Back In The Game

Inuktitut Literacy Assembly. February 28, 2014

I only had Sunday to get both my classroom ready and my lessons prepped for the first day of classes in over a week.  Professional Improvement (PI) Week had come and gone and it was time to "get back into the game".  Thankfully, it only took a few minutes to put my classroom back in order.  For Monday, my English students would begin the poetry unit, learning several word techniques, poetry forms and genres.  My social studies students would begin studying the inner workings of the federal government, civil service, and legislative branches.  And my guitarists would learn some theory, new guitar chords & tunes, and have a performance test at the end of the week.  I stayed at the school well into the afternoon before calling it a day.  I felt confident and ready.

            

Monday, February 24, began like any other Monday.  The only difference was that I received many "welcome back" greetings from students and staff.  They all wanted to know how life was in the "big city" and jokingly asked if I had brought them back anything.  I told them that Iqaluit was still the same as it was but I only had enough money to buy things for myself and for my classroom. 

            

PI Week was the talk of Wednesday's staff meeting.  Everyone wanted to know what everyone else did during the week.  The NTA encourages teachers to share their learning experiences with coworkers because it will lead to more collaboration and sharing of resources.  I could spend a whole post explaining what everyone did but instead I'll give you the short version.  The teaching staff of Inuujaq School completed a wide variety of workshops, online courses, school-based activities, and land trips.  Topics of interest included: curriculum development, developing fine motor skills for children, Microsoft Office, website development, Inuktitut, art & painting, health & safety, setting up learning stations, and traditional Inuit sewing.  For the amateur & skilled hunters who went out on the land, only a few came back with any carcasses.  Overall, it sounded like a week well spent.       

            

Dora Levi - Grade 3

The last two weeks of February were dedicated to celebrating Inuktitut, the Inuit language.  Language based activities were organized and held all over Nunavut in schools, community centres, and workplaces.  Currently, there are around 35,000 Inuktitut language speakers in Canada.  Inuujaq School held an afternoon Inuktitut Literacy assembly in the gym on the last day of February, to coincide with the territory-wide festivities, . 

            

Cameron Arnauyumayuq - Grade 5.

Prior to the assembly, classes were instructed to make paper hats to coincide with the upcoming event.  The hats could be of any design; everyone was free to use their imagination.  For K-4 classes, the hats could have simple Inuktitut syllabic symbols written on them, while 5-12 classes were instructed to write sentences in Inuktitut.  When the hats were completed, each class was required to choose an Inuit short story and pick a student who would read that story in front of the whole school at the assembly.  

            

Qayaq Kilukishak - Grade 7

The assembly began with a quick opening speech by Iga, the high school Inuktitut teacher.  She talked about the importance of speaking and retaining Inuktitut, as well as passing it on to future generations.  What immediately stood out for me was the "sea of hats"; they were everywhere.  It appeared as if the school was having a "crazy hat day."  I documented the event with my digital camera, snapping pictures of all the different colourful hats, and the students who read in Inuktitut.  Each student who read received an applause from the audience. It would have been nice if English-translated copies of the short stories had been prepared for us southern teachers, but I guess that would have gone against the point of the assembly. 

            

My understanding of Inuktitut is slowly improving with every passing day.  I'm picking up words and phrases here and there but I still reply in English when students speak to me in Inuktitut.  It's only after the conversation that I attempt to learn the Inuktitut sentence that was just spoken.                

Inuktitut Literacy Assembly - Spirit Teams

The assembly continued with Spirit Team activities.  Each spirit team was given an envelope containing sentences written in Inuktitut (syllabics) and English.  The challenge was to match the Inuktitut sentences with their proper English translations in the shortest amount of time.  Unfortunately my team, Team Rabbit, did not win the challenge.

          

Before the afternoon recess bell rang, the high school teachers were given a batch of Inuktitut flashcards to use in their classes.  On one side was a coloured picture of an item and on the other side was the Inuktitut word for that item, written in syllabics, and Roman orthography.  As an added bonus, it also included the English translation.  At the present time, I'm using the flashcards to teach myself Inuktitut.  When I'm ready, I'll get one of my students to quiz me.  

Team Rabbit scrambles to match Inuktitut sentences
with their proper English translations.