GOAL #2: Native Language and Culture
- School will continue in delivery of Kaska Studies Program in order to assist the community in preservation of cultural and linguistic heritage. The language portion of the program will be attended by all the students on a daily basis. The traditional teachings will be offered as an Active Learning Program to deepen the program’s impact on determined learners.
Ross River School serves mostly Kaska students. The prescribed programs of studies do not provide any relevant information on Kaska history, tradition, culture, and language. The Yukon Education, however, encourages incorporating locally developed courses into the regular curricula to amend the situation. The Ross River Dena Council had in the past urged the school administration to introduce the courses, which would teach the students about their past, presence, and future in the context of the Yukon first Nations; which would cause the students to actively practice their culture and language; and which would assist the Council in preservation of Kaska tradition.
OBJECTIVES
- Students learn and use the language on a daily basis.
- Offer Traditional Teachings as an optional program.
- Disseminate skills and knowledge, which will encompass as many aspects of life on the tra ditional land as possible within the framework of modern society.
- Participate in the community life in order to promote its cohesiveness, as well as to be ex posed to its positive influences.
- Foster respect for nature and promote sound environmental management.
- Continue Kaska Language Course on a daily basis
- Continue Fran Etzel’s appointment as a Vice-principal with the responsibility of a Program advisor.
- Continue the Resident Elder Program and Elders-in-School Program.
- Continue in Wednesday afternoons Traditional Teachings program, focusing on life on the land, native arts and crafts, and native traditions.
- Organize special events such as The Kaska Days to engage in cultural celebrations with thecommunity.
- Invite guest instructors for in-services such as Drum Making Workshop, or Tufting.
- Students will learn written and oral Kaska.
- Students will learn traditional outdoor skills such as trapping, snaring, hunting, fishing, as well as the most economic ways of using the harvests.
- Students will learn from elders, and in return provide for them (delivering fresh water, ice; making jam or traditional medicine).
- Students will learn traditional arts and crafts.
- Students will learn the concepts of clans and the traditional Kaska kinship system.
- Regular Kaska staff meetings (with invitations to Elders and Dena Council).
- Regular staff meetings.
- School Council meetings.