Issue link: https://takingitglobal.uberflip.com/i/1542824
R. Adeboye, C. Flewelling,V. Ogbole, E. O'Sullivan 42 Some teachers highlighted the dual benefit of increasing students' exposure to their own particular culture. For example, one teacher described how "our local community doesn't have a lot of elders and elders that know their language or different things like that…So those connections that we can build for the students to reconnect with their culture as well as their history, and maybe bring some things into the communities, too, to build those relationships, and help build their identities…and at the same time sharing the respect for the culture for all of the students." Another key theme was how Connected North allowed teachers to avoid cultural appropriation by providing opportunities for Indigenous experts to deliver cultural content. Although the teacher interview did not specifically set out to explore this issue, a few teachers' comments spoke to whether sessions that were not specifically tailored to a given student's culture could fail to achieve positive, or even have negative, impacts. In interviews, one teacher did describe a situation where a booking teacher had been unaware of certain cultural nuances in her school when selecting a session she believed reflected her students' background. However, teachers' comments overall did not suggest that this kind of cultural mismatch or misalignment was a significant practical issue for Connected North. Those who spoke to it suggested that what matters is clarity ensuring everyone understands when a session is directly connected to the local community versus when it is intended as intercultural learning, and that this distinction is communicated to students. As one teacher explained, "we did the tobacco ties and the facilitators very much emphasized: This is what I do in my culture. This is what we've done. So there was no sort of you should be doing, or anything like this." Moreover, a majority of teachers highlighted the value fostering communication across Indigenous communities and groups. That said, where locally focused content is not available, students may miss opportunities to connect with material specific to their own cultures, and there are some albeit limited signals that such gaps may exist. In addition to the minority of surveyed teachers who did not agree that sessions reflected their students' cultures and identities, the content analysis of "what teachers would like to see more of" revealed a small number of requests for increased Indigenous content overall. Within this subset, the most "…it's just been interesting to my students to learn about other Indigenous people across Turtle Island, because …I find that we are very familiar with our area and what we know. but this has really been eye opening to them in terms of… other Indigenous groups and other Indigenous teachings." -Teacher Interviewee Offering moderate evidence that Connected North sessions are interactive, 95% of surveyed teachers agreed that Connected North supports student engagement through inquiry and project-based learning, two educational approaches that have interactivity as a core tenet. "One of the largest impacts I have seen that the Connected North program has had on my kids is that it has delivered Indigenous content from Indigenous people. This alone is huge, but for my student population who is largely Indigenous, it gives them positive role models that look like them and have similar stories to them." -Teachers' survey respondent