Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too would like to speak on Education Week, and more importantly, dealing with the education curriculum that we offer to our students in the Northwest Territories. Mr. Speaker, I think it’s important that we develop a curriculum that’s meaningful to our students’ education and gives them an opportunity to learn the bright history, and more importantly, the knowledge that has been held here for thousands of years from their ancestors, regardless if its treaty rights, land claim rights, or even preservation of our language and culture.
Mr. Speaker, the Beaufort-Delta Divisional Board of Education along with its partners, the Inuvialuit and the Gwich’in, have developed language curriculum which is now presently in place in the Beaufort-Delta. It provides an opportunity for Aboriginal students in the Beaufort/Mackenzie Delta to learn the language curriculum in the classroom developed by the communities that they come from, and more importantly, by the cultural groups in the region.
Again, Mr. Speaker, I think it’s important not only to educate our students but educate ourselves as Northerners, to understand the amazing history of the Northwest Territories and understand the area of Aboriginal rights, treaty rights, old treaties, modern day treaties, but more importantly, what does it mean by way of wildlife acts, the history of the trapping industry in the Northwest Territories and looking at the overall revolution of how we’ve evolved over the last 150 years from simply having trading posts to now large communities to urban centres and large rural communities that exist. In some cases in the history of the North, some of these communities that exist today well exceed 150 years. That’s an important part of our history that we have to not only preserve and protect, but pass on to our younger generation and develop that curriculum in our schools in the Northwest Territories so that our students can also understand the history of the North and where we come from and where we’re going.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too want to add my voice to the Members and to talk about education. A couple of days ago, when I brought my young son to Mildred Hall School, my son was talking to me and saying that at the school they were learning the Dene laws. I said, oh, what kind of laws are you learning? He said, well, we’re learning about the Dene laws. I said, well, what laws do you know right now? He said, Dad, Dene law number three. I said, well, what’s number three? He said, Dene Law number three is love one another as much as possible. And I was going, oh, my God. Mildred Hall, I want to thank them for all the teachers and that, that they’re teaching about the Dene laws. That’s a law that my son is talking to me. That’s a very strong law and a very powerful law. It’s a good law to remind me. That is part of our education system today in the North here that they are teaching in our schools. How do we practice that law in today’s society? It’s very hard, very difficult. Yet our younger kids are learning this and we have to show them.
People in the North are listening to us. The Aboriginal governments are listening to us. They’re talking about us while we’re in this room talking about them. Something that we need to look at in our education field is that we come a long way from off the land into the world of computers. We really have to thank our teachers, our parents, the elders and the teachers today for helping us.
I also want to thank colleagues like us here, that day in day out have to be conscious of what we’re leading our people to.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
