Incorporating the External School Environment to Develop Language Skills with a Culturally Diverse Class

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Originally appears in the Winter 2020 issue.

By Graham Ducker

In the late sixties, the Ontario Government consolidated the small school boards. Mr. J. M. Steele, the Director for the Fort Frances-Rainy River Board of Education, was determined to ensure equal access for all children in the district. One initiative was the introduction of all-day, everyday Kindergarten classes into the rural areas which had never had Kindergarten. The two-room Morson Public School was set aside for Kindergarten and Grade One. The students came from the surrounding villages of Bergland, Minahico, and Morson, and the two First Nations Communities of Big Grassy and Big Island. The 50-50 Indigenous-to-Non-Indigenous student ratio presented a unique challenge, especially given the Director’s mandate:

• Design a comprehensive Language Development Program that reflects and responds to the cultural and social diversity within the Morson-Bergland community.
• Develop an all-inclusive flexible program that meets and adapts to the individual needs of every student.
• The progress of each student must be easily ascertained and readily available.
• The classroom atmosphere is to be relaxed, stress-free, and comfortable; the students must feel secure.
• The merging of the two cultures is to be gentle and unobtrusive.

To meet these goals, two primary pedagogical questions needed to be addressed: 1) How would one create a language program that combined the various aspects of cultural diversity? and 2) Was there a commonality that could be utilized? The approach that addressed both considerations eventually became clear: incorporating the external environment. What follows is a deep dive into the specific challenges and considerations that influenced the ultimate decision as well as a sample lesson on language development.