Posted on March 13, 2019 by Jeremiah Sharpe
Cheyenne Chartrand, Spiritual Care Provider at Neecheewam Inc., explains Neecheewam’s approach to education.
Neecheewam Inc. goes beyond pedagogical programs in an effort to redefine concepts of treatment, emphasizing cohort and peer education through an “extended family” that results in whole person learning. Whole person learning requires moving beyond the text book to include academic, professional, emotional, and spiritual growth.
Posted on March 12, 2019 by Dene Basil
Bridging the western educational world with local First Nation culture and traditions .
In this interview Francis Ross talks about the on the land learning program in Old Crow Yukon. This program is designed to achieve educational curriculum in a First Nation lens. This program fully utilizes local First Nation knowledge, culture, and traditions and fuses it with current western education curriculum. The approach allows students to become more comfortable by learning with familiarity using Fist Nations tools, methods and ways of life to meet educational goals. This program creates a bridge between the two worlds many First Nation people experience as a hardship.
Posted on March 11, 2019 by Jeremiah Sharpe
Neecheewam’s White Butterfly Program works with young people to improve their lives.
Neecheewam’s White Butterfly Program sees child behaviour as another language that need to be learned. Their staff look at the children they work with as a whole, an important philosophical concept of Indigenous education, which they believe to be an integrated component of daily life.
Posted on March 6, 2019 by Jiah Dzentu
Aurora College’s Inuvik campus has two large McPherson tents where a variety of activities take place. Elementary schools, high schools, Elders, and community members use this space. Some activities include medicine walks, fish camps, and story-telling.
Aurora College’s Inuvik campus has two large McPherson tents where a variety of activities take place. Elementary schools, high schools, Elders, and community members use this space. Some activities include medicine walks, fish camps, and story-telling.
Posted on by Pam Greene
The Principal of the Dene Tha Community School, Carlito Somera, discusses the school’s commitment to holding fall and winter Cultural Camps for students in grades 4-12.
Carlito Somera is the Principal of the Dene Tha Community School located in Treaty 8, in the community of Chateh, Alberta, northwest of High Level. Somera discusses the Dene Tha’s Cultural Camps offered both in the fall and winter. During the fall camp, students from Grades 4-12 attend the Cultural Camp held over a five day period. There are many academic outcomes that are attached to the Cultural Camps. High school students earn and gain credits as part of the curriculum.
This land-based learning portion of the curriculum includes the Dene language and culture. With the leadership and support of local Dene hunters and language specialists, students learn how to prepare, cut, and dry meat. Students also participate in other cultural activities such as berry picking, willow gathering, storytelling, and playing traditional hand games. In the winter, the Cultural Camp is held at Bistcho Lake. Students travel by vehicle on ice roads to the summertime fly-in fishing location and stay in cabins during their visit. Some of the cultural activities taught are how to ice fish.
Posted on February 27, 2019 by Charity Gladstone
The SENĆOŦEN Survival School and Language Apprenticeship programs value our history and teach the ways and beliefs of our W̱SÁNEĆ homeland and worldview.
SENĆOŦEN Survival School: This program is a fully SENĆOŦEN immersion experience (EWENE W̱ENITEM ḴEN SḰÁL – no English Language is spoken) for Children 5-6 or at the Kindergarten program level. Our program teachers meet the Ministry Prescribed Learning Outcomes of the Kindergarten Curriculum. Children will spend 3.5 hours in classroom Learning the Kindergarten Provincial Curriculum through a SENĆOŦEN medium. For 2.5 hours per day, children will also learn through engagement with nature in the playgrounds and forests around our school and at beaches and culturally significant places. Children can enter the LE,NOṈET Immersion stream at this level.
SENĆOŦEN Language Apprenticeships: The goal of the Mentor-Apprentice Program is to facilitate the development of fluent speakers of SENĆOŦEN language where fluent speakers are partnered with committed learners in an immersion environment in the home and on the land. This is a one-on-one language immersion program. A “mentor” (a fluent speaker of a language) is paired with an “apprentice” (learner).
Posted on February 21, 2019 by Justina Black
Alumni of the program, Cheryl Mandeville, shares her experience learning out on the land. Dechinta means “in the bush” in many of Dene languages in the Northwest Territories. Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning believes in supporting self-determining and sustainable Northern communities rooted in Indigenous knowledge and values. Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning is […]
Alumni of the program, Cheryl Mandeville, shares her experience learning out on the land.
Dechinta means “in the bush” in many of Dene languages in the Northwest Territories. Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning believes in supporting self-determining and sustainable Northern communities rooted in Indigenous knowledge and values.
Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning is internationally recognized for its innovative and vital research and university program delivery. Dechinta delivers Indigenous centered arts, culture, language and educational programming in an innovative land-based environment. Its program supports diverse needs and inclusive participation.
Posted on by Catherine Charest
L’objectif du programme est de créer une pharmacie communautaire pour la communauté d’Ekuantshit. Cela a lieu du mois de mai au mois de septembre à la maison de la culture d’Ekuantshit. La responsable de ce programme est Georgette Mestokosho. This story is not available in English. Please select another language option.
L’objectif du programme est de créer une pharmacie communautaire pour la communauté d’Ekuantshit. Cela a lieu du mois de mai au mois de septembre à la maison de la culture d’Ekuantshit. La responsable de ce programme est Georgette Mestokosho.
This story is not available in English. Please select another language option.
Posted on by Justina Black
Dechinta means “in the bush” in many of Dene languages in the Northwest Territories. Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning believes in supporting self-determining and sustainable Northern communities rooted in Indigenous knowledge and values. Alumni of the program, Jasmine Vogt, shares her experience. Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning is internationally recognized for its innovative […]
Dechinta means “in the bush” in many of Dene languages in the Northwest Territories. Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning believes in supporting self-determining and sustainable Northern communities rooted in Indigenous knowledge and values. Alumni of the program, Jasmine Vogt, shares her experience. Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning is internationally recognized for its innovative and vital research and university program delivery. Dechinta delivers Indigenous centered arts, culture, language and educational programming in an innovative land-based environment. Its program supports diverse needs and inclusive participation.
Posted on by Justina Black
BushKids is exploring the ethical space between Indigenous education and Western education principles in Yellowknife, NT.
BushKids co-founders are both trained as forest and nature school practitioners. Chloe Dragon Smith is a Dënesųłiné – Metis woman from Yellowknife, who grew up learning on-the-land through the Indigenous education principles of her family. Wendy Lahey is a non-Indigenous educator trained in the Western education system and has lived in the north for a long time. The two women are committed to working with the community, as possible, to create a curriculum that equally honours these systems of teaching and learning on the land.
The goal of BushKids is ultimately to affect the public education system and ensure all northern students spend regular time on the land throughout the school year. Programming is currently offered throughout the school year for pilot classes of all ages, from early childhood to high school. BushKids educators also work with teachers in public education systems with the goal of enabling them to bring their classes outside as part of their learning.
