My View

It's been a while since I've really thought about this topic. It's an issue that has been around for some time now. In my early years as a educator during one of my community visits while working as the Inuktitut Program Coordinator for Kivalliq Divisional Board of Education, I came across two teachers in the same school that were using different Inuktut month terms. And I thought that wasn't fair to the students who will learn one term in that one classroom and then be expected to use a different term in the other classroom. So, I had to think of a way to deal with this issue and what I came up with was to make a list of common inuktitut terms such month terms, days of the week in our many dialects across Kivalliq and ask the Inuit teachers in each school to review the list, then agree on the appropriate terms for their community. Once I got the list from the teachers, I presented it to the principals during the annual principals' meeting and asked for their assistance to bring the list to their DEAs' so they can be approved for school use, then reviewed every 5 years. Out of 11 principals, only one presented this project to the DEA and got the support. After months of waiting to hear back from the principals, I soon realized that it will never reach the hands of the some DEA members. I was disappointed to realize the lack of support from the principals, but that wasn't going to stop me. I decided to meet with the DEA in each community myself when I have the chance. I did manage to meet with one DEA and got the support before I changed jobs.

My personal view with standardization is mixed. I love the fact that there are a lot of dialects across Nunavut and it's fun to learn them. As a child I grew up hearing my ataatatsiaq speaking in his Netsilik dialect, but my anaanatsiaq was from Aivilik and that is the dialect we learnt to speak. So, I feel strongly about keeping the many different dialects, but I also know it's very complicated and costly to accommodate the needs of not only educators, but other interest groups. I would agree to Standardizing the Inuit Language if it's planned out well so that each community know how to keep their dialect.

As a curriculum developer for Nunavut, it is very hard to try and meet the needs of our Inuit teachers when there is limited funding to publish teaching resources.