It’s a celebration of Mi’kmaq History Month and cross-cultural understanding.
About 30 students at East Antigonish Education Centre/Academy recorded their performance of the Mi’kmaq Honour Song.
Buffy MacNeil, the Monastery school’s First Nations success teacher, tells The Hawk she came up with the idea during discussions of how to celebrate Mi’kmaq history in October.
“We’re trying to promote indigenous culture and language, and I truly believe that in order for our students to learn, we have to learn from each other,” she says. “I thought this would be an excellent way to share the language, share the culture, and share respect.”
MacNeil says she enlisted the help of the school’s Mi’kmaq language specialist, Phillip Prosper, to help get the language and pronunciations right.
She says the students, mostly between grades 4-6, worked with their teacher to learn enough to sing the song.
MacNeil says the exercise was a great cultural one, but performing and recording a song was a good learning experience for the students as well.
“You have to put yourself out there to perform for people and be part of a recording,” she says. “I think that moment of vulnerability with each other- Mi’kmaq and non-Mi’kmaq- kind of brought them together.”
MacNeil says all students showed a marked improvement in confidence when they performed the song live during the school’s Remembrance Day ceremony Thursday.
