Mi'gmaw Education Standards Living Standards
The Listuguj Education Directorates (LED) manages and delivers educational programs and services primarily to Mi’gmaq learners. Ms’t No’gmaq (All My Relations) is an important principle that guides education.
Ms’t No’gmaq speaks of creation and our connections with one another, land,
and Mi’gmaq knowledge. LED’s vision statement informs this work:
The Mi’gmaw Education Standards support the well-being and success of Mi’gmaq learners along a holistic and lifelong learning pathway. 2 LED Governance facilitated, co-created, and drafted the Mi’gmaq Education Standards with learners, educators, parents/guardians, and staff (Appendix A). The Mi’gmaw Education Standards are intended for all LED programs and services. The purpose of having Mi’gmaw Education Standards (principles we uphold and are guided by) is to ensure that education programs and services are culturally relevant and meet the needs of Mi’gmaq learners. The Mi’gmaw Education Standards are intended to help guide the rebuilding and vitalizing of Listuguj’s educational system in a manner that recognizes, supports, and rebuilds Mi’gmaw knowledges, ways of being, knowing and doing.
The Standards were approved by the Listuguj Mi’gmaq Development Council on April 29, 2022. LED’s Education Governance presented the Education Standards to the Listuguj Chief and Council at a “Lunch and Learn” on June 6, 2022.
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The Education Standards are framed by the Mi’gmaq Creation Story ‘MESTIGISTAQANMINU’. The Creation Story is used to help ground this work in Mi’gmaw ways of being and knowing.
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The standards include an Educators’ Mantra. The Mantra is intended to encourage lifelong learning where teachers: Facilitate, Accommodate, Collaborate, Communicate, and Motivate.
The Mi’gmaw Education Standards project was conceptualized and implemented by LETE staff Tammy Barnaby, M.Ed. (Associate Director) and Amy Chamberlin, Ph.D. (Governance Policy Associate).
There is a need for Mi’gmaw Education Standards to ensure that education is rooted in Mi’gmaq ways of being and knowing: worldviews, values, knowledge, and language. This work sheds light on the ongoing impacts of colonial history and schooling. Indian Residential and Day Schools were used to assimilate and eliminate Indigenous peoples and knowledge.3 The Mi’gmaw Education Standards project supports the broader work of reclaiming and rebuilding education for Mi’gmaq learners of Listuguj. Mi’gmaq of Listuguj (Gespe’gewa’gi) have inherent and Treaty Rights over their knowledge systems, Mi’gmaw language, ways of being, knowing, building, and sharing knowledge.4
As one LED staff observed, the Mi’gmaw Education Standards
“honour” Mi’gmaw ways of living and being:
We need to honour the things passed down through the generations and use those as a base for where we need to go. You cannot build on colonial ways. We were forced into those systems and have not thrived; we have survived. There needs to be acknowledgement. And we need to ask: What is important to us, to our children? What has made us strong? We need to go from where we are, from our worldview, from Mi’gma’gi, and what that means for us as Mi’gmaq.
The Mi’gmaw Education Standards are living: the standards will continue to change and evolve as part of living Mi’gmaw ways of knowing, being, building and sharing knowledge.
The Creation Story, “Mestigisitaqanminu”, frames the Mi’gmaw Education Standards. Starting with the Creation Story is one way to center and honour Mi’gmaq Worldviews, values, protocols, language, ways of being and knowing. Sharing and building understandings about Mi’gmaq ways of being and knowing through practices, ceremonies, oral stories, and living practices was, and continues to be, valued within and amongst Mi’gmaq families, communities, and throughout Mi’gma’gi.
