Minnesota is the home of the Dakota and Ojibwe people. We thank them for welcoming our ancestors and their generations to their land. Many of us call their homeland our home. Over the last 30 years, for instance, an estimated 500,000 voluntary and involuntary immigrants from at least 25 countries have made Minnesota their home. Our children all meet in the schools. 

​

In the schools, students with cultural connections to their homeland bring rich cultural and linguistic heritages into the classrooms. Schools have also been the place where students’ languages and cultures have been erased. If this fracture from home(land) has disconnected students from a primary source of strength, wisdom, and enlightenment, then the question becomes, how do we sustain and revitalize the funds of knowledge our future stewards of the land bring with them in Minnesota classrooms?

​

At Language Attitude we are committed to solving the problem of language and culture loss. In this caucus on CSRP, we explore solutions to enhance classroom instructions. 

​

We have called this gathering to artistically engage and interact with you about our work. For your experience, we will deliver performance-based workshops about our pedagogical approaches. You will experience the sensations and benefits of sustaining and revitalizing students’ cultures and languages. Our workshop designs are specifically informed by our Cultural Identity Basket project with Minneapolis Public Schools teachers of less commonly taught languages (Arabic and Chinese) and Spanish. This completed research project was funded by the Minnesota Humanities Center under the Legacy Cultural Identity Grants. 

This performance-based conference is funded by the Metropolitan Regional Art Council’s Flexible Support Grant.