I will use leather I feel like it I can say that's the original canvas of the land and so a lot of our painting a lot of the hair embroidery will go on leather I feel like I'm saying a lot the working with power flesh you know power flesh is actually a french word but the rawhide the rawhide component of making like containers and things like that the kids can make a little envelope depending on the time I have some people have made boxes or other kinds of containers which involves math you know which a lot of people don't realize too like the the already components of that exist from school you know the science in it the math and then the literacy the numeracy like all that kind of stuff we can pull a lot of that from these cultural arts and and find ways of enhancing those those elements I guess but you know it's fun when we can do it in from a arts perspective so a lot of the arts that I do go in with it's really I like to teach the technique so that kids learn to apply the technique rather than assume that the technique is only for that project so when I do quill work I will teach quill wrapping and sewing down the quill in three different versions so instead of just making a project so then they apply the technique to the project which I think is more freeing more liberating in a way there's room for creativity whereas if you go on with a project that already has you know its limits it's not as fun same with beading I go in with just a beading technique I go in with three beading techniques and then the kids get to create something on their own so I think having that flexibility is really important so I've also done collaborations with other kinds of of art so for example this one time I had a junior high art project where our theme was reconciliation and the calls to action so I've taken the the three days that we work with the kids and broke it down into learning about those calls to action reconciliation having those pre conversations then learning art techniques and then watching the kids come up with an art piece influenced by the calls to action so whatever calls to action spoke to them the most or one that they wanted to focus on whether it was a call to action that was important to their family or in the direction they were going if they wanted to be in the health field or in education so they picked one call to action to portray into art so I have one school right now that applied to do all the 94 calls to action into an art piece so hopefully we get the grant but yeah it's creating it's creating opportunities like that that I'd love to you know go into places and talk about we don't have to follow this agenda in all the topics that I send out but that we can also come up with our own with our own version last year I worked at bell carers school and we did a piece on dedicated to the missing and murdered indigenous women of Canada and so the kids did some research and they found information that you know it told us all the locations of the documented cases of missing missing women and then so our art piece it was funny because our art piece it was a leather and we strung it up like on a high-tending frame and then we did an image transfer of all the provinces across Canada but when I brought the leather it was already in the shape of Canada so I thought that was really like it was meant to be kind of thing so and then when we did that the kids learned how to do we just did a quick daisy chain like a daisy flower so they made these little flowers and documented all the locations on that hide where the missing cases were so for them to go through that realization you know that these are real people that they have to look up a name and to see where they went missing from then to find that on the map but then to document it in a way you know like the cultural arts on the leather with the beads and the flowers you know the flowers being connected to the environment and the land it was really it was a really powerful experience because not only was it the kids you know when people would walk by they're like oh where are you up to so there's it invited a lot of people into the classroom which also created more opportunities for the conversation for missing and murdered indigenous women but you know that's probably one of the one of my favorite things that I've done in the classroom but I like to design things because teachers schools I mean the audience that I go to whoever I coordinate with knows they're they're people the best so I'm always willing to design something whether it's unique whether it's something that I've done already but to create an experience that you know that they're going to have conversations about for a long time and then lead into other conversations but I think that kind of sums up all what I go into to schools with sitting in the kindergarten class after I've been there quite a few years like what are we going to do next you know it's the people that want more that's that's kind of what I go like there is a huge need for it but when I see kids finish a project when I see kids bring things to parallel the significance of it you know that's that's what it then they get it right like I feel like they get it but when it comes to kids it's just the the fact that they made something so I'll give you an example one of my schools that I did we did a doll project where the kids all made dolls right so we started from scratch and we just had leather and we stuffed them and then the kids designed clothes and to hear stories a year later where the kids still carry their dolls or see pictures on Facebook of those kids with those dolls and I guess the stories that come from the parents too you know like I'm thankful for parents that reach out to say hey this actually meant something to my child you know and I guess it's just mostly the feedback I'm not I have