Rowan - learning stories in Inuktitut

And what we found was actually, that when we created stories about children, the stories are written all in Inuktitut. It was like this these stories are going to be in Inuktitut. The stories told about children engaged in lived experiences at the child care centre and beyond, and that through these stories, a number of things happened. They provided a written material in Inuktitut. So, across Canada there are many Indigenous languages, and one of the common concerns is the absence of relevant reading material in the Indigenous language of the place and what the learning stories did, they were authored by the educators who began to ask for grammar lessons in Inuktitut so they could fine-tune their Inuktitut. So, in terms of language, the stories provided a place where children and parents and educators could read and be told stories in Inuktitut. They provided a vehicle through which educators wrote in Inuktitut. And we know that one of the ways we know, through the work of Ken Taylor, for example, from McGill University in the nineties, that if a language is used in a workplace, an Indigenous language is used in the workplace, that supports its longevity, if a language is positioned. So, positioning the language in text put it inside a workplace – the childcare center – gave it, so you know, supporting it very fundamentally. And parents are reading to their children in Inuktitut as well. So, it did a whole bunch for the Inuktitut language.