Nunavut's children called true Arctic Inspiration Prize winners

Pond Inlet's Pirurvik Preschool trainers will soon set off on a three-and-a-half year journey across Nunavut's three regions to introduce their award-winning, made-in-Nunavut early childhood education program.

That's thanks to the $1 million Arctic Inspiration Prize the Pirurvik team won in mid-February and an initial quarter-million pledge from the Qikiqtani Inuit Association.

As co-founder Karen Nutarak explains, Pirurvik blends Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ) and the Montessori method.

"I'm very excited. I think it's a very good learning method for children," said Nutarak, who recalled a visit to the Glebe Montessori School in Ottawa to observe its Montessori preschool.

"Children can learn at their own pace. If children learn at their own pace, they enjoy what they're doing. It looked like the way Inuit learn. Children observe and they play."

Children learning at their own pace is grounded in the Inuit societal value pilimmaksarniq – development of skills through observation, mentoring, practice, and effort – and the foundation of the Montessori method developed by Italian physician and educator Marie Montessori.

Nutarak references a TV series, wherein one episode two men are building a qamutik.

"The children observe, even though they're playing on the side. They see what's happening and later on they imitate the men."

Nutarak calls the meld of Montessori methods and materials and Inuit culture and language powerful.

Inunnguiniq, the process of making capable and contributing human beings, is also an essential element of the Pirurvik program.

Co-founder Tessa Lochhead says developing the program for daycares answers the call they heard from many childcare centres in the territory.

"Over the past few years since we opened – word of mouth travels fast – we've had people approach us about training opportunities, possibilities to support daycares in the Qikiqtani region. Family members who were connected to the preschool had family and friends in other communities beyond Qikiqtani who had heard about the program and wanted similar programming," said Lochhead.

Vow over a handshake

While the creation of Pirurvik Preschool came to be because Pond Inlet students taking Nunavut Arctic College's early childhood education (ECE) program in 2015 needed a location for their practicum, the partnership between co-founders Karen Nutarak and Tessa Lochhead began earlier, in 2013.

"Before the ECE (program), Tessa and I shook hands. We both had ideas of preschool childcare at the daycares. We shook hands that maybe one day we'll go for it," said Nutarak. "When the ECE program started, it all came together."

Support from QIA's Iligiktunut Fund has been instrumental – for the ongoing Pirurvik Preschool in Pond Inlet and the successful Clyde River pilot – as has funding from Makigiaqta Inuit Training Corporation, which approached Pirurvik Preschool to develop training modules in 2017.

The time had come to turn to the Arctic Inspiration Prize.

"We contacted each of the community daycares and talked about all the things that were required to apply, a point person, bios on each of the people involved. We reached out to 10 childcare centres that had asked about support and seven got back to us very quickly with all of the information," said Lochhead.

Pirurvik had to demonstrate how they were innovating.

"We will learn how to apply the same programming, community-specific, and apply it to infants and toddlers, three months to age two, which is a new area for us since we currently just operate as a preschool for ages three to four," said Lochhead.

"And how to make the programming all-encompassing in a half-room daycare, in small spaces, that is realistic to the context of Nunavut daycares in our communities."

Ilitaqsiniq (Nunavut Literacy Council) executive director Adriana Kusugak nominated the team, which, along with Nutarak and Lochhead are: Raymee Angnetsiak, Ilisapi Haulli, Celina Kalluk, Leah Kippomee, Samantha Koonoo, Ceporah Mearns, Denica Nahogaloak, Julian Oyukuluk, Pauline Pauloosie, Noodloo Peter, Tannikie Peterloosie, and Sandi Vincent-Connelly.

Koonoo and Kippomee have been a part of the team since the start. Koonoo trained staff in Clyde River. Over three-and-a-half years, they will be training and setting up materials at Iqaluit's Tumikuluit Saipaaqivik Daycare beginning in April, then at daycares in Arctic Bay, Iglulik, their home community of Pond Inlet, Rankin Inlet, Cambridge Bay, and Taloyoak.

Parents can rest assured there will be no increase in daycare fees, said Lochhead.

"I've been asked about this a lot because people associate Montessori with expensive daycare, as it is in the south," she said.

They're important, says trainer about children

"First they will come to Pond Inlet for training, and when they're done we'll be coming (to their community) to help set up their daycare," said Kippomee.

The two explain the Montessori set-up includes a dramatic play area, as well as materials for sensorial learning, math, language and reading, in Inuktitut and English.

"But we try and use more Inuktitut," said Kippomee, who says she loves working with children.

"Our preschool is a wonderful place for children. They enjoy coming. They enjoy learning."

Kippomee says it's also rewarding to get feedback from parents on their child's growth.

"It's for the children," said Koonoo. "They are team leaders when they are older."

Teachers at the school also provide feedback, said Kippomee, such as children seeming calmer when they come to kindergarten after attending Pirurvik.

"One feedback we got was they (school teachers) partner up a kindergarten student that's been to our preschool with a kindergarten student that's never been to the preschool. They make them work together," said Nutarak.

The children become learning buddies.

Koonoo and Kippomee say Nunavut Arctic College should offer the early childhood education course in Pond Inlet again, as well as in as many other communities as possible.

"The course really taught me how to work with children, even with our own children. We have to be patient with children and help them. They're our future. They're important," said Kippomee.

Nutarak thanked family – children, spouses, parents and friends – for their support throughout the process of developing the Pirurvik programming.

"I believe in the supporting system. When a person is supported, things happen," she said.