Oshki Ohimaag Community School
Grant Activities: The short term goals are to use language and traditional teachings as literacy tools through the development of an Anishinaabemowin Family Literacy program taking place throughout the 2012-2013 school years. The Anishinaabemowin Revitalization team will consist of school staff, elders, tribal government employees, parents, and community members. A written plan for revitalization will be concluded by June 2013. An increased capacity for immersion programming will result through the development of local speakers, materials, and an effective school based program.
Minnesota’s most enduring languages are in danger of disappearing. Without timely intervention, the use of Dakota and Ojibwe languages – like indigenous languages throughout the globe -- will decline to a point beyond recovery.
These languages embody irreplaceable worldviews. They express, reflect, and maintain communal connections and ways of understanding the world. Deeper than the disuse of vocabulary or grammar, the loss of an indigenous language is destruction of a complex system for ordering the relationships among people and the natural world, for solving social problems, and connecting people to something beyond themselves.
Grant Activities: The short term goals are to use language and traditional teachings as literacy tools through the development of an Anishinaabemowin Family Literacy program taking place throughout the 2012-2013 school years. The Anishinaabemowin Revitalization team will consist of school staff, elders, tribal government employees, parents, and community members. A written plan for revitalization will be concluded by June 2013. An increased capacity for immersion programming will result through the development of local speakers, materials, and an effective school based program.
Language Preservation and Education. $550,000 the first year and $550,000 the second year are for grants for programs that preserve Dakota and Ojibwe Indian languages and to foster educational programs in Dakota and Ojibwe languages.
Direct language instruction continues. An advanced class has been developed, seven student participate and receive an additional 30 minutes per week of instruction. Initial observations of students using Ojibwemowin throughout the day without prompt was zero. April assessment shows that 7 students are using Oibwemowin without prompt on a daily basis, and three others use words and phrases intermittenly. This equals an increase of 29% of students regularly using the language without prompt. There have also been reports from community members that a first grade student was conversing with an elder in Ojibwemowin at teh Tribal Council Office, using basic greetings and phrases. Students are utilizing the iPods and software that were provided tot he Grand Portage Community from the DOLRA funds a few years back. Language software is being used as a quantitative assessment tool. The students really enjoy the technology and it has been a very effective tool for us.