Reggie Cadotte Exemplar FINAL CUT 9-18-18 Transcript

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- My name is Reggie Cadotte from the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe nation in northern Wisconsin, and I'm currently living and teaching in the Red Cliff nation and the Bayfield School District.

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Our population-- Our student population here is about 85% Native Americans from the Red Cliff reservation which is only a few miles north of us here. And the teachers here do their best to provide those students with language and culture opportunities.

- What was number 20?

- Student: Niishtana.

- All: Niishtana. Niishtana.

- It's not just one person that's in charge or responsible for teaching language and culture to all these children. So, we work as a community. The teachers all work as a community because they know how important it is to bring that culture and that language to these students here.

- Are you aware of another term that would be the term for the sugar bush?

- Do you remember which word it is?

- I don't.

- Iskigamizigan.

- [tries to repeat Ojibwe word]

- [Reggie Cadotte repeats word]

- [inaudible Ojibwe word] iskigamizigan.

- When you don't know something that well, it's okay to ask for help. If you go to the Wisconsin First Nations website that talks about Wisconsin Act 31 you're going to find all kinds of links to videos, resources, as well as phone numbers, and other people you can talk to that know quite a bit about this stuff. And they can help you. They want to help you. That's one of the greatest things about American Indian Studies is that a lot of the knowledge came from table time talks and so when these people come from the community into our school district the teachers sense that the students pay attention more, listen more, and potentially even learn more than if we were to teach them out of a book. Everywhere in the state you go, you can find people in the community who know something about that land. Ask them to come into the classroom and ask them to share their history and their experience with the children because oftentimes the kids listen better when it's somebody other than their regular teacher.

- When we think about deer, all we're thinking about is that animal, right? That animal in Ojibwe, waawaashkeshi. 

- You know, as teachers, we can't be shy because we teach these kids here so we need to ask those questions of who can help us in the community because we have this website Wisconsin First Nations, we have people listed on there who are willing to help. We might know people from traveling around powwow to powwow who can help you in your particular area. 

So, if you're a brand new educator trying to teach Native American Studies, American Indian Studies, I encourage you to look at what has been done in the past. I encourage you to look at the current events, what's happening now. Contact those tribal members. 

Look at their websites. Every tribe in the state has a website. They all have current events. Take a look at what's important to those tribal members for the 11 federally-recognized tribal nations in the state of Wisconsin and the one un-federally recognized tribal nation. 

It's important for those people to know who they are, but it's also important for everybody that lives in the state of Wisconsin to know the history of what happened here in Wisconsin, why it happened, and how it was corrected. It's important to remember our history so we don't do those things again in the future. It's important to come together as a community, whether it's tribal nations coming together, tribal nations and non-tribal nations, or every member of the state of Wisconsin. It's important that we band together and take care of our home. 

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