Celebrating the International Year of Indigenous Languages with the song “Human"
In 2019, Churchill Alternative joined a CBC initiative called the Canadian Music Class Challenge.
Owen Glossop, Churchill’s talented music teacher shared that “This CBC initiative has been so fun! The students in Churchill’s School of Rock (a club for students in grades 4-6) really pulled together to create something great. This is the international year of Indigenous Languages so we were excited to jump into this song – Human – that was composed as the anthem for Indigenous Languages.”
The song’s artists (Twin Flames) note that the song sets out to break the pattern that everyone is divided by labels, and to help people connect no matter their background. The song encourages everyone to celebrate our languages, our cultures and to build relationships and create allies.
Owen shared more about the experience: “The challenge of getting the students to sing in Inuktitut was really fun. The Twin Flames recorded the YouTube video with phonetic instruction for how to pronounce the Inuktitut lines and we took some time really studying it.
“The song provided a great opportunity to incorporate a variety of the instruments from our music program from boom whackers, glockenspiel, guitars, bass and of course our trusty ukuleles.
“We were fortunate to have a very talented videographer in our school community, Jake Hanna, who generously offered up his time to film and edit our video.”
Many thanks to Owen, Jake, Tiiu, Ray and Shellie for working so hard and for developing this amazing video! Thanks to CBC for providing such a fun new way for Churchill’s School of Rock to share our music with others. And thanks to the Twin Flames for their inspiring music.
#internationalyearofindigenouslanguages
Published: 2019
Tags: Arts and music, Cooperation and teamwork, Innovative approaches to teaching and learning, Multi-aged groupings, Relationships, social responsibility