Scholarly presentation
Teaching practices of Kivalliq teacher gaining international attention
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
CHESTERFIELD INLET
Victor Sammurtok School teacher Glen Brocklebank readily admits it was a little intimidating leaving Chesterfield Inlet to fly to San Antonio, Texas, to talk to a group of indigenous academics about his views on indigenous teaching and the practices he employs with his Inuit students.
Delilah Issaluk gets ready for a wet exit as she learns the ins and outs of kayak safety during her time in the kayak program developed and taught by teacher Glen Brocklebank at Victor Sammurtok School in Chesterfield Inlet. The program has caught the attention of a number of indigenous scholars, especially in Greenland. - photo courtesy of Ana Leishman |
Brocklebank made his presentation this past month at the American Educational Research Association conference - the largest educational conference in North America - in co-operation with professor Leisa Desmoulins of Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont.
He said some of the academics have as much time in school as he has teaching experience in the North.
"I had about three days at the conference from the time I arrived until we made our presentation, so I focused all my energy on indigenous education and attended every session that had an indigenous speaker talking, which included presenters from Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand and the United States," said Brocklebank.
"We may have been the only presenters from Canada because I didn't attend any other session that was Canadian-based."
Brocklebank said there were things discussed in some of the sessions that he found beneficial and likely to help his teaching practices.
He said Maori scholar Linda Smith has written quite extensively on Maori education and the problems they had in New Zealand with colonialism, and he's become quite interested in her work.
"One of the ideas is that innovation becomes tradition," he said.
"Sometimes, when we say tradition, we automatically lock ourselves into what we think was the past, but the idea of tradition and allowing aboriginal people to survive was: any time something new came along, they adapted that technology to suite their lifestyle, which may not do anything for anybody else, but it lit a whole bunch of light bulbs in my head.
"I was sort of stuck on the dictionary meaning of tradition as something in the past.
Brocklebank has done some fairly extensive reading of articles written by indigenous scholars on decolonization, the idea of education and what should be included.
He said a lot of those scholars were teaching at the conference and there he was -a high school math and science teacher -engaging them, conversing and sharing his experiences.
"I'm no longer grounded in theory. I'm grounded in practical experience and, once you say you're now in your 16th year in education in the same community in the North, it's like, all of a sudden, some type of credibility bomb goes off.
"The one question I asked openly to the scholars was - being on the front lines and teaching in an Inuit school where 97 per cent of the student body is of Inuit ancestry - what, in their experience, pushed them to go further in education, to go to university, to do their masters, to eventually do their doctorate and become a scholar?
"I guess it was a bit rhetorical because I wanted to know how I can help my students go in that direction, or whatever direction they want to go in, but I didn't really get an answer, so I still don't know.
Brocklebank said he believes if you're grounded in your own culture, and grounded in understanding and knowing your own culture, you're not overwhelmed by another culture.
"You can build on your skills, rather than finding yourself lost between two.
"That's kind of what we're trying to do at our school in Chester with the land programs, our science fair and, really, anything else we can do within the parameters of the curriculum to bring in other experiences grounded in Inuit knowledge to, ultimately, make our students stronger."
Brocklebank said when the time finally came for him to make his presentation, he felt he was properly prepared.
He said he was, of course, a little intimidated, but any negative feelings he had fell right away once he started talking and found his groove.
"There was 15 minutes between presentations, and I brought a stack of Kivalliq News along with the story of our science fair in them, so, while quickly setting up, I passed out the newspapers.
"Everyone who attended our session was an indigenous scholar from Greenland, Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, different parts of the States and even a few Canadians, as well, this time.
"Right away they saw the syllabics, which quickly generated some conversation, and it wasn't long before they wanted to know if they could keep their newspapers.
"I brought copies of the Kivalliq News along so they could take them home and read a bit about what's going on in our region, but, also, to see that language is a big part of what we're doing up North, and that includes our bilingual regional newspaper, which surprised a lot of people."
Due to time constraints, Brocklebank and Desmoulins focused mostly on the science fair, kayak program, science camps and GPS program.
Brocklebank said the scholars were impressed by most of what they heard during the presentation and the Greenland delegation spent a lot of time talking with them afterward to find out what he was doing in the school with the kayaks.
"There were a lot of jaws dropping during the presentation when they saw pictures of our students kayaking, learning out on the land, and working on their science fair projects," said Brocklebank.
