Oki! This resource serves as an invitation for all educators and learners in the Holy Spirit Catholic School Division. We hope to empower you to engage in a lifelong journey of awareness and appreciation of Niitsi'powahsin, the Blackfoot language. 

We encourage you to participate in dialogue with us by providing feedback on how you are using the resource. 

The overarching goal of this resource is to inspire harmony. While individuals can gain mastery by acquiring knowledge, harmony can only be achieved when individuals work together to bring their community to a place of knowledge. We believe that the Blackfoot language belongs to the land, and is meant to be shared with everyone in Blackfoot territory. Learn more about our objectives.

Our work is grounded in Blackfoot ways of knowing and being. We look to the land, our histories and stories, our Elders, and our communities for knowledge and guidance. Learn more about Blackfoot ways of knowing.

We know that language learning is a dynamic process that changes over the course of a learner's lifetime. Learn more about how our resource supports students across divisions (K-12).

This resource is centered around four stories. Each story is connected with a traditional game, and together the story and the game can inspire learning by introducing important concepts and vocabulary. In this way, the resource aims to connect storytelling, land-based learning, and traditional games. Our detailed appendices provides additional information on language learning, stories, games, land, and vocabulary. 

The name of our project is inspired by the origin story of Mioohpokoiiksi, or Pleiades. Learn more about our name.

Our Objectives

Our goal is to build a resource that reflects Blackfoot traditional values of inclusivity, respect, sense of place, patience and pride. These values are expressed in our language and culture, and they shape our work and our relationships.

Inclusivity

Our aim is to create a resource that is useful for all educators and students in the Holy Spirit Catholic School Division. We welcome educators and students from all backgrounds. Blackfoot language learning is a lifelong journey, and we want learners to appreciate the process. We are all learning and teaching as we go, and this resource is meant to be a living resource that can adapt to the strengths and needs of different teachers and learners within their context. 

Respect

Our work builds on the knowledge of many experts in Blackfoot language and culture, education, and linguistics. We deeply appreciate and respect the work of others, and our aim to create a resource that relates to and complements other resources. The appendices section highlights and links to other works.

Sense of Place

Our language comes from the land, and we believe that everyone in Treaty 7 territory should have opportunities to learn the language of the land.

Patience and Pride

Our objective is to foster awareness and appreciation of the language. We aim to create points of entry for students to be engaged in and proud of their learning. We want our children to listen deliberately and to focus on getting it right. This means that we do not oversimplify the language, or prioritize conversational skills over independence and confidence with what they know. We are planting the seeds for learners to develop their own authentic relationships with the language.

Blackfoot Ways of Knowing

Language is a spiritual part of who we are as Niitsitapi. Our work embodies Blackfoot ways of knowing-doing-being by acknowledging that our language is sacred, and learning our language is an act of ceremony. 

Our Elders and Knowledge Keepers teach us that Blackfoot language learning is a lifetime journey, and that learning involves drawing from many sources of knowledge. This resource reflects our own growing understanding, acquired through:

• Collaboration and knowledge sharing with our contributors

• Learning from Elders

• Learning through Play

• Learning from Land 

• Building on the good work that has come before, as featured in our appendices

Divisions

Education is sacred. Education is ceremony. Education is a journey. 

Our aim to support learners throughout their educational journeys by outlining different approaches and strategies for different ages and stages.

We are inspired by the Brain Story Certification, which takes a scientific approach to how children move through developmental stages and how we can support their neurological development. 

We follow the Alberta Education Program of Study for Blackfoot Language & Culture, which details strategies and learning outcomes for learners from Kindergarten through Grade 12.

Most importantly, we are guided by principles of Blackfoot pedagogy, which is rooted in reciprocity, connection, and community. We aim to empower older children to teach the younger generations. 

Our general approach is based on:

• Encouraging language play by letting early learners experiment with creating the sounds of the language

• Introducing high frequency words early, and adding more complex forms along the way

• Using imperative verb forms, as these are linguistically the most simple and can be used as functional language (e.g., in playing games)

• Repeating key words and phrases; using songs and chants as a tool for repetition

• Being gentle in our corrections. It is important to get it right, but every learner makes mistakes

Our name: Mioohpokoiiksi

The story of Mioohpokoiiksi is a story of six lost boys who went up to the sky to protect them from neglect. The story serves as a reminder of our responsibilities to our children, and the name is inspired by the ways in which stories like Mioohpokoiiksi were told to children at nighttime as a way to calm them and impress knowledge and teachings upon them. 

You can read and listen to the story of Mioohpokoiiksi here (Glenbow Museum).

The artwork for this project was created by Api'soomaahka (Running Coyote) William Singer III, and it depicts details of the our Sky Stories including Mioohpokoiiksi story.