In an article written for CBC news, reporter Ntawnis Piapot discusses how one school is using hip-hop as a means to encourage and support Indigenous cultural identity in the classroom. Zoey Roy, a spoken word poet and community educator, visits the middle school students at Saskatoon’s St. Frances Cree Bilingual School and shows them how to put words and lyrics to a backbeat. These students then perform their hip-hop creations to the class.
“What I notice about Indigenous young people is that they want to talk about, they want to write about their identity. They want to tell stories of who they are as children, who they are as people and what’s familiar to them,” says Roy.
According to the article, hip-hop has become a way teachers can reach their students who may come from challenging backgrounds. Local teacher Martine Bear states, “I see a lot of poverty, a lot of them come from broken homes, of course. Alcohol, drugs is a big issue — not only in the city, but reserves, too. That’s just a barrier that we as teachers have to make a bridge with.” In order to reach these students and share the importance of their Indigenous culture, Bear says “she has to go the extra mile to help her students,” often letting them know she cares and reassuring her students that she is a trustworthy figure. Hip-hop also helps the students share their personal stories and celebrate their Indigenous heritage in an interactive way.
“Hip hop comes from a place of oppression and that’s something that we as Indigenous people understand. The challenges we face within our own selves, within our families, within our communities and within Canada: those are deep rooted and complex,” says Roy, a Dene, Cree and Métis woman from the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation, “There has to be a source of joy unapologetically that we’re able to celebrate ourselves … I do see it as a place for us to be genuine in our own storytelling practices.”
Please find the original article here.
-Melissa Hoppie, Graduate Research Assistant
