Mtek (tree). Mémégé (butterfly). Pnéshi (bird).
Children with Citizen Potawatomi Nation’s Childcare Program learn these and other words in the classroom, and now also with the help of interactive stations placed at several locations in their buildings.
One way Interdepartmental Potawatomi Language Lead Robert Collins has been partnering with teachers to bring language to children is through a community-driven platform that hosts a variety of lessons, songs, books and games.
“Bébamodéjek (the ones that crawl). Ni je tso yawek? How many are there?” Collins asked as a language lesson about dinosaurs played for Pre-K students. The students counted to three in Potawatomi before moving on to a new slide, where they counted five dinosaurs.
Collins and the teachers use the platform to offer ways to immerse the children in the Potawatomi language.
Recently, he also added interactive stations in the Child Development Center and at the West Daycare.
He said he was first given the idea while attending the Association of Tribal Libraries and Museums (ATALM) international conference.
“A member of the Penobscot Nation was telling us about how they positioned audio buttons near objects to help their kids learn the language,” he said.
Bringing that concept back to CPN, Collins tested it by installing 18 audio buttons at the West Child Development Center and 17 at the East Child Development Center, including four handheld devices with images fixed directly to them.
Each audio button has Collins’s voice recorded with a Potawatomi word and a corresponding picture displayed nearby.
“They love them,” Collins said, adding that the kids get excited when they recognize his voice. “They’ll say, ‘It’s you, Mr. Robert!’”
Children from toddlers up to the age of 5 are able to interact with the stations, and sometimes their parents do as well during pickup times.
“It just throws the language to them in a different way,” Collins said. “The teachers are learning. The students are learning. We’re all learning. Because you can’t do it alone. You have to have community participating in it. We need our language in our surroundings.”
Right now, most of the buttons sound out the words for animals, except at the nursing station, which says mshkekiwnenikwé (female nurse/female doctor). Going forward, Collins plans to add learning stations to areas suited for physical, creative and sensory play, such as the playground, kitchen, transportation, doll house and more.
It’s one more tool Collins has found to bring the language to the children, something he said he wishes had been available to him at a young age.
“When I was growing up, we never had anything like this,” he said. “It’s a dream I didn’t know I had. Watching them engage with the language, instead of simply being talked at, is incredible. This is a huge step forward for us and for them.”