this thing about I know education you know they they give grades and things like that but I feel like when it comes to things that have to do with identity maybe we shouldn't do that that how can we really measure like oh you are doing you know 70 percent and learning your language you know like whether what does that say you know about how we're maybe not influencing this person to just learn right so I get scared that if my I hope my arts and my opportunities never turn into a child receiving a grade because I'm hoping that it influences you know their identity their sense of self so I mean that's one thing I'm always good at the success I don't really depend on grading or I don't have a criteria line is just as long as they try and they get to hear the stories of the connection to culture the connection to the land a little bit of history of how we got to this place from doing these arts a long time ago to now like for me that's enough for them to know to learn and I can't force them to do more art or to like it but I don't know if I have any real success measurement but I guess the stories the feedback the demand the desire like a lot of people want to want to have this in their school want to have their students experience it and it's it's time for for us to do that we're going to help people last year well the other thing is there's a lot of there's not a lot of funding out there for artists to go into schools people schools have to find ways so I've had schools that apply for grants through sascar sports so last year we got three grants this year I had seven schools apply you know for the November 1st deadline so for it to go up from like more than double rate so the the the desire for it is there but I think if it was any other kind of opportunity like you know field trips and stuff like that there would be money but because it's unique it's it's hard for schools to to get me to come in and whereas when I was in Edmonton because it was my job it was easy for me to go into schools I had my budget and it was no at no cost to schools right so but now it's a cost to schools because um well I'm not a paid employee the nobody has all the the materials that I use so to to have that supplies on hand and people want it but yeah I'm just the interest I guess is my the interest for it would probably be my measurement it's since I've come home there's a lot of people I want to invite me to their schools well when I first moved back to Saskatchewan I found that it was uh because people didn't know what I what I did I was in an area where nobody experienced what I do in the schools that it was almost kind of like a hard sell um I felt like I had to convince people a lot more in the beginning whereas now I just you know I get emails or phone calls and asking my availability but um the hardest well not the hardest part but I mean I don't see it as a barrier but because I've been doing this for a long time um my back my educational background I actually am not a teacher I don't have a b-ed I went to school to be a welder I wanted to do I wanted to be a welding artist I wanted to do metal sculptures and I also did a cultural arts instructor program which you know I learned a lot about the arts in the north um so when I when I tell people that I'm not a teacher I feel like they look at me like I have less um oh you know like I'm I don't know I just feel like okay I don't qualify to be here but then at the same time I I can see the that the there is a lack of cultural arts knowledge and ways of incorporating cultural arts in the classroom so for me that's my strength and luckily when I did work with Edmonton public you know um the my supervisor and my co co-workers you know there was a lot of collaboration so um when we when I designed this this program um you know I got to go into the schools and you know those teacher colleagues that I had you know helped me and you basically just kind of I think because they were open to it right it didn't it didn't to them it didn't matter if I was a teacher or not it was the my abilities of being able to go into the classroom to create these opportunities for for kids um so coming home and trying to tell people you know this is what I do and um to not be an actual teacher I don't want to call it a barrier because I don't I mean I don't see a need for it for myself um because I love doing this and um it's not a huge criteria for myself to to do it's a passion it's something that I already know so um yeah going into the classrooms is just natural anyways you know my whole life everybody said that I should be a teacher but I didn't want to be a teacher I don't want to teach people stuff that they might not like you know so I'd rather create cool experiences for people um so yeah when I first came back it was a hard sell but now now the people know what I do um yeah like I I think I like that the that I don't have to work every day you know I don't have to be busy all the time and I can be free for for a lot of things like um when I work for sediments in public I have a lot of requests for outside the district whereas I'm from a district employee so it was really hard to to say I want to help them but you know I can't because my job limits me you know I have my area I have my school so um now that I'm just doing independent contracting then it's easy like I travel all over the place and it's awesome so I don't feel like I'm missing out on kids whereas when I was in my other job um I felt like oh I only have these kids but these kids need it too so just being free I feel like uh it's it's better but yeah that was the only it's yeah I'm in the momentum now the challenges aren't really there so when I think of um my ancestors you know our our method of nurturing a child to have um the abilities and skills that they need to be contribute contributing to to um