I hope it.

Means you go on.

For a good day, dude.

You are 19 out.

It is Friday morning at Lowell Elementary School in Duluth, Minnesota.

As these kindergartners prepare for their day, their teacher is speaking to them in the Ojibwe language, and they in turn respond to her.

Also speaking in Ojibwe.

This is the school district's Mesabi Ojibwe immersion program.

When I first started, I had met with a team of administrators, and we were coming up for an idea of what would be something good a good attractor for Duluth public Schools for for students, because our enrollment was down.

And at the time, the assistant superintendent, Eddie Crawford, said, hey, we should look into starting an immersion program.

There was a team of us brainstorming, and they had talked about German, Mandarin, Spanish.

And I said, hold on, do you know the land that we're on right now, the indigenous people that basically this is our land?

I said, I think if we're going to start any immersion program, we need to start with Ojibwe.

ItI recruited Gordon Jordan, who had been with the University of Minnesota Duluth, in a way on language ness also an immersion program.

He is known by staff and students by his Ojibwe name, Margie Garnish, or Margie.

Just gave us the moniker was really not.

That's not, Currently we have, K kindergarten, first, second, third, and fourth.

We started with, just kindergarten five years ago, and we've been adding a grade ever since.

Mr..

It's a word that I've, I've learned from the local, Ojibwe population.

It it means the, the, the place of the times.

We have a very huge responsibility and but luckily, our, our instruction and our best practices informed by indigenous thinking and how that's inclusive of up here of a holistic approach to education.

Language is structure to me.

Sounds like you're teaching about the language.

It's kind of it's different for what my definition of what that is, I'm actually teaching in the language about different subjects.

Not only are we teaching the the younger students, and as I've said before about the model of indigenous education, everybody is included in that space.

So even even our teachers and our parents and, our staff, our administrators and our board and our parents and grandparents, everybody is is part of their the home is to become the experience is not just us.

There is no curricula that Margie and the other teachers follow.

Instead, they use an alternative approach.

As Margie said earlier, to teaching in the language.

We go outside a lot.

Did you see that mon up there?

That's our curriculum.

That's exactly how we do it.

The moon that's up right now is still is.

And you can still see that we're we're just cleaning up our Skycam, thematic unit for, for this month and getting ready for the next moon that's going to be up.

That's how our programing and our curriculum is informed.

By the lunar cycle, indigenously, in our creation stories.

That's our grandmother.

She's the keeper of of wisdom and teachings for us.

It's local knowledge of the the environment that we live in that informs our curriculum.

Our language is not a compartmentalized into math, science, social studies or, physical health.

It's not like that for us from a first language perspective.

When you speak, you're talking about all those things already know it's.

Ojibway isn't confined to Margie's classroom or those of the other instructors, as there is signage around the building that also has wording in Ojibwe, and it's not uncommon to be greeted by school staff with Buju, the Ojibwe word for hello.

How is those all over?

That's always been like, an effect of of the curiosity of of of the the students and the staff everywhere where I've been a participant in immersion programs, I believe that a language just offers a different perspective.

I feel like we're a very unique program in a sense that we do have two first language speakers here as our teachers.

But also, I would like people to know that we would not have Masami Kong if we didn't have the strong support from our community, our elders, our young people.

Even our non-Native community members and elders.

Come and visit us and come in and watch how we how we come and experience our classroom.