Case study — Schools and Ojibwe and Dakota language revitalisation in the United States and Canada

Prepared by Samantha Disbray, for Global Lessons: Indigenous languages and multilingualism in school programs

Ojibwe country is a large tribal area stretching through the Great Lakes region in the US states of Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan and into Ontario, Canada. Ojibwe language continues to be spoken by several thousand people in the United States and Canada. Dakota speakers lived in the US states North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Montana and in Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan in Canada. Today many Ojibwe and Dakota people live in cities, some live in towns and others on reservation land. Some fortunate communities have over 100 speakers while many are left with only a handful or none.

In the 1980s and 1990s, recognising the decreasing number of strong speakers, Ojibwe and Dakota people began to act on their concern for their languages. They began culture and language revitalisation efforts, through community learning and school-based programs, some of which were immersion programs.

Waadookodaading in Minnesota is an Ojibwe immersion school that opened in 2000. The program at Waadookodaading has a learning on country focus. This involves teaching children ecological and cultural knowledge outdoors and in places of significance to Ojibwe people. Few teachers and none of the students are native or fluent in the language, and this can make each school day exhausting for teacher and students alike. However, both groups are highly motivated to learn and the program provides an effective way for both to quickly improve language competency. As there are few immersion programs, and small student numbers, the gains overall are small, however, individual gains in language proficiency are impressive.

In Minneapolis in 2006, early childhood educators established Wicoie Nandagikendan, a Dakota and Ojibwe immersion preschool program at the Little Earth Community. They overcame the challenge of having few native speakers by setting up mixed teaching teams of first and second language speakers and learners.

More recently, post-secondary and university language programs have provided important opportunities for young Dakota and Ojibwe people to learn their languages, providing a small cohort of proficient speakers as well as language-speaking Native American researchers, academics and language teachers.

Aware of the critical state of their languages, the Dakota, Ojibwe and others have used government policy and status planning, such as the 1990 Native American Languages Act, as leverage to gather support and action for their languages. In 2006, the importance of saving Indigenous languages was recognized with the passage of the federal Esther Martinez Native American Preservations Act, providing funds for immersion teaching and learning. State governments have also increasingly recognized the value of Dakota and Ojibwe language and culture to the heritage of Minnesota.

In 2009, the Dakota Ojibwe Language Revitalisation Association (DOLRA) successfully secured a commitment from the Minnesota Legislature for support of language revitalization, accessing funding for two immersion schools, a pool of funds for distribution to local language revitalization projects, and a Working Group of representatives from Dakota and Ojibwe communities and state institutions (Indian Affairs Council, State of Minnesota; 2013: 5). DOLRA is one organisation that has been part of the Volunteer Working Group on Dakota and Ojibwe Language Revitalisation and Preservation, which has researched and reported language revitalisation (Indian Affairs Council, State of Minnesota; 2011) and developed a long-term and detailed Strategic Plan (Indian Affairs Council, State of Minnesota; 2013). Increasing language proficiency is a core goal:

For Dakota and Ojibwe people, however, the transmission of our languages from generation to generation in the home is at the breaking point. For the time being, most language learning — especially for young people — take place in schools and other formal instructional settings; the restoration of the home as the place where languages are learned is a longer-term goal. Hundreds of schools within the borders of Minnesota offer to introduce students to a few words of Dakota or Ojibwe language, often as part of more general classes on American Indian cultures. While all opportunities to learn about our cultures are important, these ‘exposure’ activities — which total a few hours over the course of a year — are not part of language revitalization, which must focus on continual increases in language proficiency among learners. Less common are Dakota and Ojibwe classes that treat these subjects as world languages. Such classes, which include degree programs at the University of Minnesota Duluth and at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College, start learners on their path toward language proficiency. The Strategic Plan recognizes the need to support those teachers who are laboring in isolation in schools that often undervalue their work, and who have limited access to teaching materials.

In addition to these immersion and tertiary programs, a number of community initiatives give learners and speakers the chance to hear their language in use and to use online learning resources. These can help adults, young people and children to learn in their own ways with their own learning pathways and they dovetail with the five areas DOLRA has targeted for revitalisation efforts. These include more opportunities for people to learn Dakota and Ojibwe, providing more training programs and training opportunities to increase the number of teachers, the creation of local and standardised school curriculum, creating and improving access to learning materials, particularly online, and raising the profile of languages in the community.

Key Lessons from Ojibwe and Dakota case study

· Creating proficient speakers and uses for language in all areas of life are important

· Immersion programs for students and teachers who are language learners are demanding but effective

· Community commitment to immersion and language focused schools is crucial, as is access to resources for and control over schools

· Learners should have many options to learn language, through education programs at all levels and self-directed learning

· ‘Exposure activities’ are valuable but are not part of language revitalisation. To revitalise a language there must be continual increases in language proficiency among learners

· Official status, official support and strategic planning allow for effective revitalisation efforts.

References

Indian Affairs Council, State of Minnesota. (2013). Strategic Plan for Dakota and Ojibwe Language Revitalization in Minnesota. Volunteer Working Group on Dakota and Ojibwe Language Revitalisation and Preservation. February 15, 2013 Report to the Legislature. Minnesota Indian Affairs Council: St Paul, Minnesota.

Indian Affairs Council, State of Minnesota. (2011). Dakota and Ojibwe Language Revitalization In Minnesota. Volunteer Working Group on Dakota and Ojibwe Language Revitalisation and Preservation. February 15, 2011 Report to the Legislature. Minnesota Indian Affairs Council: St Paul, Minnesota.