society I guess um you know when I think of our those old ways um I feel that's more truest to to indigenous education rather than the the western way um the ways of doing that is also different as we didn't have classrooms um no authoritative figures I guess in in the groups but you know from going into classrooms now I find that uh the whole idea of culture in the school can be a little more specific to to be a little more specific to to the truest cultures of the land here so um when I have that conversation of culture in the classroom um I talk about six common elements the first element is language the second one is kinship the third one is the process in transferring of traditional knowledge the fourth one is the connection to the environment the fifth one is the ceremonies and celebrations and then the last one is the forms of expression so part of the reason I teach people or I tell people about those six common elements and these elements kind of came after attending multiple kinds of cultural awareness trainings um other kinds of events where people were trying to talk about um you know indigenous culture but for me working in such a diverse area in Edmonton I found that okay these are things that everybody will understand not just uh indigenous people but all cultures in the world so paralleling those conversations so that we have um common common elements of culture was um I find it more comforting rather than just always finding out a difference and then you have to know those differences so when I think of indigenous education I hope that um I don't sound like I'm bashing Western education but you know there's when it comes to language there's uh we're not all on the same page when it comes to language there's formal communication and we learn how to read and write um then formatting and things like that whereas there's more of uh feeling and and consideration and compassion and empathy when we communicate in person which is more true to culture um as when we transfer traditional knowledge you know they're not giving us tests or not giving us assignments or things like that so in how we communicate with one another I feel like that's kind of um there's a difference in that so the culture the cultural component for language and communication um I feel it's more person um not person more I'm no empathetic when we when we do it in person um so the kinship system so in in in our families you know we have all of our cousins which are like our brothers and sisters right so um we don't have a kinship system in regular education we understand people's jobs roles and responsibilities but um in in a family you learn from people so growing up I was able to go and live with you know my auntie or a couple of my aunties because I have a lot um and they all had different things to teach me but in my culture I understood that um they might have things that um my mom doesn't um see it their way or you know but it's still helpful to me and then that's why she sent me because you know there's things that I could do and learn from from other people and when I think of a classroom setting for to be able to go and learn from other people that's not really the there's no flexibility in that and you know there's one teacher responsible for all of these things so when I when my mom sent me to well not said I sounded like she's forcing me away but you know I had opportunities to go stay with with other people and um that was for for me you know like she knew that it would strengthen me or mentor me into my own strengths and abilities which um which I feel like yeah this is this is how I would love to learn is to go and spend time with people that will help me and when you think of a family structure that's kind of our role in our job is to is to help that way and compared to a classroom setting or in education you know you're kind of on your own and you it might not have that relationship with people that are they're doing the same thing right so um when I think of how we transfer traditional knowledge um our format in western ways really you have your teacher who's kind of giving instruction and sit behind a desk or at a table um and the I was taught our traditional way of learning you're kind of you're spending time with the person there's no barriers in between you um and you're you're learning hands on and they're not gonna say you know here's your assignment to come and show me afterwards and give me a mark kind of thing I know I was already talking about that but um even being able to ask for information you know we're told that okay it's time for science it's time for math whereas if I were to go and seek traditional knowledge I make that choice and I'm going to take that tobacco and I'm going to offer it and I know what I'm getting into because I'm seeking that information so being able to apply that transfer of traditional knowledge process I feel more connected to to our indigenous ways or to our our culture um so just acknowledging that that you're going to go and learn something that you're making an effort you're taking that offering I feel like because our kids don't do that for all the other subject things maybe there's a little bit of a disconnect but um when I think of the the thinking you know when you're done when you're learning when you've learned what you needed to learn and you have that opportunity to say thank you or to give a gift you know what we give people when they give us their time and their knowledge um you know that it feels like it comes full circle right that you got what you needed so they that you can say thank you in a good way and give that gift and you know teachers don't often receive that from students right like um an example I always give in school is like have you guys ever taught your teacher said thank you for teaching me about math you know I'm