Learning Through Play

OFTEN FORGOTTEN but so crucial are those first years in each of our lives, when the foundation for who we will become is being built.

The Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, which administers Aboriginal Head Start programs in Paulatuk and Inuvik plus three Child Development Centres (Aklavik, Tuktoyaktuk, and Ulukhaktok), embarked on the Early Childhood Intervention Pilot Project in 2015, in partnership with the Beaufort Delta Health and Social Services Authority. Its first year focused on delivering a program by world-renowned institute Hanen Training, which was called Learning Language And Loving It. The next few years built on that training. The project involves parents during special sessions to reinforce communication and interaction development at home and in the community.

In the following pages, we talk with the head of the department, Maria Storr, and look at the staff and philosophies on childcare at the Aboriginal Head Starts and Child Development Centres in Paulatuk, Tuktoyaktuk and Inuvik.

A YOUNG boy was chewing gum in Maria Storr’s Classroom in the mid-’80s, and that was strictly against the rules. As she had learned from residential school, Maria made the boy put the gum on his nose, walk to the blackboard and hold his face against it until he learned better. Only, he didn’t seem to learn better. His behaviour just got worse from there on.

She remembers crying to her principal that her students weren’t picking it up and she couldn’t control the full room of 21 no matter what she tried.

“Those children just weren’t ready to be sitting in a desk and instructed,” she said. “I wasn’t happy and the kids weren’t happy.” It wasn’t long before she left education and turned her university credentials in a different direction, taking on an early childhood program manager role with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation. “I found it very difficult to meet the needs of the child as a teacher,” said Maria, who is now the IRC’s early childhood intervention project coordinator. “The education system has a certain criteria children need to learn. I couldn’t teach it, because the children weren’t ready. I was failing them, and I was failing myself. The children weren’t happy, and I wasn’t feeling good about it.” Residential school’s waves still ripple through all generations in the North. A generation of people was not taught how to parent, and the cultural and community ties were broken. The effects today show themselves in poor graduation rates and children not ready to enter school. Maria even admits the failing in her own parenting of her three children.

“I came from a generation where we were taken away from our homes,” she said. “There was no role modelling. There was a gap in parenting. Even my children, who are parents themselves now, lack parenting skills. We used the TV or electronics to raise children, because I had no skill or knowledge of appropriate and healthy parenting.”

But through her work for the IRC, and in the three-year early childhood intervention pilot project she just completed, Maria has discovered the importance of learning through play. She particularly credits Hanen’s Learning Language And Loving It program. Now she role models behaviour with her eight grandchildren, reading to them, getting them excited about the outdoors. “If they want to sing and dance, then we’re going to sing and dance,” said Maria. “If they want to play with Play-Doh, we’re going to play with Play-Doh. It’s whatever sparks their interest.”

The other important pillar is allowing children to speak and developing their communication skills. Maria says a child needs a vocabulary of 5,000 words to be properly prepared for kindergarten. “If they say ‘caribou,’ we say, ‘Yeah! That’s a caribou! We call it tuktu in Inuvialuktun.’ Then we talk about caribou stew, or what we can do with the caribou. I never used to do that with my kids. I didn’t help them learn or help to increase their vocabulary.” Maria helped bring the Hanen certificate to early childhood educators in the ISR. Between all of the communities, more than 30 early childhood staff have completed the program. The IRC runs early childhood programs in all communities except Sachs Harbour, which currently doesn’t have the population to justify it. Maria has seen the results of the new play-oriented approach to early childhood development first-hand, but she says the trained educators are still not replacements for parents. “Parental involvement is a big thing, because parents are the child’s first teacher. At the beginning and end of the day, it’s the parents’ responsibility to ensure their children are ready for school. The programming is there to help them.” Through her work, Maria feels she is finally doing justice to her grandchildren, after feeling that her parenting lacked when they were growing up. “Now it’s my responsibility to give them the knowledge and skills to raise their children happily and healthily,” she said. “I feel that it’s my calling almost, because I know there’s a better way to prepare our own people to be successful.”

Children are meant to be heard

WHEN IRENE Ruben began working in child development in 1999, the common saying was that children should be seen and not heard.

“It’s the complete opposite now,” she said. “You hear them and you see them. Back then, it used to be so restrictive. Now, it’s freedom. It’s children first.”

The Aboriginal Head Start in Paulatuk had 10 students this year and focuses on seven main components: education, language and culture, health, social support, nutrition, parent involvement and evaluation.

Irene has seen dozens, if not hundreds, of children come through the program since she began in the ‘90s, and now some are coming back to work with her.

Toutuk Lester, 19, is one of those returnees.

“I remember being a kid here,” she said, adding that she wants to pursue child development as a career.

“That’s a highlight for me,” said Irene. “Those children I taught are bringing their own children here now. They know it’s going to be a good place and a good foundation to prepare their children to go to the big school.”

Veronica Ruben, another staff member, saw her son go through the program, too. The staff focus on developing children through play and incorporating their Inuvialuit culture as much as possible.

On lucky days, children are treated to a visit by elder Elizabeth Kuptana, who might sing them a song in Inuvialuktun.

“The best part of the job is when they first attend and they’re quiet, and then they slowly get used to you, and it comes to a point where they’re talking more and interacting with you rather than playing on their own,” said Veronica.

