Indigenous languages in the City (WIPCE research notes) WIPCE 2017 Part 2

These are my notes regarding Several sessions which took place on Wednesday July 26th, 2017 at WIPCE:

1) Ignite session 78 on Indigenous languages in the City (with detailed notes, abstracts and background info;

2) Teale, Alan (2017), 'New South Wales: Governance and its impact on education', paper given at WIPCE 2017, 24-28 July 2017.

3) Williams, Shayne T. (2017), 'Localising aboriginal cultural education in New South Wales, Australia', paper given at WIPCE 2017, Toronto, 24-28 July 2017. (Wednesday 26th) (ignite session 13);

4) Ecological economic development planning community will being for the next seven generations, by Eric B. Alex

5) relax with the Fish!

The morning started early for me with a conversation on Radio Canada Première
I then co-chaired a session the title of which was:

1) Indigenous languages in the city: how to retain them, how to transmit them?

Ignite Session 78: Indigenous Languages – Wednesday, July 26th  Room 711 MTCC

Here’s the blurb:

Co-Chairs : Brock Pitawanakwat and Daphné Romy-Masliah

Indigenous populations are increasingly present in cities, uprooted from their lands or absorbed by urbanization. Some are struggling to reconstruct lost languages and others find new ways to retain their identity. Every indigenous community has a unique history and its own way to transmit language and culture. Following a recent issue of the French Droit et Cultures Journal on this topic, we will use the examples of Anishinaabemowin (Canada) and Mohegan, Wampanoag, Narragansett tribes (Southern New England) or First Nations in Alaska to examine the strategies and lessons learnt on retaining, reviving and asserting such linguistic presence, inviting other panelists to join the conversation.

Aligns With Truth and Reconciliation: From January, 2010, to March, 2013, Brock was seconded as a researcher with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the area of Aboriginal education and cultural revitalization in the aftermath of the Indian Residential School System (IRSS)

Country and Area of Focus Calls for Action: Canada, IRSS, USA

Co-chairs: Dr. Brock Pitawanakwat, (Anishinaabe-Whitefish River First Nation) is an assistant professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Sudbury(Ontario, Canada). His current research explores the politics of reconciliation and Anishinaabe resurgence.

Dr. Daphné Romy-Masliah

Third co-presenter is Rachel Sayet, Mohegan, who holds a B.S. from Cornell University and an MA in anthropology at Harvard University. Her master’s thesis focused on traditional stories of the Mohegan and Wampanoag tribes. Rachel currently works for the Mohegan Cultural Department, organizing events with Native authors, running a weekly storytime, and promoting indigenous food. She also gives lectures on the culture and history of the Native peoples in New England.

Notes from Daphné Romy to support this session:

Front page photo: Meryl McMaster, Time's Gravity, 2015

Georgia O'Keefe at AGO:
Taos Pueblo 1929-34 is it community of Tiwa-speaking people. Begun during O'Keefe's first prolonged visit to New Mexico in 1929, this painting depicts the north house of Hlauuma of Taos Pueblo. Here, O'Keefe focuses on the distinctive mud-build, or Adobe, architecture that is typical of the Southwest. This structure, built between 1000 and 1415 a G, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited buildings in the United States. It is also the subject of Abdel Adam's Taos Pueblo, 1930, Grabhorn Press, San Francisco.

Droit et Cultures#72: Les Langues Autochtones dans la Cité 

Belaidi: 46
Loin de l'image surannée qu'on leur prête, c'est bien leur compréhension des mécanismes de la prise de décision et des groupes d'influence gouvernementaux et non gouvernementaux qui leur permet de se faire reconnaître des droits particuliers.

