Guided by voices

KUUJJUAQ — Chopping down a tree, gathering twigs for a fire and laying out a picnic beside a frozen lake is surely not the conventional way for students to learn Inuttitut.

But the trip out onto the land gives the kids in Edward Snowball’s Secondary 3 or Grade 9, class at Jaanimmarik School a chance to practise the language and experience Inuit culture while having a good time.

“You have to make it fun sometimes,” Snowball says.

The lunchtime trip to nearby Tasialuk is the students’ reward for work well done. So, at 11:15 a.m., instead of going to the classroom as usual, the students tank up their skidoos and head to the lake.

Although snow is blowing around on the lake’s surface, there is shelter from the wind along the tree-edged shore. It’s a perfect place to lay down a caribou skin, cook some hot dogs on the fire and drink tea or munch on frozen caribou.

If this doesn’t fit the usual classroom scene, Snowball, who is known more in Nunavik for his accomplishments as a songwriter and singer, doesn’t fit the usual image of a teacher, either.

Snowball has been teaching Inuttitut to high school students for the past two years. The job lets him use the land skills he learned from his father, outfitter Bobby Snowball, and also gives him some time off in the summer to perform at music festivals.

“It’s harder and harder to find people to teach Inuttitut,” Snowball says. “People want to do something else. You have to be dedicated.”

Some of Snowball’s students speak Inuttitut very well, while others are just beginning. But everyone who wants to graduate from Jaanimmarik must pass his Secondary 5 Inuttitut class — a level equivalent to Nunavut’s Grade 11.

In his combined Secondary 4 and 5 class, Snowball gives students a challenging dictation of 20 Inuttitut words, which they later check against Taamusi Qumak’s dictionary. He uses some materials developed by the Kativik School Board, but he also comes up with original assignments to correspond with his students’ interests and language skills.

Recently he asked students to listen to the story of an elder in their community and then draw a picture inspired by some aspect of the story. The best pictures will be reprinted in a class calendar.

Although some kids speak to each other in English, they have no trouble understanding Snowball’s instructions in Inuttitut. Sometimes, Snowball admits, he’ll speak to a student in English — but only if it’s absolutely necessary. His students have made good progress, he says, and become much more proficient in the language, though he can’t say for sure that the improvement is due to his Inuttitut class.

Classroom discipline isn’t a big problem, Snowball says, mainly because his classes range in size from about 10 to 25 students. Perhaps another reason the students don’t act up is because Snowball is relatively close to their age at 29 and, well, he’s pretty cool for a teacher.

“They get a role model, too,” says school principal Peter Bentley.

But finding Inuttitut teachers like Snowball remains a continuing challenge for the school. This year, six Inuttitut teachers went on leave, leaving Bentley scrambling to find replacements.

“It’s always tough to recruit, for the same reasons as in Nunavut,” Bentley says. “It’s not an easy job.”

However, despite the difficulties he’s had finding and keeping Inuttitut teachers, Bentley says students get a much better foundation in the language than they did before 1986 when Inuttitut instruction was extremely limited in Kuujjuaq. Kindergarten and Grades 1 and 2 are now taught entirely in Inuttitut throughout Nunavik.

By the time they reach high school, students often stop speaking Inuttitut in the hallways and start speaking English. In the higher grades, students at Jaanimmarik are split equally into French- and English-language streams.

Kuujjuaq is unique in Nunavik because it is home to many resident and transient non-Inuit. There are many mixed marriages, so some students don’t hear much Inuttitut spoken at home. Many of the students who make it to the higher grades are trilingual, and they see French and English — not Inuttitut — as their keys to success.

“What is the working language in most organizations? Most kids know the working language isn’t Inuttitut,” Bentley says.

Snowball knows this too, of course. But as French and English become a larger part of Inuit society, his job becomes even more important.