gray ninda Luisi Rebecca hi my name is Rebecca shall we the language you speak fundamentally shapes your worldview and everything that goes along with it and this concept is specifically amplified when it comes to indigenous languages indigenous language weaves its way through every aspect of who we are as people from how we interact with the physical world how we build our communities and how we carry our culture forward and with that comes a unique perspective and it's that perspective that I'm going to try to create for you so that when I introduced the concept of edweb de Munck of two-eyed seeing you'll understand why it's so important so to begin a study published in Psychological Science is called two languages two minds broke down grammatical tools that situate actions in time they showed photographs to English and German speakers and asked them to describe what was going on in them so for example they showed a woman walking in a parking lot English speaker said this is a woman walking whereas German speaker said this is a woman walking to her car they showed another photograph a man riding his bicycle once again English speakers honed in on the action and said this is a man riding his bicycle whereas German speakers needed to add a destination to complete their context even though that destination wasn't featured in the photograph this is a man riding his bicycle to the library or to the supermarket and what's interesting is that English marks events as ongoing were very action-oriented in our language so if I'm writing a poem when my spouse calls and he asks me what I'm doing I'll say I'm writing regardless of the fact that I had stopped to answer the phone German simply doesn't have this feature and so it's interesting to see the two worldviews these languages carry even though they have a common root so what happens when you have a group of people with a language that has no common root but must operate within a completely foreign framework specifically how do indigenous people find success in a colonized world now the saying things get lost in translation rings truer than you might imagine when it comes to indigenous languages this is mega ma territory and many of you might have heard the word jealousy to mean welcome that's what it's used for but the literal translation of the concept equates to I'll do my best that's a much more nuanced and meaningful interaction in this moment a person-to-person contract is being agreed upon think about that in this moment I will try for you so language so language isn't just something we use to get our points across as I said it's woven into who we are as people and our notions of a broader identity so Robert Thomas no relation wrote about that that broader identity and he called it people hood when referring to indigenous peoples now the term people hood is a little bit odd so I'm gonna break it down for you people who differs from identity and that it not only encompasses the individual identity but how that person ties it to a larger collection of people's and how that in turn connects them to other people within that collective so for example I don't speak mega maaan and I grew up off reserve but I still identify as a mega MOT person I'm still within the concept of a mega ma peoplehood and that in turn connects me to somebody who grew up on reserve and who speaks the language and it's getting a bit complex so please bear with me people hood is made up of four things territory sacred history ceremonial cycle and language each thread informs the other you can't address a single aspect of it without looking at the whole think of a spiderweb if you clip a single thread that anchors it the whole thing starts to collapse so the mega MA language for example with its unique characteristics gives meaning to a sacred history which dictates the use of the land which is crucial to the appropriate execution a ceremonial cycle which in turn is performed in many of the languages that those ceremonies encompass so firstly that is a direct quote from my ma so I'm going to take this moment and feel vindicated in my decision to pursue another arts degree and secondly indigenous peoples are complicated and complex imagined centuries ago when we were writing the treatise in the language we were communicating in encompassed how we would use the land how would we carry our culture forward how would we develop relationships with the settlers and colonizers now how much of that was lost in translation when they were recorded in English and French so I digress but remember those four strands language ceremonial cycle territory and sacred history the best part about peoplehood is that it is tremendously flexible we can swap out and alter some of those strands without compromising our status as indigenous people so once again I'm going to use my lived experience as an example you already know I don't speak megamom and that's because through residential school my primary language threat has been replaced with English and French so if I go to a ceremony that's conducted entirely in the mega ma language the significance of that ceremony might not fully resonate with me because I won't understand the full scope of what's being said but that does not diminish Who I am as a megamouth person furthermore there are many mega maaan people who are practicing catholics so even though they smudge and they dance and they drum and they sweat they also go to church and pray in the Megamall language and that does not take away from them they have woven another set of ceremonies into their ceremonial thread because being an indigenous person is a lived experience it's there's no spectrum whereby somebody is more or less native than somebody else any arguments over authenticity are us internalizing a history of colonialism that has created rubrics and tools to measure our ethnicity and blood-quantum has nothing to with the fact that my mother is non-native does not take away from the fact that I am a megamouth person so with that said I'm gonna check in with you guys language shapes your worldview and is one of four aspects that create an indigenous people at an indigenous understanding of knowing of how the world works so when you look at the picture that I'm trying to