• Première définition classique : une terre que nos ancêtres nous ont transmises. Héritage hérédité le passé en ligne directe.
• Autochtonie lié à une institution politique qui aura été établi par des noms en autochtone détenteur de l'autorité suprême qui vont déployer leur puissance à partir de ce centre tout en réglant la vie des natifs du lieu dans un jeu d'alliance nécessaire
• Autochtonie où le pouvoir terrestre mobilise le pouvoir Céleste dans une un processus de centralisation qui projette de registre de compétences le monde d'en haut et le monde d'en bas qui se veulent étanche et qui ne cesse pourtant de se fréquenter
• Dernière définition celle de l'État-nation

The inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America, Thomas King, Anchor Canada,2013

XII when I was a kid, Indians were Indians. Sometimes engines with Mohawks or Cherokees or Crees or Backfoot or Tlingits or Seminoles. But mostly they were Indians. Columbus gets blamed for the term, but he wasn’t being malicious. He was looking for India and thought he had found it. He was mistaken, of course, and as time went on various folks and institutions try to make the matter right. Engines became a merry Indians and aboriginals an indigenous people. Lately Indians have become First Nations in Canada and Native American in the United States, but the fact of the matter is that there has never been a good collective noun because there never was a collective to begin with.

53: Indians come in all sorts of social and historical configurations. No the American popular culture is littered with savage, noble, and dying Indians, while in real life we have dead Indians, live Indians, and legal Indians.

70: in Canada, legal Indians are defined by the Indian act, a series of pronouncements and regulations, rides and prohibitions, originally struck in 1876, which has wound it’s sneaky way along to the present day. The act itself does more than just define legal Indians, it has been the main mechanism for controlling the lives and destinies of legal Indians in Canada, and throughout the life of the act, amendments have been made to the original document to find tune this control.

113: in Canada, residential schools begin popping up in the 1840s and by 1932, there were more than 80 schools in operation. 60% of the schools where run by the Catholic Church, with another 30% run by the Anglican church. The rest were run by other Protestant denominations, such as the Presbyterians and the Methodists. In 1850, attendance at residential schools became compulsory for all children from the ages of 6 to 15. There was no opting out. Non-compliance by parents what is punishable by prison terms. Children where forcibly removed from their homes and kept at the schools. As with their US counterparts, schools insisted that the children not have any extensive contact with their families are home communities. Students were for bidden to speak the languages or practice any part of their culture.

119: here’s the irony. Native people have never been resistant to education. We have been educating our children long before Europeans showed up. No where we against our children learning about white culture. By the beginning of the 19th century native and whites had been live living together in the same neighborhood for almost 300 years. Like it or not. It make sense for native people to know English and or French. It made sense to understand how the European mine worked. Education is generally described in terms of “benefits”. But why, in the name of education, should we have been required to give up everything we had, to give up who we wear in order to become something we did not choose to be? Where was the benefit in that? Instead, North America decided that native education had to be narrowly focused on white values, decided that need to values, ceremonies, and languages where inferior and had no value or no place in contemporary curate killer. This was the first abuse of the residential school system

132: The actual size of each allotment varied with tribes and the land they held, but in almost each instance, Indian land went in one end of allotment and surplus land came out the other. Native people, who had helped titled to Psalm 138,000,000 acres in 1887, so that figure reduced to around 48 million acres, much of it desert.

159 chapter 7: “forget about it”. Quotation from Sherman Alexie, how to write the great American Indian Novel:”in the great American Indian Novel, when it is finally Rich and come out all the white people will be Indians and all the Indians will be ghosts“

161: in the early years of engine white relations, native people so land as a shared resource rather than as a commodity. Since then we’ve learned our lesson.

162: we’ve done a reasonably good job of injuring ourselves without the help of non-natives. For instance, for the kids with the beaten each other up over who is the better Indian. Full bloods versus makes blogs. Indians on reservations and reserves versus Indians in cities. Stages versus non-status. Those who are enrolled members of the tribe versus those who are not. Those of us who look engine versus those of us who don’t. We have been and continue to be brutal about these extinctions, a mutated strain of ethnocentrism

165: we are cops, teachers, judges, writers, musicians, painters, soldiers, dances, chefs, businessmen and women, pilots, architects, hockey players, singers. We are doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs. We are everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. Just a reminder of a cultural persistence and adaptation.

