Learning Sahnish with Kathryn Froelich

There’s no generic ending you know cuz that’s so true and that’s that’s something that are again with that orientation course that we did that um we really tried to stress our new teachers coming to the reservation that they understood that their classroom is going to be uh diverse in the fact that there going to be many different tribal students in there with different backgrounds and that they’re all come from different creation stories they all have their own languages they all have their own ceremonies you know and um that it there is not just one way you know like the books you know the textbooks might give that impression you know that they that there is you know one way but um I think that’s really important but um as far as you said um say that again the native identity oh yeah identity um I guess I have to think about right now my brother is at Turtle Mountain College in um Turtle mountain and he’s married up there and my sister’s in Colorado Springs and then I’m here on Standing Rock and um for the last 3 years we have been Skyping uh twice a week to relearn our language Ora sones is the endangered language and it’s my mother probably and um prisilla hosy who’s 100 probably are the only two that are really original fluent speakers and remember my mom lost a lot of that and um so we’ve been Skyping because we’re all kind of semi-retired uh relearning and it has been a wonderful experience because it’s brought Unity to our family I mean when you Skype and you’re trying to struggle together and relearn and laugh and make mistakes and then we have our mother also which is really a blessing because then we can talk to her and say now did we say this right and uh and then she’s helping us has actually helped her to remember more and more she’s coming back to her now so I’m always ever ready with a iPad or a phone uh cuz I’ll be driving my mother will be with me and all of a sudden she’ll say a whole phrase in saish and I’ll say what did you say and then I’ll click it and then I’ll I’ll say can you say it again so I have a iPad and I have a phone that full of recordings with my mother for the last 3 years so now I just need to figure out what to do with it so I got to do something with it soon but anyway long story short um it is just uh an example of how identity is constantly growing my brother and sister and I are continuing to develop our own saish identity through the work that we’re doing with relearning our language visiting with my mother you know because these stories come up as a result of well mom how do you say this word or my brother will say well I have this song that was taught to me but I don’t know what it says exactly and she’ll he’ll sing it to her and then she’ll say oh yeah that was sung in so and so’s naming back in you know her memory is excellent that’s a good thing yeah so identity isn’t stagt it does it’s always developing no matter how old you get you know and so unfortunately in our schools the place there hasn’t been a lot of time afforded to recognizing that I don’t think our you know and how do you recognize that by just what you’re doing those essential understandings recognize that identity is the heart of helping children be successful you know we all have to know who we are we all need to know where we’re going you know and we won’t if we don’t know where we’ve been James Banks he said that you know and we’re still struggling how long ago did he say that you know it’s I don’t know the research is done we’ve got lots and lots of research that says our kids need to know who they are you know and you need to connect with them and the curriculum has to be relevant has been meaningful you know but we’re we’re still beating our head against the wall now how do we get this how do we get test scores up how do we you know it’s it’s evident but somehow I don’t know hopefully this will change Yay hopefully this will make a difference I’m hopeful I’m always hopeful yes yeah