The most difficult part, they all agreed, is lack of attendance in the mornings.

For the Paulatuk staff, the goal of the preschool is encouraging children to give them confidence before entering ‘the big school.’

“What I believe in for the children who I’ve worked with all these years is the word freedom, the word self-esteem,” said Irene. “We try to instil pride in our culture into their little minds and bodies. That’s my philosophy.”

Parents: relax

TWENTY YEARS ago, Jennifer Wolki got into childcare for the money. Now, it’s her passion.

“The longer I worked in the field, the more I understood that children learned in different stages,” said the program coordinator at Tuktoyaktuk’s Child Development Centre.

“I got more curious and wanted to educate myself on how I could help them learn.”

The first five years of a child’s life set the foundation for him or her, she said. Her goal is to make that foundation positive, safe and solid, as well as culturally relevant. The best approach to do this, she’s found, is in a semi-structured environment that focuses on learning through play.

“I think childcare has changed in the sense that we’re not just babysitting or watching your children – we’re providing a place to stimulate their growth and development,” she said.

“It’s not black and white anymore. There are a lot of inbetween areas that we focus on now. It’s not my way or the highway. It’s, ‘We’ll make adjustments for you and we’ll try to understand how we can help you.’ I think this team really keys in on that and they are more understanding, as opposed to how it was a couple of generations ago, when there was too much structure.”

The team she’s talking about consists of Erin Felix, Dorothy Wolki, Brenda Kimiksana and Clorise Nogasak, who run two separate programs based on ages at the Child Development Centre. All of them are from Tuktoyaktuk. Erin agreed that things have changed since she was a child coming up through the system. The introduction of junior kindergarten recently is another big change.

The Tuktoyaktuk program also brings in cultural elements such as song and dance and traditional food, which staff get the children to help prepare.

The group’s biggest advice for new parents: relax.

“Every year we encounter young families where everything has to be just right,” said Jennifer. “We tell them that if their child is coming here, you need extra clothes, because we like to get messy. They’re uptight at first, but by the end of the year, they’re like, ‘Okay, whatever.’”

Some new parents might be overly deferential to their children, she added, such as asking them if they want to go to preschool or do this or that.

“The child of course will say, ‘No, I want to stay home and watch TV.’ I’ll talk to the parent and say you’re listening to your kid when you’re the one who’s supposed to be in authority. You don’t ask your kid if they want to go to preschool. You just bring them, because you know they’re going to be in a safe place, and you encourage them that they are in safe environment.”

Taking The Skills Home

ELLYRA LENNIE was two years old when her mother, Olivia Greenland, applied to work at Inuvik’s Aboriginal Head Start.

“I thought, what better job to find out who my daughter’s going to be than this one?”

Now, Ellyra is in the program with her mom.

“It’s taught me a lot of patience,” said Olivia, who raved about the Hanen program Learning Language And Loving It.

“Before that program, I thought my daughter had a speech delay. But then I learned more techniques to help her, and she took off talking from there. I think all parents should take that program, because it helps a lot in progressing language development. It’s learning through play and how to educate them that way.”

Early childhood intervention means that issues can be dealt with in children before they become problematic later in life, said Olivia. She focuses on teaching her students selfregulation, how to calm themselves and deal with issues that come up.

“In the old ways, it wasn’t learning through play,” said Olivia. “It was, ‘You’re going to sit down and learn.’ But a threeyear-old is not going to want to sit down for more than five minutes and be taught. Learning through play makes it a lot simpler for them and us as caregivers.”

For example, if a child picks up a piece of Lego, Olivia might ask what shape it is, what colour it is and what he or she wants to make with it.

“We go off on what the child is interested in,” she said.

Olivia has seen the results in her own home with Ellyra.

“It’s totally changed the way I speak to kids,” she said. “I now observe what language level and developmental level they’re at, and I go from there.”

Building The Foundation

A GRANDMOTHER first and foremost, but an excellent caregiver at Inuvik’s Aboriginal Head Start as well, Shauna Kayotuk has also become an advocate for the benefits of Hanen’s training program.

Fostering children’s language skills can come through dramatic play or just asking them questions, she explained.

“It’s building concepts, word by word, and having them think for themselves,” she said. “If they’re feeling sad, call it sad. If they’re feeling happy, call it happy. It’s putting titles to their feelings.”

That includes expressing themselves through drawing, transferring their feelings and thoughts to paper and creative projects.

“It’s really interesting when you start allowing them to express themselves,” said Shauna. “It allows them to recognize that they’re real with real emotions and real thoughts.”

A key part is letting children play with each other so they learn to self-regulate, share, communicate and learn boundaries.

“When they’re having an argument, for example, tell them that you’re sad. Tell them what you’re feeling. ‘Well, she snatch!’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘She took it.’ So even in disagreements, there’s an opportunity for them as individuals to express to their peers that they disagree with what’s going on. We find that very empowering.”

If children can learn those skills early, hopefully it will mean they can communicate and stand up for themselves properly as they get older.

A child needs to hear a word roughly 500 times to learn it. Shauna will use a word dozens of times in different ways throughout the week to help the child pick it up. And from single words, caregivers can help the child expand to deeper thoughts.

Equally important is working on children’s fine motor skills, so the child can understand not only what’s in her head but how her body works.

Shauna loves what she does and encourages people to join the profession.