167: Bill C 31 is a piece of Canadian legislation passed in 1985 as an amendment to the Indian act and designed to address the inequity that existed between status native man and stages native women. Status is it Canadian concept. It doesn’t exist in the United States. Indians in the United States have to deal with blood quantum, the amount of native blood a person has -Full, half, quarter, eight, and so on down the line- and with weather on Delta they are called carrying member of a federally recognized tribes. In Canada, status Indians are simply those Indians who are recognized as Indians by the federal government. In general, status Indians are also treaty Indians, though there are reserves created by lid just good to action rather than by treaty and members of those bones are stages Indians it the same way that 3-D images of status if that makes sense.(…)

168: so long as status Indians status Indians and their children marry status Indians, then no one loses status. But if status Indians begin marrying non-status Indians or non-Indians, those status are lost.

170: The Royal commission on aboriginal peoples was formed in 1991, With a blue ribbon panel of four aboriginal members and three non-native members. The report was originally budgeted at $8 million for three years, but the Research ran to five years at a cost of some $58 million.

171: The report went on to make recommendations in areas such as governance, health, housing, education, native women’s right, métis right cover and economic development. The expectation was that the government would see the report as an opportunity to renew, amend, and restructure its  relationship with Canada’s First Nations. But that’s not what happened.(…) probably the most embarrassing aspect of the Royal commission on the regional People’s affair was the speed with which the report was buried.

202: perhaps discussing sovereignty today as an absolute concept is a waste of time. Perhaps we should concern ourselves instead with practical sovereignty and asked the question, what part of sovereignty is critical to aboriginal nations in North America? Each nation will, of course, have to answer for it self. However, seeing as my advice is free and as I’m more than happy to give it, I suggest that we concentrate on the issues of tribal membership and resource development,(…) membership in an aboriginal nation is somewhat be a while during combination of travel legislation, federal treaties and agreement, blood quantum, at 19th century and numeration lists, or wrong with tribal regulation and customs. In Canada, the Indian act, along with the treaties, sets some of the terms of reference for band membership, while in the United States, membership, in part, is based on federal recognition of a tribe and the lists that government created to keep track of aboriginal people.

218: land. If you understand nothing else about the history of Indians in North America, you need to understand that the question that really matters is the question of land.

223: from a native perspective, Indian land is Indian. From a contemporary, somewhat legal no the American perspective, native land is land that belongs to the federal government and is on in definite loan to certain kind of groups of native people. To say that that these two views are in conflict is to state the obvious.

225: in fact, treaties have been so successful in separating Indians from them now that I’m surprised there isn’t a national holiday to honor their good work. But we could fix that. We could, if we were so inclined, turn Columbus Day and Victoria day into treaty day. After all Columbus didn’t discover America, and queen Victoria never set foot in Canada.

249: since the Inconvenient Indian is set in North America, since North Americans love happy ever after ending, I thought I’d try to close the book on an optimistic note so I asked native friends who keep abreast of current affairs if they’d noticed any encouraging signs that Native-white relations were moving positive directions.(…) : The Alaska native claims settlement act and the Nunavut land claims agreement.

262: equally worrisome is the role of the federal government. Financial support for teaching French in Nunavut is around $4 million a year while support for teaching Inuktitut comes in at the 1 million mark. Ottawa maybe philosophically inclined to multiculturalism, but it has yet to provide the Inuit with the necessary funds and assistance to establish and maintain an Inuktitut bilingual language program that starts at kindergarten and runs through to grade 12.

263: both the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement are flawed accords.

