An endangered language spoken mostly by an elderly population can now be heard from the mouths of kindergartners in a room at Lowell Elementary School.
There are 12 students in the new Ojibwe immersion class, taught by Gordon Maajiigwaneyaash Jourdain, who previously taught at the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Enweyang Ojibwe Language Nest. The program was approved by the Duluth School Board last spring partly as a way to improve the district’s Native American four-year graduation rate, which was 32.5 percent in 2013.
The Lowell students spend five hours a day immersed in Ojibwe - the language is woven into their regular coursework - with Jourdain and a paraprofessional speaking to each other and to the kids.
Younger students tend to absorb new languages with greater ease than adults, and the Lowell group is doing well after eight weeks, Jourdain said. Several of the students came straight from the language nest and are able to be role models for the new students, he said.
“If I say ‘na ma da bin’ (‘sit down’), the ones from the language nest, they know that already,” Jourdain said.
Indigenous immersion programs give students a sense of identity and pride in their linguistic and cultural identity, said Tara Fortune, immersion program director for the University of Minnesota Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition.
She cited indigenous groups in New Zealand, Canada and Hawaii, and at the Ojibwe immersion school in Hayward, where this has been documented. A K-12 immersion program in Hawaii with a high rate of low-income students, for example, saw a 100 percent graduation rate from 1999-2009, with an 80 percent college attendance rate, Fortune said.
“There is something about giving someone, especially people who have experienced severe oppression, their sense of self,” she said.
That’s an empowering experience, and when a group is made “more whole linguistically and culturally, we see the benefits in educational outcomes,” she said.
Jourdain, a rare modern example of someone who spoke Ojibwe before English, spends a lot of time on vowels and verbs. Ojibwe is a verb-heavy language, and the alphabet is different from the English alphabet. There are no Rs or Ls, for example, and some of the vowels are doubled. One day last week the class was going over the use of the vowels “a” and “aa.” Jourdain asked questions in Ojibwe, pointing to words on a SmartBoard, and several students responded correctly.
“I spend a lot of time on the recognition of one letter,” Jourdain said. “When they get it right, it helps their self-esteem. If that’s not done during the course of their academic life, they won’t stay for very long.”
A first-grade class will be added to the school next year, so the students can advance. Jourdain hopes programming eventually will be added through grade 12, and he would like it to begin with Head Start.
Nick Gegaayootayaash Hanson is the class’s paraprofessional. The Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa member has worked with the Waadookodaading Ojibwe Immersion School in Hayward, and he said such programs are the key to language stabilization and revitalization. Much of the language was stamped out of generations of Anishinaabe when they were forced to attend federal boarding schools in the early to mid-20th century to assimilate to white culture.
Along with the problem-solving skills and cognitive benefits, immersion programs allow Native American students to connect to their culture in a way that mainstream classrooms can’t, Hanson said.
Student Emilio Denasha said he didn’t know a lot of Ojibwe yet, but he liked spending time outside with the class. Teaching outside, where kids can experience the words they are learning, is one of Jourdain’s techniques.
“I worry about being contained in a classroom,” Jourdain said. “Being a part of the environment is where you learn best.”
Duluth resident Krystal Howes sends her son, William, to the class. He came from the language nest. Krystal Howes isn’t Native American, she said, but her husband, who died last year, was. The class is a way to continue teaching the Ojibwe culture and language that her husband had shared with their son, Howes said.
“It’s important that William has the connection to the language,” she said, and she spoke of his developing grasp of Ojibwe. “They have these little books they are making (with Ojibwe words.) William will bring them home and read them to me. I have my own little private language teacher.”
Research shows that immersion students are able to spend a lot of time learning another language at no long-term cost to English-language literacy. Because of that, Fortune said, it’s important that such students have the support of their communities. There is a danger that other educators within the school system might not understand the potential of the program, she said.
“It’s very easy to believe they aren’t achieving because they are learning in Ojibwe,” she said. “But if they are struggling, they need more support in Ojibwe … the programs can and do work.”
Jourdain, who grew up in a village on Lac La Croix in Ontario, infuses state standards with Anishinaabe philosophy. One traditional teaching is referred to as the “seven generations” - honoring past generations and considering the generations to come.
“The job is never going to be complete,” Jourdain said, when it comes to the kind of work he does. “My classroom would probably look really foreign to a mainstream kindergarten teacher, but I am accomplishing the same things.”