gonna be smarter with money when I grow up you know those kinds of things but you know it's not part of our process to teach kids to be thankful for what they're learning in the classroom um so when I think of indigenous education in that perspective you know like I think there could be a lot more um relationship that way you know like talking in a full process of acknowledging what you're getting and then being thankful for for it afterwards um when it comes to the connection to the environment you know every culture is connected to the environment and there's so much information in there and uh I think of my arts process you know I have to collect wash clean dye stuff and you know I don't just go hunting for art supplies you know we have a a relationship with the land and how we use it um even when it's the food that I eat the lunch that I have the water that we get um all comes from the land so when I was growing up in school well so I went to school in my community I also went to school in town and then I went to residential school so when I think of the connection to the land and the environment um I didn't have that when I went to school and to public school because um I felt like because we had more activities that at residential school and at home that were connected to First Nation to our culture that I felt that relationship was there but I didn't feel when I was in public school and sometimes I worry that when I go into public school that you know that connection to the environment um is not identified or pointed out to kids as much as it was when when I was in school in my community and residential school so I mean I keep in mind my own experiences when I go into schools but um you know I I really believe that uh the environmental connection is really important because um our food how we behave on the land where where our buildings are um what are what comes around our buildings I guess and I remind kids you know we are even though we have our we talk about our own traditional territories that you know plants animals have traditional territories in the cities that we live in or are part of they if we removed it all you know there would have been plants and animals that lived here too so um I feel like that environmental connection just really acknowledges this this space of where people are learning even though we're in a building that uh we could acknowledge that uh there was animals and plants that whose natural home was here um I feel like I'm going off topic now but so the ceremonies and celebrations you know when when it comes to education we celebrate you know whether the fact they're they're finishing school they're graduating um there's all the year like the western holidays that we celebrate in in education right in a school we participate in valentine's day st patrick's day um you know but none of those are original to to this land or come from our people and the things that we do celebrate are kind of um past tense if you will so when I think of graduation it means you've completed what you needed to do to get to a certain point um but a long time ago our life celebrations were your inability to do things right so when you became a provider that's when you were an adult it said you could do all these things you have these abilities um so we don't really when I think of our own celebrations the things that we we could encourage people to be more I guess it's a different in a different way like our celebrations our ceremonies in a school aren't rooted I guess in the culture so that's one thing that bothers me so when I think of education that way I mean I would love to see that we celebrate the coming of age type of things rather than just birthdays that we celebrate events that are gonna teach us more about the land or the time of the year watching the stars and things like that instead of Christmas and new years and which are just done by a calendar system um and then the last part I guess the forms of expression and that's kind of what I like to focus on and that's the art the art piece we always learn about other people famous people um in art history and we don't focus teaching the kids about the original art forms from from where they live and I feel like with a lot of our families that didn't get to grow up with culture whether it's because of residential schools or not um you know the the strength and identity and knowing those things um can be very powerful and um I was giving an example so this one time I did a did a art project and um had some non first nation kids just kind of looking and watching and um you know for them to be curious about what I was doing with our first nation Métis and U.S. students um I felt like well what what can they share that parallels with that right like for the first nation kids we have that relationship to the land to this land here and for that non first nation person you know where's there where what is that for them and knowing that that's something that they're looking for too um you know so when I think of the whole arts part in in education I like to I like to promote ours as a as a tool to take care of our health and well-being it's about the journey you go on not about what your art looks like and you know I think of the school projects that they have to learn what art you know all the projects look the same and it's because of something that already exists it's about copying somebody's style whereas in our history you know it was your your own storyteller these these we didn't have you know logos labels or universal symbols you know those kinds of things because all of our decorating came from from us as an individual so using the arts to promote people to be still an individual instead of being lumped together copying somebody or or doing a project that everybody's doing the same thing one of the things that