Further references:

Anishinaabemowin in the City: Urban Indigenous Language Maintenance and Revitalization by Dr. Brock Pitawanakwat, University of Sudbury for Droit et Cultures #72 (2 2016)

Abstract :

This article explores the motivations, methods, and coordination of one Indigenous people, the Anishinaabeg (also known as Ojibway, Saulteaux, or Chippewa), as they strive to maintain and revitalize their ancestral language in Canadian urban areas. Why are urban residents choosing to maintain and revitalize Anishinaabemowin (the Anishinaabe language) in an environment that places enormous assimilative pressure on non-anglophones? What methods are urban Anishinaabeg using to continue speaking their language? Finally, how does the language revitalization movement intersect with the other crucial components of “peoplehood” (ceremonies, history, and land) to support the resurgence of urban Anishinaabe communities? The author’s experience and interviews with other Anishinaabeg language activists inform an investigation of urban Anishinaabe motivations and pedagogies for revitalizing Anishinaabemowin through networks of Anishinaabe language activists, learners, and teachers. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Canada’s recent Truth and Reconciliation Commission provide a conceptual framework for imagining how Indigenous language revitalization can occur.

Keywords: Anishinaabe, Indigenous People, Indigenous Languages, Indigenous Rights, Linguistic Minorities, Multilingualism, Reconciliation, Teaching Minority Languages, Truth Commission

Biography:

Dr. Brock Pitawanakwat (Anishinaabe – Whitefish River First Nation) is an Assistant Professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Sudbury. From January, 2010, to March, 2013, Brock was seconded as a researcher with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the area of Aboriginal education and cultural revitalization in the aftermath of the Indian Residential School System (IRSS). Prior to joining the TRC, Brock was an Assistant Professor, Graduate Chair, and Acting Director of the Aboriginal Governance Program at The University of Winnipeg. He is a graduate of the University of Victoria's Indigenous Governance Program with a dissertation that explores how and why Anishinaabeg maintain and revitalize their ancestral language of Anishinaabemowin.

Bibliographical elements :

Abley, Mark. 2003. Spoken here: travels among threatened languages. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Alfred, Taiaiake. 1999. Peace, power, righteousness : an indigenous manifesto. New York: Oxford University Press.

Alfred, Taiaiake. 2005. Wasáse: indigenous pathways of action and freedom. Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Press.

Anaya, S. James. 1996. Indigenous peoples in international law. New York: Oxford University Press.

Basso, Keith H. 1996. Wisdom sits in places: landscape and language among the Western Apache. 1st ed. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

Bielenberg, Brian. 1999. Indigenous Language Codification: Cultural Effects. U.S.; California.

Boldt, Menno. 1993. Surviving as Indians: the challenge of self-government. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Bowen, Janine Ja no's. 2004. Excellence in Tribal Governance – An Honoring Nations Case Study: The Ojibwe Language Program: Teaching Mille Lacs Band Youth the Ojibwe Language to Foster a Stronger Sense of Cultural Identity and Sovereignty.

Canada. Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures, Ronald Eric Ignace, Mary Jane Jim, and Canada. Canadian Heritage. 2005. Towards a new beginning: a foundational report for a strategy to revitalize First Nation, Inuit and Métis languages and cultures : report to the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Ottawa: Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures.

Corntassel, Jeff. March 2005. Towards a New Partnership? Indigenous Political Mobilizatoin and Cooptation During the First UN Indigenous Decade (1995-2004). Conference Paper ed. International Studies Association Annual Conference March 2005:0. (January 2006).

Crawford, James. 1995. "Endangered Native American Languages: What is to be done, and Why?" Bilingual Research Journal 19 (1): 17-38.

Granberg, Kimberly A. 2002. Eurocentric Education Unhinged: Challenges Posed by the Elders and Teachings of the Anishinaabeg. U.S.; Minnesota.

Grenoble, Lenore A., and Lindsay J. Whaley. 2006. Saving languages : an introduction to language revitalization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Hermes, Mary. 2005. "Ma'iingan Is Just a Misspelling of the Word Wolf": A Case for Teaching Culture through Language.

