Culture-based Education has been one of the key priorities that the school has been working on for many years. Students have opportunities to go out on the land numerous times during the year – Fall and Spring Community Hunts, setting nets, harvesting and cleaning fish, plant identification, setting snares and preparing furs, spring canoe trips and trapping, berry picking, preparing traditional foods like beery jams, dry fish and dry meat, marrow, scraping and tanning caribou hides…..
We work closely with the community to plan and fund these on-the-land activities. Community resource people work closely with the students throughout this aspect of our programming. Local staff help to plan and participate in language and culture activities with the students and help to ensure the school reflects the local culture. We have worked to embed the local culture in the school:
1. Staff are aware of and model the Dene Laws at all times in their work and interactions with students.
2. The school building reflects the language and crafts, history and traditions of the Dene people.
3. More classrooms welcome local resource people and elders to speak to students, tell stories, discuss history and traditional ways, and share their knowledge of current community issues which link to many aspects of the ELA, Northern Studies, Social Studies and Experiential Science curriculum. This supports relevant project-based learning and authentic assessment.
Authentic assessment of students is an integral part of our on-the-land projects, and we ensure that they are aware of the learning objectives of the trip. Students are asked to document their experiences in a variety of ways including writing journals, digital photography and video, gathering information on specific subjects, and interviewing participants to share this information through stories, photo essays or projects with other students and community members. We also ask students to evaluate how well the traditional Instructors and Hunters worked with them and taught them; and ask the community resource people to evaluate the students that they worked with – how well did they master their skills, did they work hard, were they respectful.
We generated a Culture Year Plan for the school that helps everyone plan seasonal activities and use the resources and ideas in the Dene Kede. We look at this as an evolving project which eventually will have many unit plans, resources and lesson ideas linked to it that integrate culture, language and the core curriculum in an engaging and challenging way.
CULTURE Year Plan Aboriginal Language & Culture Lutsel K 2012-13
There is great potential to use the technology that we have at the school to preserve and teach the culture and language. The students used some of their video interviews and photographs from their trip to Artillery Lake this year for their Heritage Fair Projects. This is an excellent way for students to learn technology skills and presentation skills, and have ownership and pride in the cultural information they are sharing.
Each year The Literacy Coach and myself presented a summary of our accomplishments to the District Education Council that sets the targets and expectations for the schools in the SSDEC area. The Powerpoint presentation below gives a rough outline of our presentation which generally runs approximately an hour with discussion.
Lutsel K’e Dene School DEC Presentation LK DEC presentation 2014