I recognize is that we're all not taught a method in organizing cultural content we're we learn of other cultures and we we do it like by element by element by element instead of saying oh these elements are the same so I feel I would love to see that all people would learn how to organize cultural information so for example when when we teach other people we can say oh this is a ceremony this is a ceremony this is a ceremony so instead of them having to remember all those ceremonies they could just kind of put it in a ceremony category and then learn something new right so even in our own people I feel like we're overwhelmed with you know culture coming back and you know we have to learn all these things but we need to sort it out and have a have a look back you know take a step back and see if we could see how it all fits together but nobody really teaches us how it all fits together they just say this is kind of what happens here this is how this happens this is how you do this so just the process and being able to step back to look at it to to deconstruct it a little bit to see how you could see that it fits it in culture so a process like that to you know would be really neat the other thing that I would love if I see like down down the road is I was taught that when you are learning your mind your body and your spirit have to be present and so in Alberta we show this resource it's a it's a little video clip and it's about this guy he tells a story of how a young boy ran away from residential school and when he got home the elders asked him why did you run away because school is supposed to be good for you and he told them they're only teaching me with my mind so when I do my cultural arts like the PD stuff I ask the teachers you know when you look at your lesson plans when you look at your opportunities that you're you're providing or creating for students how many of them actually consider the body the mind and the spirit of the children and when I think of how I like to get people excited you know before I actually do things you know that's almost like you're inviting the spirit to be there so when in our spirituality you know we can we call on our ancestors we call for people to be there and we're not always all present when we go to something like I know I've been to meetings where like all my mind and my body want to be at home sleeping right and when I'm in the classroom you know sometimes kids they might be tired or hungry so their spirit isn't there they're maybe waiting for lunchtime or they want to go back to the game at recess you know so not all elements are present when we are learning so to have our educators learn on how to to do that for each class or maybe down the road you know or our education system will change maybe we won't have subjects like is it Finland they think doesn't have subjects anymore but you know that learning to to acknowledge and recognize when your students body mind and spirit are present that a lot of things will will stick but you know right now our our classrooms this is these are the outcomes we have to reach in here we're going to try to try to try to get that I find that when you recognize maybe in the favorite subjects like gym and and art the kids are excited that means that you know their spirit is present their their mind is ready and it's fun their the setup is usually different they're not in a desk they're not behind there's no barrier in between the lesson and the learning so um those are probably the two most uh important things that I would like to see would be the the ability to to deconstruct culture just take a step back and then kind of make it into categories so that it it makes sense and then to make sure that you know our children's body mind and spirit are present in in learning we're just all people I guess because when I think of when I used to go to school here you know there's a lot of people that were looking for um strengthened identity you know they're like I didn't grow up with culture and I came to learn you know using the the elements of the university you know which you know they they have a lot of opportunities for your spirit to grow and you know we should have that all along in our lifetime and I know a lot of our own people our indigenous people need that but you know for all Canadians to recognize that would be kind of awesome you know that it's that becomes common common part of education that we we um we teach others to be compassionate compassionate and have empathy um you know I already see a difference in in kids from just from the work that I do you know when I do presentations to different groups um you know talking to the older people who didn't grow up with um cultural information or weren't aware of of just history of indigenous people in general to you know high school kids that have a lot of experience and they're learning more about it so like I could see the change in in understanding history so I think the same could happen for understanding culture um which I feel like is a huge element of of education because it's it groups us together as a people having um the same values so one of the things I always tell people about is when George Erasmus talked about how where common memory is lacking there could be no um community so when I think of what we need to create all these common awesome memories so that a lot of people can be part of a like a greater community um and it starts I think that starts with education it starts with educating people um with with the same experiences and and powerful powerful opportunities I guess um then those powerful opportunities become the common elements and common memories of everyone so I think we're still in the stages of well these people experience it this way these people know how to do this way so we just gotta get everybody on the same page