Hinton, Leanne, Nancy Steele, and Matt Vera. 2002. How to keep your language alive : a commonsense approach to one-on-one language learning. Berkeley, Calif: Heyday Books.

Kahananui, Dorothy M., and Alberta Pualani Anthony. 1974. E kamaʻilio Hawaiʻi kakou. Rev. ed. [2nd ed. ed. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii for the Committee of the Preservation and Study of Hawaiian Language, Art, and Culture.

Medler, Andrew, and Rand Valentine. 1999. Weshki-Bmaadzijig Ji-Noonmowaad : 'That the young might hear' : the stories of Andrew Medler as recorded. London, ON: University of Western Ontario.

Morgan, Mindy J. 2005. Redefining the Ojibwe Classroom: Indigenous Language Programs within Large Research Universities. http://www.anthrosource.net/doi/pdf/10.1525/aeq.2005.36.1.096.

Niedzielski, Henry Z. 1992. "The Hawaiian Model for Minority Cultures and Languages." In Maintenance and loss of minority languages, ed. Willem Fase, K. Jaspaert and Sjaak Kroon. Amsterdam ; Philadelphia: Fase,Willem; Jaspaert,K.; Kroon,Sjaak, 369-384.

Pheasant-Williams, Shirley. 2003. "The Development of Ojibway Language Materials." Canadian Journal of Native Education 27 (1): 79-83.

Reyhner, John. 1999. Maintaining and Developing Indigenous Languages. U.S.; Arizona.

Reyhner, Jon. 1995. "Maintaining and Renewing Native Languages." Bilingual Research Journal 19 (2): 279-304.

.Silva, Kalena. 2000. "'Ehiku (Chapter 7) Revitalizing Culture and Language: "Returning to the 'Aina (Land)."." In Indigenous educational models for contemporary practice : in our mother's voice, ed. Maenette K. P. Ah Nee-Benham and Joanne E. Cooper. Mahwah, N.J: Ah Nee-Benham,Maenette K.P.; Cooper,Joanne E., 71-80.

Silva, Noenoe K. 2004. Aloha betrayed : native Hawaiian resistance to American colonialism. Durham NC: Duke University Press.

Silver, Shirley, and Wick R. Miller. 1997. American Indian languages : cultural and social contexts. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 1999. Decolonizing methodologies : research and indigenous peoples. New York: Zed Books.

Stiles, Dawn B. 1997. Four Successful Indigenous Language Programs. U.S.; Arizona.

Trask, Haunani-Kay, and University of Hawaii at Manoa. Center for Hawaiian Studies. 1999. From a native daughter: colonialism and sovereignty in Hawai`i. Rev ed. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press.

Treuer, Anton. 2001. Living our language: Ojibwe tales and oral histories. St. Paul, Minn: Minnesota Historical Society Press.

Tsunoda, Tasaku. 2005. Language endangerment and language revitalization. Berlin ; New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Warner, Sam L. No'eau. 1999. ""Kuleana: The Right, Responsibility, and Authority of Indigenous Peoples to Speak and make Decisions for Themselves in Language and Cultural Revitalization"." JSTOR.AnthroSource.Anthropology & education quarterly 30 (1): 68-93 1976-1998.

Wilson, John Melbourne Ogilvy. 1973. Introduction to social movements. New York: Basic Books.

Wright, Sue. 2004. Language policy and language planning: from nationalism to globalisation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Other session followed on Wednesday:

2) Teale, Alan (2017), 'New South Wales: Governance and its impact on education', paper given at WIPCE 2017, 24-28 July 2017.

Governance and its impact on education

They've taken away our identity

Assimilation is the key name

Genocide

We've had customary laws for 40,000 years

What education? Developing self estime, leadership through respect

Respect for our land

We can use their techno to achieve our aims

The English took away our rights to our land

40,000 year old fish traps: 1st system of refrigerators can't be restored, was built before the pyramids

3) Williams, Shayne T. (2017), 'Localising aboriginal cultural education in New South Wales, Australia', paper given at WIPCE 2017, Toronto, 24-28 July 2017. (Wednesday 26th)

"We are, across the world, the oldest living culture" Elder Statement
recover (research), revoice and repractice (education).

