Where we're heading

Hello everyone! Last week Comhairle na Gaidhlig shared the news about a teacher’s meeting in Antigonish Nova Scotia. The purpose for this gathering of Gaelic educators was to start compiling materials to be added into a resource guide for the Department of Education’s new curriculum. If you didn’t know already let me be the first to tell you that Gaelic is going to be incorporated into every grade level and every subject.

The Nova Scotia curriculum is going through enormous changes. The four heritage cultures, Acadian, African Nova Scotian, Mi’kmaq and Gaelic, are taking center stage. To have the Gaelic community and culture be included on something like this is a huge win. The number of people who have expressed their excitement and support for the work that is being done on the new curriculum has been so heartening. There are also a lot of questions. And that’s what this blog post is going to be about. Hopefully, providing you with more information about what has been happening in our schools and what is coming down the road.

To help explain, I spoke with Tonya Lundrigan Fry, president of the Gaelic Council of Nova Scotia and host/facilitator for last week’s meeting in Antigonish.

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INTERVIEWER What is the history behind the new curriculum?

TONYA About a year ago the Department of Education approached the Gaelic Council and informed us that they were developing a new curriculum for all of Nova Scotia. In a nut-shell, Gaelic, Mi’kmaq, Acadian, & African Nova Scotian, are being incorporated into the learning outcomes at every grade level and every subject being taught in Nova Scotia. Teachers will have the ability to use cultural aspects of all four heritage cultures to inform and teach their students, emphasising the historic cultures that have developed and shaped our province.

Of course, this initiative requires a lot of resources. The Mi’kmaq resource guide was developed last summer. The Acadian resource guide has been in place for quite some time now, through their own School Board’s support. The African Nova Scotian community is working with the Department of Education on the development of a Resource Guide too. All three of these cultural groups have been well-represented on the school boards. When the Department of Education approached us it was to ask for our help in compiling the data to support the Gaelic resource guide.

Over the last 10 years there has been a curriculum in place for Gaelic in the schools of Nova Scotia to support grade 3 and 4 cultural Gaelic learning and Grade 11 social studies programs. Some schools have also adopted a Gaelic language program because the demand in their communities was so great. So the resources have been in place for quite some time, and over the years those resources have been added to and modified. Those are extremely valuable resources and the new curriculum is going to create a huge demand for them. Teachers in Nova Scotia are going to want help with Gaelic cultural connections for the purpose of learning for themselves and their students.

INTERVIEWR So teachers who have not previously been engaged with Gaelic language and culture will now be incorporating it into their lessons?

TONYA Absolutely, and what we’re doing right now is trying to provide them with the resources that they’ll need to represent the culture appropriately, and who better to supply the resources than those in the community who are already teachers, and that includes those in public school, in university and those that are teaching in the community?

INTERVIEWER The curriculum is being introduced in phases. When was the first phase introduced?

TONYA The New curriculum for grades primary to grade 3 was released in September 2015, as part of the Department of Education’s efforts to improve the provincial school curriculum and it was released without a Gaelic recourse guide. Not that they are entering into the next phase which will include higher grade levels, teachers are going to be asking for more help with Gaelic cultural learning: ‘How am I going to teach children about numbers in Gaelic if I don’t know them myself? How am I going to be able to inform children about the Gaelic identity and way of life—the way they value the community elders, the way they revere nature, the blessings for the moon, for the harvest, for the meal, for the family? How can we share that?’ Well that’s where we come in.

Comhairle na Gaidhlig is taking the lead role in coordinating the collection of these learning resources. It’s taken quite a few months to pull all of this together. Last Friday was the first time we were able to get all the Gaelic culture and language school and community teachers together to share with us their best practices. We shared ideas and started collecting their recourses. We have framework and a proposed delivery approach for the Department of Education.

INTERVIEWER Has is been a long process of lobbying and advocating for Gaelic to be incorporated into something like this?

TONYA Very long. Over 10 years. And all of those that have gone before us have contributed to where we are now. For example, there has been a group that as led by the Office of Gaelic affairs meeting in Mulgrave every quarter for the last year and a half. They have made great strides and gave the Gaelic Council more doffer required for our own lobbying and advocating work. Teachers have been similarly engaged for a long time now, and we have had school-boards and teacher’s unions working toward the same goal. We’ve also had representation at the universities—hence we were able to see StFX offer Gaelic as a teachable to students working toward their Bachelor of Education degrees.

INTERVIEWER What do you think has changed over the last ten years that has brought Gaelic from being not on the radar as a heritage language in Nova Scotia to now where it is on the government’s new curriculum?

TONYA It has build momentum over time. People’s awareness has increased. We have put a lot of 

emphases on sharing Gaelic language as part of a culture and identity. We’re not just trying to preserve language, we want to heighten people’s awareness of their own culture and ancestry. A lot of people know that they’re from Scotland, but they may not realise that their Scottish ancestors came with their own language. So, valuing not just the language, but the identity that goes with it.

I also think that the work of other cultural groups has assisted our own efforts. The Acadian community is very strong in terms of their awareness, development and engagement in being recognized as a leading culture in the province. I would also say that the Mi’kmaq have had a longer and harder battle than we have, but they’re about 10 years ahead of us in their cultural awareness and community development around education, and the African Nova Scotian community is on track with us in terms of representing their culture and identity and what it has brought to the development of the Nova Scotian identity.

