Seven Generations
Education Institute uses technology to keep elders safe and students
learning
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Connecting students with
elders is a priority for Seven Generations Education Institute,
as seen here at the 2019 fall harvest event. The event will
go online this year in an attempt to maintain traditions during
the global pandemic. (Submitted by Seven Generations Education
Institute)
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The Seven Generations Education Institute in northwestern Ontario
makes access to elders a priority for its students and the global
pandemic means they're getting even more innovative in maintaining
that connection.
The publicly funded, not-for-profit institute offers education
at all levels from preschool through to trades certificates, diplomas
and degrees at campuses in Fort Frances and Kenora and through distance
learning.
COVID-19 is providing new opportunities to apply its core function
empowering students through Anishinaabemowin (Ojibway language)
and culture, said Brent Tookenay.
"We're seeing how the two worlds are colliding," Tookenay said
of the way that technology and traditions are meeting.
There was the surge in interest in the institute's online language
courses, called nests, that "grew and grew" in the early days of
the pandemic shut-downs when people had more time on their hands.
Or the way the institute can now employ an Anishinaabemowin teacher,
who happens to live across a closed border in Minnesota, to provide
online classes.
"The world has opened up to us a bit in terms of access," Tookenay
said.
There's still work to be done to ensure that students can connect
to the internet at home in their communities, where broadband access
is rare, he said but Seven Generations is seeing how technology
can bridge the generational divide.
Texting tobacco
Elders are using video chats to stay connected with staff and students
and stay safe from contracting the virus, Tookenay said.
The cultural protocol of offering tobacco when asking an elder
a question can be maintained through technology, as well.
A photo of the tobacco can be texted to the elder and then, when
the elder answers on video chat both the elder and the asker will
hold tobacco in their left hands to make the spiritual connection,
he said.
"It is a way to connect from the heart if the distance is too great
to connect in person," Tookenay explained. "It is not the way that
we want to do things, but a respectful alternative.
"With the pandemic we have looked at other ways as well but have
done this a few times," he added. "It keeps the spirit and honesty
in the conversations. Once we are done the conversation we place
the tobacco in the woods or the water to honour the protocols."
A traditional fall feast is one of the highlights of a typical
school year at Seven Generations, with up to 20 different stations
for students to visit and see different harvesting and food preparation
techniques. That too is being adapted as a virtual event this year,
Tookenay said, with video appearances from the elders streamed to
learners at home.
Language learning
The pandemic is a lesson in patience too, Tookenay said. The next
cohort of a successful, intensive language learning program has
been pushed back to January so it can be adapted and delivered online.
The course sees each of the 10 First Nations that govern Seven
Generations pay at least one student to learn Anishinaabemowin.
They take immersion classes for six hours every day, five days a
week for three years to become "conversationally fluent."
Many in the 20 students from the first cohort got jobs, including
three hired by Seven Generations, before the three years were up,
Tookenay said.
That includes work to create a Microsoft interface that will use
the Anishinaabe words for the commands on your desktop such as file,
save and edit. There's also an online translation tool being created
that will allow you to type a phrase in English and hear it spoken
back in Anishinaabemowin. And there are plans to research and develop
resources for the distinct dialects of the language that are spoken
in different Treaty 3 communities.
All of that work is getting a boost from the Mastercard Foundation,
which recently entered a $16 million partnership with Seven Generations,
to support it's work connecting Indigenous youth with their language
and culture over the next five years.
"Our chief and councils, along with the Seven Generations board
of directors have really provided the leadership and support for
the language strategy and without them there would be no strategy,"
Tookenay said.
"The ultimate goal is to create more speakers on our communities
in order to continue our ceremony, culture, traditions and connection
to the land," he said.
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