On Thursday, Bayside Middle School had its annual Meet the Teacher night, a key part of every new school year. Volunteers served burgers and parents mingled as usual, but there was one addition to the program: the unveiling of a new and peace garden around back.
Parents and children filtered in from the barbecue and watched the ceremony. Megan Supernault, an Indigenous education assistant at Bayside, said it is a remarkable change from when she was in school in the B次元官网网址�90s.
B次元官网网址淚 think about myself when I was in middle school and being Aboriginal I felt kind of lost and unheard,B次元官网网址� said Supernault. B次元官网网址淚t made it harder, so to get to see the public school system open its arms and bring that to our Indigenous and non-Indigenous students and families, for them to witness what happened last night was huge. And I think for our students it was empowering, too.B次元官网网址�
Wendy Macdonald, principal at Bayside Middle School, said this change in attitude is due to years spent building trust and relationships with local First Nations and the W瘫S脕NE膯 tribal school. Bayside has Indigenous students, so she said it made sense to offer culturally relevant teachings from Indigenous teachers like Supernault and Ivy Seward, who began teaching SEN膯O纽EN at Bayside in 1999.
SEN膯O纽EN in its written form was created by Dave Elliott Sr. in the winter of 1978. A Tsartlip man and former commercial fisherman, he saw the urgent need to revitalize the language and culture after the federal government tried for years to eliminate it by forcing Indigenous children into residential schools where the language and culture was banned. Important stories had to be recorded, fast, while aging knowledge holders were still alive. The writing system also had to be accessible.
In a collaboration with the University of VictoriaB次元官网网址檚 linguistics department, the sounds of the language were written down by overstriking the 26 English letters on a standard typewriter with hyphens, slashes, underscores, and accents so no expensive, specialized equipment was required. The program has now spread to Bayside, where both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students can enter a SEN膯O纽EN-enriched program. The goal is to eventually make it an official immersion program with more instruction hours. Macdonald said that growing interest, from Indigenous and non-Indigenous learners alike, will soon make an immersion program viable, pending negotiations with the Ministry of Education.
B次元官网网址淏ecause this school has a dual-track, thereB次元官网网址檚 no reason why it canB次元官网网址檛 be tri-track,B次元官网网址� said Macdonald.
With the understanding that language and culture cannot be separated, Bayside eventually began incorporating the Saanich Moons curriculum, a generations-old system which is land-based and tied to the seasons.
B次元官网网址淭he kids in the fall would make the spears, go to Goldstream, come back, and it required us to build a smokehouse to smoke the fish,B次元官网网址� said Macdonald. B次元官网网址淲e brought community in as part of the sharing. Your first catch is shared. Then we realized these children were feeling so proud, and their identity was shifting in a public school so then if this was happening, we wanted to go bigger.B次元官网网址�
The outdoor classroom, called NEPENE岣疵乁TW瘫 (Place of Teaching) was proposed last year by a parent, Tamara Lorincz, who spearheaded a similar project in Ontario. Since construction workers were already at Bayside to replace a leaking roof, the timing was perfect.
Supernault said the outdoor classroom will allow children who speak SEN膯O纽EN to hear it in the environment it was meant to be heard in, rather than in the classroom. However, any Bayside class is welcome to use the space. Former PAC president Marti Redman said that B次元官网网址渆very teacher is already clamoring to just use nature in their learning.B次元官网网址�
Sadie Richards, a non-Indigenous Grade 8 student, helped unveil the classroom because her great-grandfather, David Kennedy, operated the pile driver at Beacon Hill Park when the 39-metre totem pole was raised in 1956. Because of this family history, she got to unveil another totem pole at Bayside last year, carved by Mark Henry, that reflects virtues embodied by Bayside students.
B次元官网网址淎t the totem pole unveiling last year, it was really cool how they got, I think it was cedar water, and they brushed it over the tree, blessing it. And then we each got a candle, and I still have my candle in my room as a part of the ceremony,B次元官网网址� she said.
Macdonald also said Indigenous parents who were skeptical of a Western schoolB次元官网网址檚 ability to nurture their children have started to come around. Attendance among Indigenous children, she said, is much stronger than it was 15 years ago.
B次元官网网址淔or me, and I donB次元官网网址檛 think itB次元官网网址檚 a secret, the Indigenous kids, particularly the kids that live on reserve, come to the school with that lost, B次元官网网址榳here do I fit inB次元官网网址� feeling, and my vision is to find ways for these kids to be leaders, to be proud, to have dignity when they leave our school in Grade 8, to have the privileges that everyone else has in this world,B次元官网网址� said Macdonald.
Jaden Sampson, a Grade 7 student, spoke at the unveiling and said that he picked up SEN膯O纽EN easily after learning French for a few years.
B次元官网网址淢y mom knows SEN膯O纽EN and weB次元官网网址檝e all been teaching my baby brother SEN膯O纽EN. He understands what it means.B次元官网网址�
reporter@peninsulanewsreview.com
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