Thank you.
It's a really good question. Thank you for asking it.
The participating first nations in the Anishinabek Nation Education Agreement are actually talking about that right now, and what student success and well-being mean to them as an education system.
Within the Anishinabek Nation, we have a preamble we open meetings with. “We are all one family” is the English translation. In Anishinabek, it's “Ngo dwe waangizig Anishinaabe”. It really encompasses that concept that we are all here in this one family together, and we all have a purpose in our family. Just as Lois said, we all have different gifts that we can give, and that's fundamental to success. It's being recognized as part of the family, and that relationship and that sense of belonging that David also talked about.
I also want to bring up the word “child”, which in Anishinaabemowin is binjoojiihns. Binoojiihnsaag is “our children”. It literally translates to “raising the spirits”. I think that's what schools really do. They have a big role in raising the spirits of our students and allowing them to flourish and realize the gifts they've been given, share them with the world and feel good about it.
David was spot-on when he talked about that sense of trauma that we've experienced, both personally and intergenerationally. If we can lift the spirits of our students so that they feel good about themselves and about their family and about where they are at this point in time with the resources they have, that to me is the start of success.