All those things working together have helped each other, either intentionally or inadvertently, and because the Department of Communities Culture and Heritage has put all of these communities together under their umbrella, we’re better able to boost historical cultural awareness. That awareness broadens the community and more people are becoming aware of their own Gaelic heritage as part of as a result of all that collaboration.

INTERVIEWER What is the next step for the Gaelic community in Nova Scotia and the Gaelic Council with regard to the curriculum?

TONYA The next step is to prove the data for a resource guise to the Department of Education before the next school term starts. The next level in the phase will be for grades 4 to 6. We need to be prepared for a lot of teachers asking questions and looking for guidance from individuals within our community. They will be looking for resources and support. We’re going to have to build those resources.

If anyone in the Gaelic community has any learning resources that they would like to contribute we’re still open to receiving them until July 7^th. After that we’re going to proceed with development of the reference guide materials for the Department of Education. Community members can forward their material to our email address, comhairlenagaidhlig@gmail.com), and we will thank them for their contribution. We can’t guarantee that everything will be in there. Right now we’re just building the frame-work and attaching all the recommended best practices. It’s on a volunteer basis that we’ve come together to do this. We all did a really good job last Friday. We have begun to scratch the, but there is still more to do.

INTERVIEWER Finally, what is your favorite Gaelic word of Phrase?

TONYA My favorite prase is “S’math dh’fhaicinn!” / “It’s good to see you!

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What We Have

In the fall of 2006, after I graduated high school I left Nova Scotia and worked at a restaurant in Banff Alberta. In the dining room hung a painting of a prairie land-scape. Golden wheat stretching back and back to a dark wall on the horizon that represented the Rocky Mountains. At least, I can be 90% sure that was what the artist had in mind when she painted it. I say 90 % because when I looked at the painting I didn’t always see golden wheat and mountains. Sometimes, and especially at times when I would be feeling particularly home-sick, I would stare at this painting until the wheat became sand and the mountains turned into the Northumberland Strait. The sea-side environment that I felt the most attached to had been imprinted on my psyche to such a degree that this painting of an Albertan prairie had become my own personal Rorschach test.

 

The beach was a place that I would go to with my family in the summer, the place where I first played in waves that were taller than me, and the place where my friends and I would have bon-fires. That beach is just one aspect of my environment that called on me to come home—and that’s exactly what I did. It’s the very same thing that draws people from all over the world to come visit. I know I feel a lot of pride when I meet people visiting from America, Europe and indeed Alberta, who are here to enjoy “Canada’s ocean play-ground.”

It’s worthwhile to celebrate what we have here in this corner of the world. For example, every Summer Point Michaud beach in Richmond County hosts the annual surf classic—a fun event for people of all ages to come and play in the waves that break along that sandy bit of Cape Breton coastline. Another example, and one which perhaps many more of you are familiar with, is the Celtic Colours International Festival that takes place each October.

“We know what we have here. We cherish it. All of our events show off something that we celebrate here. We don’t put on this event so that tourists can come, we put on this event because this is what we do. This is how we celebrate life. This is how we celebrate culture.”

That quote was taken from a presentation that Dawn Beaton gave at the Conference for Growing a Creative Economy up in Membertou, Sydney last month. Dawn and I caught up after the conference and had a chat. Dawn is the Artistic Director of the Celtic Colours International Festival. She has been involved with the administration of the festival for six years--but a performer since the very first one—and like a lot of the people who I have talked to during my time with the Gaelic Council, Dawn’s introduction to Gaelic culture began at home.

“I’ve been very blessed to have had the family, and more specifically the grandparents that I’ve had. Growing up I would hear my grandparents speak to each other in Gaelic. My first segue into Gaelic culture was learning Gaelic songs and singing in the choir that Margie (Stanley) Beaton had set up when I was in grade 1. She had this little choir and we would meet after school and perform at the Inverness Manor and at some of the parish concerts.”

When Dawn graduated from high school she moved to Antigonish, Nova Scotia where she earned a Bachelor of Business Administration at St. Francis Xavier University. From there she moved to Halifax where she worked for 3 years with an accounting firm.

“I’m from Mabou, a small village. I got a degree in a bigger town, and then moved up to Halifax for 3 years. It took 3 years in Halifax to kind of say ‘okay this is not my path.” And so I ended up back home. Even a short move to Halifax was enough to give me the perspective to see how special the things that I already had were to me.”

The culture that Dawn grew up with and connects with has been valued highly by men and women from all over the world who travel long distances just to get a taste of it.

“Because of this job I meet a lot of people who come from away. And something I’ve heard a lot from many is that when they cross the Causeway they physically feel different. Something clicks, something changes.”

I asked Dawn how she and her team walk the line between an authentic representation of the culture that we work to preserve and perpetuate, and the almost exploitative staged cultural events that you might experience in a Disney park. Her answer was simple.

“When we’re not authentic, we lose. That has been the thought process for having this event. If the locals don’t go, then why are we doing it? What’s the point? We’ve had that at the core of everything we do. It’s been our mantra.”

The Celtic Colours International Festival is a showcase of what already exists in Cape Breton; a nine-day distillation of something that you can’t quite find anywhere else, and which some of us don’t fully appreciate until we’ve travelled away from it.

Gach Deagh Dùrachd! / Every Good Wish!

Dawn’s favorite word in Gaelic is: Uamhasach/Terribly

“I like the way it rolls of the tongue and you can really get that local accent in there. Folks who have never spoken a word of Gaelic in their life, might speak in a very Gaelic way with the same inflection and tones that this word emulates. So I like the way it reminds me of that.”