paint for you you're gonna understand what you're looking at so here's the picture indigenous peoples are the fastest growing demographic in Canada our median age is 28 years old compared to that of 43 - the non-native world and what that means is you're going to see more of us in your classrooms in your workspaces in in your public spaces the world is going to have to learn to interact with us in ways that are more meaningful and significant than what they have done in the past I don't need to elaborate for you all to know we don't have the best history so what that's the question I always get asked how does this apply to the real world I work in student services in education I act as a go-between for the native and non-native world I advocate for students who have a hard time speaking up about themselves I coach faculty on how to have appropriate cultural supports and yet in spite of what I try to do sometimes the effects an indigenous student feels are too great and they leave to go home and it's not that they're not smart it's not that they aren't capable of doing the work it's just that this world doesn't get them our protocols our concepts of time our ethics etc are just different and it doesn't mean we can't communicate with your world we've been doing it for the better part of five centuries it's that we ask that you now try to communicate with our world and it is at this moment that I introduced the concept of IDO optimal of two-wide seeing it was introduced by elder Albert Marshall two-eyed seeing tanks takes the strengths of both a colonized world and both an indigenous world and asked that the user see through both lenses simultaneously to find success it is the mega MA understanding of the gift of multiple effectives to see multiple contacts simultaneously for example you see nova scotia new velak US Canada we see mega Maggie traditional territory Turtle Island it's not either/or it's both at the same time to ID seeing was originally introduced to build greater capacity for stem programming for indigenous students and post-secondary institutions and is now being adopted nationally by organizations and institutions who are interested in trans cultural collaboration to I'd seeing implies responsibilities for reciprocity mutual accountability and co-learning it's what we tried to build our treaties on we want you to know about us and we want success in this world but we are no longer willing to give up our world to do it and you might be asking yourself why would I go through so much trouble to indigenized the institution for such a small number of students in the answer my friends is beautiful it has been shown it has been proven that when institutions implement indigenous pedagogy and learning styles students across the board benefit native and non-native because we recognize the multiple contexts and paradigms that learners learn through our ways of teaching have traditionally been more Universal and more inclusive so with all of my academic speak in concept introduction I bring it back to the elders who always tend to say it best with regards to education and relationship building according to Albert Marshall the foundational basis of any relationship is an exchange of stories so as a storyteller and as a poet I will leave you all with what I do best a poem entitled I do optimal I lost my talk said Rita Joe for me I was never given the option to no to feel the flow of the words as they rolled off my tongue giving me the lyrics of how our world was sung my perspective was spun using the threads of both your world and theirs left to cobble together a spirit from rags and tears painfully aware that I was different through hard work and determination I found my indigenous articulation a compilation of two ways makes up the sum of me you have two eyes that you only have one view your way as best you would argue centuries of being in position to subdue those who would aspire they say the Sun never set on the British Empire and because we recognize the hubris that defines your story we have both a sunrise and a sunset in our territory with my heart and eyes I have a completely different view the consequence of my skin comes in an entirely different hue don't you see although you represent us we think very differently than you because we see the world not through one set of eyes but through two thousands of years long we were independent proud and strong we belong to this earth the way power belongs to money and privilege to birth we put our communities first but then came the fleet's filled with those you would ironically define today as come from a way to invade every inch of our world to break our spirits and pull the threads that would unfurl us to catch the way you speak but this is not a poem for the retelling of a one-sided history each of our worlds has their strengths yours is in power it gets to eat its cake and define race it has the ability to unapologetically take up space if societal progress is linear this society is top tier terra nullius as though we were never here it must be nice to be so confident this society is ubiquitous built on rarefied rubrics of tradition and rhetoric your notions of diversity are ad-hoc in nature and afterthought feature to an a movable structure but this is not a conviction nor an acquittal just the voice coming from an eye trained to be critical and if you push the two sides of our Venn diagram together you'll get our circle we were never meant to be static like the rivers around us we shift and change and remain dynamic we bring something to the table that is able to change your worldview and show you what we are capable of that a lot can come from a holistic concept of the earth you are not a plague nor we a curse or a problem in need of a solution and we've got to rid ourselves of the spiritual dissolution the dilution of our treatise written to share this land and I ask that you understand that we are the experts on what we need don't feed us your good intentions carefully late apologies will not get you an historical exemption we plan our actions for the next seven generations and we invite you to do the same open your other set of eyes take a pause and start breathing welcome to the world of to ITA thank you well Olli