NORTHWEST TERRITORIES

Aboriginal elders in the NWT might soon play a more prominent role in territorial schools thanks to a motion passed in the legislative assembly March 3.

Regular MLAs have unanimously supported a motion encouraging the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to create a program certifying elders to teach in NWT schools. Led by Sahtu MLA Norman Yakeleya, MLAs voted 11 to 0 in favour of providing elders across the territory with the certification needed to teach students in elementary, secondary and post-secondary schools in time for the upcoming fall semester.

"It's long overdue," said Bernice Gargan, a language specialist at Bompas Elementary School in Fort Simpson. "I think it's a really good idea because of the knowledge that they have."

Gargan helps students at Bompas Elementary learn her region's South Slavey tongue - a language she says is in danger of being lost.

Helping keep aboriginal languages alive will be made easier thanks to the participation of elders, she said.

"The more the kids hear (the language), the better for them. Our kids understand it, but they can't speak it."

Andy Norwegian, a consultant with the Dehcho Divisional Education Council, agreed.

"Especially in some of the areas, in our region, it's getting more and more difficult to replace language instructors with people that are fluent in the language. I think having the students exposed to more language in the classroom will be beneficial to the languages programs in the schools."

Speaking to members of the legislative assembly, Yakeleya said elders possess special knowledge that must be tapped.

"Like professors that teach in universities and colleges, these elders are the university professors on the land," he said. "They know about life. If we don't use them, we're going to lose."

"I think it's a really exciting opportunity to have sort of a standardized recognizing of the value that elders have in the classroom and in a variety of learning environments," said Kyla Kakfwi Scott, program manager for Dechinta: Bush University Centre for Research and Learning.

Last summer, Dechinta launched a field-based pilot semester outside Yellowknife during which six students from the NWT learned about aboriginal self-determination, First Nations history and traditional practices.

The six-week semester included workshops with elders, including Mary Barnaby of Fort Good Hope, who taught students the art of moosehide tanning.

"The work ethic is unbelievable. Students were just in awe of it. This woman was starting before them and quitting after them and working non-stop all day long," said Kakfwi Scott.

"We realized that we had all these university professors brought in. If something had happened and one of them, at the last minute, had to pull out, we can bring in another political scientist. But there's a really limited number of people that we can bring in who are experts in moosehide tanning."

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