Dear New Teachers,
Are you feeling the culture shock yet? Or is your honeymoon phase still lingering?
Regardless, you should understand that this place, whether you’re in the smallest community or the largest, is absolutely one of the most unique and special places in Canada. This place an Inuit homeland. This is the place where our language and our customs prevail; this is the place where you are an outsider. Where you will have to work to gain the respect of your students and the community.
Nothing is going to come easy for you; and I’m telling you this not because I want you to give up or to discourage you. I’m telling you because no one else will, and the simple fact of that is what will discourage you the most. Many have come before you, and many will come after you and that, whether you like it or not is what defines you. You’re just another Qallunaaq in transit. You’re here for the experience, you’re here to take pictures and to have grand stories to tell your friends and family back home. This may not be your motive, but we know that that’s what you’ll end up doing, because in the end, that’s what they all end up doing. People don’t see consistency in you, they cant see a future where you’ll be present; and that makes it hard for people to want to get close to you. It makes it hard for your students to have any respect for you.
Some of you have probably seen this in your classrooms already, but if you haven’t, you’ll know soon enough. I’m sure you have trouble getting your students to behave, to sit still, to listen or to do what you ask. I’m asking you, as a former student of the KSB system to have patience; to be compassionate; to try to understand. Some of your students do not come from the most stable homes, some of your students have families that would rather be on the land, some have very supportive parents and some are in foster care. Regardless, all of them have one thing in common and that’s the knowledge and deep understanding that you’re probably not going to stick around.
I know some of you come up north with this messiah complex and you’ve come to help the Inuit, to educate the next generation and to have been part that movement, but let me tell you now that if this is your motive, you will burn out. Some of you come because it’s the only job you could get, especially right out of school. (Sorry to seem harsh, but that’s true. Let’s be real here) I know because I see the teachers getting younger and younger each year. When I was 16, my secondary 4 teacher was 21 years old; as old as I am now and I am young. He was more of a friend to me than a teacher, but I still managed to learn a lot from him; and then he left, and I never heard from him again. That’s heartbreaking for students and it really does make it harder for them to open up to you. I keep going back to that, but you should really understand that this is one of the major barriers to your success as a teacher, and it’s one of the major barriers to the success of your students.
You’ve probably heard before the state that Education in Nunavik is in. You probably know that we have one of the highest dropout rates in Canada. I’m not writing this to blame teachers exclusively; these circumstances are just a consequence of our history, which is incredibly complex, especially regarding education. But no matter what, the role you play is absolutely vital to our communities and our future. I’m asking you to not take that lightly. You are educating the next generation of doctors, lawyers, politicians and artists, the next generation of hunters, seamstresses, mothers and fathers.
Parents are everything in the education of their children. If they do not have a good impression of education, as many parents and grandparents in Nunavik do, the future of education is pretty bleak. You have to work to give your students, and their parents a good, solid opinion of education. It’s a huge job, but as a teacher, it’s one of your responsibilities.
Let’s go back to that little friend of yours, the filter that you face, one that has defeated many of your predecessors: culture shock (dun dun dunnnnn). I know you had that presentation at your orientation, but still too many of you still succumb to this inevitable force. I’m not entirely sure what it is you’re told.. but the simple fact is that many of you will not have the tools to deal with it properly. One of the major aspects of that is cross-cultural communication (or miscommunication). You are coming from a place where values, concepts and ideas of education, communication, priorities and worldview are vastly different from those of Nunavik. Your students live by our rules of social interaction, and you live by yours. If you’re brave enough to step out of our comfort zone and step into our social norms, I promise you that life will get easier, your job will get easier, you will gain respect and hopefully succeed up here; because the values you have in education very often clash with ours. You expect competition, and quick responses, when Inuit kids are taught to listen and watch and truly understand before they answer a question or attempt a task. A lot of the time in Inuit culture, asking questions is not acceptable, you watch and you watch and you watch ‘til you know. The way in which people interact is different in Inuit culture; people call out what they see, people are blunt and people make jokes. You will be the target of people’s jokes, but don’t take that personally at all. It’s just the way it is, I promise you that life will be much easier and more fun if you can just go along with it. Another things that’s worlds apart from the southern way of being is the concept of personal space. People will touch you, your students will touch you. You are most certainly allowed to have your boundaries, but clearly state them to people because they wont know, and try not to be startled or react abruptly when someone does make physical contact. Just say nicely that you’re not comfortable with it because that’s not the way it is where you come from; but also you should understand that shaking hands is a very important aspect of Inuit culture, it’s a welcoming gesture and everyone, from the smallest child to the oldest elder does it. So when you meet new people, shake their hands, even if they’re small children or even babies.
Anyway, I just felt the need to communicate this to you. I hope you understand and let this help you in your journey and profession. Thank you for taking on this job, thank you for taking the responsibility of educating our students and feel free to contact me if you have any questions or you just want to talk to someone. Your worst enemy up here is yourself, you can sink into yourself and grind gears and do your work to get it over with, or you can put yourself out there, make friends, visit people, try the food, imitate the language and just have fun. Life in Nunavik is fun, people are fun so go out and have FUN! Try as much as you can to not isolate yourself from the community, try to make friends with local people and most of all, avoid cliques where you only interact with other qallunaat, because as I’ve seen many times before, it’s a recipe for failure and disaster. It’s what people expect you to do, and once you meet that expectation, you will lose a lot of respect from the people. Remember that this is Inuit territory and you are a visitor.
Sincerely,
Janice Grey
janice17grey@hotmail.com
