Rainy River District students put Indigenous language learning skills to test
A milestone for an Indigenous language skills competition.
Gagwe-gikendamaawiziwin (Quest for Knowledge) was recently held for the 25th time at Seven Generations Education Institute.
Robert Horton, Anishinaabemowin Coordinator and Instructor at Seven Gens, says the event brings young Indigenous language learners together to test what they have learned in class.
“You can really see the fruits of the labour of these learners and these amazing language teachers,” says Horton.
“We have many judges that are local elders, true elders, and they are struck by how proficient these kids are, and it warms their hearts.”
Horton also gives credit to the language teachers for their work with the students.
Eight schools and 15 teams from across the Rainy River District took part.
Students went head-to-head in five stations.
One tested the students’ public speaking skills.
A second used the popular game, Jeopardy! to test the students’ vocabulary.
A third required students to come up with new words.
“One of the reasons that Anishinaabemowin is called a living language is because we have to keep adapting it to the world that we’re in to make it relevant,” says Horton.
“If we don’t have words for Lamborghini or plastic house plant or something like that, then it becomes irrelevant to the world that we live in today.”
Other stations encouraged students to use charades to explain a word to their classmates, while the fifth used art to showcase the student’s understanding of their language skills.
Gagwe-gikendamaawiziwin was first held in 1999.
Horton says the focus has changed since its early years.
“It wasn’t necessarily language. It was community names, leader names and stuff, not necessarily history, but the reality of our region,” says Horton.
“Then a few years later, it started to move over to language, and we’ve kept that trajectory very, very strong.”
This year’s winners came from Robert Moore School in Fort Frances in the junior division and Crossroads Schools in Devlin in the senior division.