The research team currently has no hard information about the date and origins of this document, but it is with a collection of items from the early 1980s pertaining to curriculum development in the Sahtú region by Cynthia Chambers and others with the Linguistic Programs Division of the NWT. The document makes reference to NWT local education authorities and is NWT-specific.

This 7 page document seems to be a guide for local curriculum supporting teachers to build specific content to fit into the core curriculum for their classes. It recommends a close assessment of audience (e.g. age, reading level), resources, and distribution. It makes suggestions for reaching young children: such as keeping to “practical, hands-on and real experiences” until the ages of 10-12 when abstract history and cultural heritage can be related (3). Interestingly, it comments that time references like “long ago,” or “before there were white people here” will allow children to place these histories in the same category as fairy tales and myths. Conversely, situating history with respect to a child’s grandmother, or showing a picture, will help them relate more directly to the content.

Read more about the history of the inclusion of local knowledge in formal curriculum in the Northwest Territories. 

Access this Resource: 

“How to get it across: Some ideas for integrating local content in the school curriculum.” NWT Archives, Northwest Territories, n.d. Accession no. N-2007-014.

This item is not listed in the NWT archives item search, but was found by one of our researchers in the Cynthia Chambers Collection.