Exerpts from her handout paper and presentation (Ignite Session 13, Wednesday 26th July):

Shayne comes from the Aboriginal community of La Pérouse, which is located in New South Wales, South-West of Sydney. She came to represent the New South Wales Aboriginal Education Consultative Group (NSW AECG Inc.), a community based education advocacy organisation. They work "directly with the education sector of NSW to promote culturally apposite learning environments and experiences for our Aboriginal students. A key aspect is the promotion of cultural education"

"Our approach to cultural education is grounded on the core philosophy: recover (research), revoice and repractice (education).

"Research is a prerequisite to cultural education. We need reserch in order to recover our language and culture knowledge." This implies "working together to share, compare, synthetise and document what we know, as well a scouring secondary historical and anthropological sources for additional information.
As in the case if so many Indigenous cultures across the world, we, in NSW, are at a critical point in thesurvival of our languages and cultures. If we don't prioritise the recovery, re-voicing and re-practice of our language and culture knowledge we risk further irreparable loss.
In NSW, cultural loss began with Colonization" which meant being "depraved of spiritual interaction with Country, which was the backbone of our foundational education system. Without ceremony on Country, our forebears were prevented from handing on their deeper sacred spiritual knowledge of Country.

Deprivation of spiritual interaction with Country was further exacerbated by the early devasting passing of so many of our senior knowledge holders, but that was just the beginning. We suffered further knowledge loss through protectionism.

Protectionism was founded on the western belief that we should abandon our own cultures in favour of a Western Way of life. This belief inspried successive gouvernments to impound us upon missions, stations and reserves and remove many of our children.

This could not have been more calmitous. Whole tracts of language and culture knowledge were deleted from our cultural knowledge banks. but not everything was lost. Throughout decades of colonisaitons and protectionism our forebears defied our suppressors as much as possible to hand on what they could of our mother tongues and our ways of mother culture.

This process of handing on was uneven. The consequence is that we now have cultures within NSW with developed lexicons of mother tongue and significant knowledge of mother culture, but equally, we have a worrying number of cultures that only have medium lexicons of mother tongue and knowledge of mother culture.

So, the need for research is clear, but if we want to sustain what we recover though research we need to ensure that what we recover becomes a living entity within our homes and communities. The only way we can do this is through cultural education.

Cultural education for us must be multifaceted. We need to have informal cultural education programmes within our communities, but we also need to have formal cultural education programmes within our preschools, schools and insttute of further and tertiary education.
The other must for us is localisation.
Localisation of cultural education in NSW is so important because we are not of the one culture. The 'one size fits all approach' will not work for us. Each Aboriginal language and culture within NSW needs and deserves its own educational space.
We have chosen to focus on cultural education at NSW AECG inc. so that we can inspire the creation of meaningful localised education programmes that synchronise the learning of language with culture.

 

we can't separate language and culture. We understand that school cherry pick cultures, but for us, teaching language without a cultural context is useless. Cultural education.

"We therefore use the term 'cultural' as an umbrella term to encapsulate both language and culture. This approach is essential in situations where language and culture knowledge is diminished When language knowledge is so fragmented full speech fluency is not certain. Even parital speech fluency is not certain, so the idea of singular language education is NSW is broadly unrealistic."

Our language knowledge is fragmented, but it doesn't mean that we'll abandon teaching of our mother tongue. We believe strongly in resurrecting language no matter how much is left of it. "Even if we only have 10 words, 20 words or 50 words to one of our languages, we believe strongly that these words are worth resurrecting. We can ressurect these words when we embed the teaching of them within the teaching of culture."
Synthethis between language, culture and education.

"the NSW AECG Inc. first became involved in cultural education with the inception of our 'Connecting to Country' programme (which) is faciltitated by Local AECG's who teach local social history and culture to local teachers.

