Word of the Week - A Work in Progress...

Allie's Reflection

Introducing the Ojibwe Word of the Week was a concept that started in both of our schools (P.E. McGibbon and A.A. Wright) during the last school year.  Luckily, this meant that we had a base to build upon this September when we began to roll the program out again.

This year we were deliberate in the words that were chosen for September.  The thought was that by focusing on greetings we would be providing our students with words that could quickly be used in their everyday conversations.

Many students have taken to it quite quickly and it is pretty incredible how often you can hear boozhoo, miigwech, and most recently, baamaapii being used around the school.  Teachers also seemed to be thankful to be given word wall cards for their own classrooms.  All in all it seemed as though all things were going well.

However, after recently surveying a random sample of students at both of our schools we realized that many kids were missing the pretty basic connection between the Ojibwe words they were beginning to use and the fact that it was an actual First Nations language spoken in close proximity to where they live and go to school.  This was a pretty clear message to us, as educators, that there was still a need for more teaching in this area.

Another aspect of our word of the week project that has been very eye opening and interesting to me has been how the Ojibwe language and the English language DO NOT mesh seamlessly and more often than not there is no literal translation from Ojibwe to English.  A great example of this is how Mino Giizghad (Indigenous Education Lead) explained to us the context in which the word miigwech was traditionally used.  Another example of this is how there was no word for “opossum” or “phragmite” because these are both species that are not native to this area.

While we have made some great first steps in the first month of school we obviously still have a lot of work to do - stay tuned! Baamaapii!