Learning as an offering

ARLEE — Nearing the end of its seventh year, the Nkwusm Salish Language Immersion School, started and run in Arlee, is making strides in bringing back identity by bringing back language.

It will graduate its first class of four this year, although not students who started from the beginning, and has for the first time a fully-staffed curriculum department working on developing a nonexistent set of lesson plans that will aim to instill the Salish values so attached to the language.

Last week, in one of the school’s newly remodeled classrooms, Salish language specialist Pat Pierre was teaching his class the story of spring. The short poem was written entirely in Salish, where “one” word can be many.

“Our language is very precise,” Pierre said.

It was in the late 1930s that the Salish language really started disappearing from the people, Pierre said. The schools didn’t allow it, and in the 1940s, much of it had been reduced to slang. As it faded out, the people’s identity did too.

The language was not lost entirely because people like Pierre were too stubborn to let it go. Pierre’s parents and grandmother taught him the exact facets of the language, no slang, and that’s what he teaches his students.

“We go back to pronunciation of our language,” Pierre said. “We become perfectly fluent speakers.”

The wisdom Pierre sees in the language is an essential guide to the students, as they relate to their heritage. It’s also another foundation the school is based on.

“We started the school because we believe that children that are grounded in their roots are more resilient and they’ll have more self esteem and more identity, which are things that prevent poor choices in early adulthood, that goes right along with learning the language,” Nkwusm executive director and founding member Tachini Pete said.

Enrollment is open to anyone, Pete said, and has seen an increase of five to seven students per year. Tuition is charged, but the school is also partially funded by grants and donations.

Pierre’s poem about spring included words like mole and falcon, so on the next day’s trip to the Raptors of the Rockies rehabilitation center, the students can share some Salish they’ve learned.

Above Pierre is the Salish alphabet of 39 letters.

Many of Pierre’s students started with the school. The 32 students divide their day between classes like math, gym and Salish. On Friday’s there’s chocolate milk, something to look forward to, and an assembly that brings the school together to share in Salish what’s been learned that week.

The staff of 20 is split between certified teachers, staff and five fluent speakers, like Pierre. One of 50 fluent speakers left in the reservation, Pierre’s expertise is a precious.

“Our fluent speakers here are a core component of what we do, Without them we really couldn’t have our school,” Pete said.

An adult immersion program is offered through Nkwusm, but the school’s biggest need right now is the staff development.

“We need to bridge that gap between our teachers and our fluent speakers,” Pete said.

The students who began at the school seven years ago will graduate in three years. Pete is hoping they’ll have a immersion high school facility to go to.

In the next several weeks, Pierre will take his students to the mountains. He’ll show the students the purpose of everything on the earth, from the trees to their needles. This is the unwritten law woven into the language: See the purpose of everything on Mother Earth. If you take from earth, you must offer something in return.

His offering, what’ll he’ll leave behind, the gift of this understanding through the Salish language to the students of Nkwusm.