Our involvement in cultural education then grew significantly after the NSW State Government incorporated within its plan for Aboriginal Affaires, OCHRE, a commitment to implement 5 language and culture nests within NSW. We now directly support these nests."

Localisation is key: framework implemented. Everyone needs his-her own educational space
Strategic planning: guiding communities to establish and maintain language and culture nests
Cultural curriculum development tools: guidinglocal communities to work with local schools to create local cultural curricula
Professional development: for teachers, senior education staff, regional directors, community services staff. Each programme within our professional devlopement suite has been tailored for each cohort.

"Initially though, we responded to the State Governemnt's commitment to language and cuture (…). We value the concept of language and culture nests because there is a potential to consolidate these nests as local hubs for cultural research and education. (…) We quickly regognized that for cultural education to become a reality within local schools we needed to work directly with communities and schools to create local cultural education programmes, and we needed to educate teachers so that they can help implement these programmes.

To facilitate this, we are continuing to work to create innovative cultural curriculum development tools that our communities can use in tandem with schools to design local cultural curricula. We have also developed a suite of professional development programmes under the banner 'Healthy Culture Healthy Country". We use (this phrase) to reinvorce our belief that cultural education is the primary conduit for liberating thespiritual health of Country, and as such our own spiritual health and wellbeing as Aboriginal people.
It is our fundamental human right to speak what we have left of our languages and practice what we can of our cultures. It is ourfundamental human right to re-spriritualise our Country. When we are strong spiritually our identity is strong; our culture is strong."

Workshops centred on following themes:
The spiritual foundations of Country
Contemprary cultural contexts
Aboriginal knowledge systems
Designing local Aboriginal cultural curricula
Utilising Aboriginal teaching methods
Applying culturally apposite assessment
understanding local cultural issues
respecting cultural communication.

How to understand cultural issues and communication. we are serious and active!

Q: how did you decide what language and cultural practice? A: we take a framework which will apply according to local stuff.

4) Ecological economic development planning community will being for the next seven generations @radicalRavenCo, by  Eric B. Alex 

Turtle Island community and territory

For us what resonates is how we represent our name

Develop our economic curriculum

Ways of being:

Maori from New Zealand "you are water" from the water and on the water

Saskatchewan: language that we speak, Culture that we are, but we need the economy to sustain our lifestyle

Ecology and economy are two different items in the agenda of the people who came to share our land.

Speaker: anything I learn in my MBA is a 5 year plan, while I want a 7 generations one
Captain "Crook"

The state of our sacred Turtle Island Territory

Yukon: from 90 to 12% unemployment though self sustainability

"We are protectors of the land" aboriginal pax: safe home and social well being at the core. We haven't had a language for 200 years!

Humans are the only species that needs to pay to live. We can be sustained in a different way taking into account our customs and culture

And let's finish with overcrowded Ripley Aquarium. Not as nice as some others I visited but still a metaphor of the game at work between the Indigenous Populations and "civilizations" which misunderstood (-stand) them times and again….finding however nowadays, thanks to WIPCE in particular, more prepared partners at the negotiating table!

Other references:

Sami, Teaching 'Web portal',(click on the link)

Sami teaching material, information about Sami teaching including a collection of images, digital resources, as well as books, movies and CD that may be borrowed. The target group for the service includes nursery school teachers, and teachers in primary and secondary school. In the webportal you may find all materials about the Sami languages and the Sami people in other languages including a production tool for digital teaching materials to create your own web resources.
Web editor: Lasse Wigelius, tel. +47 90 54 66 81 lasse.wigelius@ovttas.no

Museum, Canadian Language (2011), 'The Canadian Language Museum, Le Musée canadien des langues', (Toronto: Glendon College of York University ), Museum.

The Canadian Language Museum was established in 2011 to promote an appreciation of all the languages spoken in Canada and of their role in the development of this nation. Few countries can match Canada's rich and varied language heritage, which includes Aboriginal languages from coast to coast, the official languages of French and English and their regional dialects, and the many languages brought to this country by more recent immigrants. The Canadian Language Museum encourages dialogue on language issues that are central of the future of Canadian society, such as bilingualism, multilingualism, and language endangerment, preservation and revitalization.

Sami, Allaskuvla (2017), 'Sami University of Applied Sciences and Sami language in education'.

The Sami University of Applied Sciences provides:
Sami language from beginner's level to Ph.D. level
An indigenous perspective on all levels of education
Education of high quality and closeness to fellow students and teachers
An opportunity to experience a unique year of study at the gathering point for Sami yough
Possibilities to borrow technical Equipent.
Research activities are mainly: linguistics, history (including law history and history of religions), traditional arts, reindeer husbandry, pedagogy, cultural anthropology, and journalism. Research interests of the university staff also include biology, mathematics, philosophy, and entrepreneurship. The institute publishes a scientific publication, diedut and Sami diedalas aigecala (sami scientific journal).
Sami University of applied sciences was established in 1989 with the purpose to streghten Sami competence and cover the need of the Sami societies. Sami Univrsity of AS has a pan-Sami profile with students and staff from all around the Sami region. it has approximately 150-200 students and 100 employees. It is the only educational institution that uses the North Sami language in both research studies and management.
"We are a small institution that has an international environment. We educate so called "Sami ambassadors", offer interenational indigenous studies and study tours to other indigenous areas. Sami University of Applied Sciences is also in the Arctic universities cooperation UArctic and is also accredited at the highest level in the network for Indigenous higher education World Indigenous Higher Education Consortium.

The University includes the Centre for Sami Language in Education:
national tests in Saami languages in Norway: Karen Inga Eira (karen-inga.eira@samiskhs.no) is project leader for these tests which are a part of the national evaluation programme of education provided by the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. It provides information on the pupils' basik skills, and a basis for improvement and development in the school.

Facts about Saami language speaking pupils in Norwegian school system:
You can have Saami language as a first language (L1) or as a second language (L2)
Only pupils with L1 take the national test.
Pupils with Sami as a first language represent 80-110 pupils per year. Many of those pupils get their instruction in Saami language and most subjects and lessons at school. The vast majority hasNorthern Saami language as their native language.

The reason for separating national tests in reading in Saami language is that "we have our own Saami curriculum, which differs from the national Norwegian curriculum in many ways, we have different literature and teaching materials, written in Saami languages which the pupils are familiar with, the literatures used in Saami schools are grounded on Saami culture, history, communities and oral traditions -different from the literatures in Norwegian also concerning cultural references and world view. (…)

Aboriginal, Sport and Wellness Council of Ontario (2017), 'Indigenous Youth Leadership Project', in Sports and Tourism Ministry of Culture (ed.).

The Aboriginal Sport and Wellness Council of Ontario (ASWCO) is the Provincial Territorial Aboriginal Sport Body (PTASB) for Ontario and provides input and services around the North American Indigenous Games, National Aboriginal Hockey Championships, Multi-sport and cultural Camps, and in many regional games through Ontario and Canada. ASWCO promotes healthy living and offers training, certifications and support for coaches, athletes and other organizations in each of the 8 regions: Northwest, North Central, Northeast, Central, Southeast and Southwest Ontario.
Indigenous Youth Leadership Project
The ASWCO has received funding from the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and sport. This project has been divided into 4 compoenents:
1) A series of community-based discussions on Indigenous Yough Leadership and change for Indigenous Youths' future.
2) An annual gathering for Indigenous yough and Ambassadors to learn and grow, Indigenous Yough Leadership Retreat
3) An Indigenous Leaders-in-Training Program
4) a series of Invitational Youth Leadership Stakeholders Meetings.

PS: WIPCE NOTES WILL BE ADDED TO THE INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS AND LANGUAGE RELATED ISSUES PAGE