The project had a clear and specific immediate goal: to prioritize Sami language and traditions in this education. But those involved in the project say it was also about something much bigger\u2014challenging the legacy of colonialism in Indigenous education in Sapmi, the traditional Sami homeland in northern Europe, and help undo the decades of Sami language loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt hasn\u2019t always been easy to talk about the word \u2018decolonization\u2019 in Sapmi, even amongst Sami, because we\u2019ve all been through the Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish education systems and have been taught in those schools that the Nordic countries are completely democratic and that there\u2019s no colonization at all,\u201d Ol-Johan Sikku, the SaMOS project leader, said. \u201cBut that\u2019s changing, and now we can talk about it in a way we couldn\u2019t before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n You can\u2019t teach Sami language and culture through the Norwegian language and education system. We have to go back to how our language and culture was successfully transmitted from generation to generation for thousands of years.Ol-Johan Sikku, the SaMOS project leader<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The Sami are an Arctic Indigenous people. There is no census just for Sami but their numbers are estimated to be between 100,000 to 150,000. Their traditional homeland stretches across Arctic Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia\u2019s Kola Peninsula.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many Sami cultures including livelihoods based on the sea, hunting and reindeer herding, or combinations of all three. Traditionally, many Sami migrated east to west with the seasons in the Nordic region. The closure of national borders in the 1800s and first half of the 1900s caused hardships for many, both splitting up families into different countries as well as cutting herders off from seasonal grazing areas they were no longer allowed to travel to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Policies in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Russia also often involved the education system and church discouraging or actively suppressing Sami languages and culture and forcibly assimilating Sami children into the dominant culture, something that continues to negatively impact Sami languages and education today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are numerous Sami languages and dialects spoken across the Sami homeland but according to UNESCO, all are in danger. Their classifications range from \u201cdefinitely endangered\u201d for North Sami, the most widely spoken Sami language with most estimates averaging around 25,000 speakers; to \u201ccritically endangered\u201d for Pite Sami which is said to be extinct in Norway but is believed to still have around 30 speakers in Sweden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n SaMOS is the first project that\u2019s connected the Sami Parliament, the university, and the kindergartens together talking about this education, and that\u2019s historical for us.Mikkel Mikkelsen, an MP in the Sami Parliament in Norway<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Mikkel Mikkelsen, an MP in the Sami Parliament in Norway, says a laser-focus on early childhood education, like with the SaMOS project, is needed to help turn things around. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s a 60 per cent drop out rate in some Sami language subjects, and there\u2019s anecdotal experience that some Sami students are not full Sami speakers when they finish secondary school,\u201d Mikkelsen said. \u201cIf the numbers of students stay at the levels they are today, we expect a decline of Sami speakers by 60 per cent in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Sami language has to be taught in early childhood or chances are very slim of catching up later.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cResponsibility is an important part of bringing up Sami kids.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The SaMOS project involved both the Sami Parliament in Norway, which funded the initiative with 5-million krone a year (approximately $645,000\u202fCDN) and the Sami University of Applied Sciences, located in the Arctic Norwegian village of Kautokeino, referred to locally by its Sami name Guovdageaidnu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The project was piloted in four Norwegian kindergartens of which Altta Siida was one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The SaMOS project has awakened our thinking to be more conscious of working with the Sami pedagogy.Per Isak Vars, a pedagogical leader at Altta Siida<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Altta Siida has 47 children, six years old and younger, and 15 employees and uses North Sami as the language of instruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In March, Buljo, along with two colleagues from Altta Siida, presented their experiences with SaMOS at the Sami University of Applied Sciences along with the other three participating schools: Veajage, a kindergarten in Drag, a village in the Lule Sami area of northern Norway, Suaja Maanagierte located in Snana, a South Sami kindergarten in central Norway, and Badjemanaid Beaiveruoktu located in the Arctic community of Karasjok, 18 kilometres from the Finnish border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The three-day conference was devoted to exploring experiences with the initiative, their implications for early childhood education and how the findings may be further implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWithout this SaMOS project I don\u2019t think we\u2019d have been working the way we did and teaching the kids traditional work,\u201d Per Isak Vars, a pedagogical leader at Altta Siida told the conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe SaMOS project has awakened our thinking to be more conscious of working with the Sami pedagogy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Buljo said that putting Sami ways of instructing front and centre left a huge mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe gave them responsibility and showed them trust when we chopped wood, made fire in the lavvu and realized the kids should make the fire themselves,\u201d she said. \u201cBefore they would only be involved indirectly because we were worried about what the parents would say if the kids were playing with the fire, but now we know this kind of responsibility is an important part of bringing up Sami kids.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The vocabulary and language skills learned by doing traditional Sami activities is hard to overstate, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe even had one child that didn\u2019t speak Sami when he came, but now he\u2019s started to. It\u2019s good to see there\u2019s hope for those kids, even if they don\u2019t speak Sami in the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The guiding philosophy for SaMOS was to build it from the ground up based on Sami values and ways of thinking. This started from the beginning with everything from how the project arrangement was officialized, to how it was discussed with the kindergarten employees, to how it was implemented in the classrooms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The agreement between the Sami Parliament in Norway and the university, was signed and placed in a giis\u00e1, a traditional Sami box that holds a family\u2019s valuables, before it was archived in the computer system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes it\u2019s symbolic, but we were all aware that this project from beginning to end must be in the Sami way, and not the normal western structure and hierarchy,\u201d Sikku said. \u201cAs far as we know, this type of project has never been organized this way before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anne Ingebjorg Svineng Eriksen, a teacher in Sami pedagogics at the Sami University of Applied sciences, was one of the people who worked with the kindergarten educators on the project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Eriksen said even at the beginning stages, they realized they had to reorganize the way they were sharing information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur first SaMOS session to the kindergarten employees consisted of lectures with one Power Point presentation after another, and we quickly discovered that this form of teaching did not work very well,\u201d Eriksen said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA form of teaching based on Sami values and thinking is to provide space for self-reflection, discussions and active participation. Narratives and stories from day-to-day kindergarten were a better way to do this and are more in line with Sami values and understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Decolonization is not just a process between the state and the Sami, it\u2019s also a process we need to undertake inside us in order to decolonize our minds.Laila Susanne Vars, the rector of the Sami University of Applied Sciences<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n An important part of the SaMOS project was also getting the kindergarten workers to reach back into their own childhoods and think of how Sami language and culture had been transmitted to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re building strong education institutions, but we still have a way to go in believing in our own strong Sami pedagogical thinking in the way we teach, and in the way we were taught by our grandparents,\u201d Laila Susanne Vars, the rector of the Sami University of Applied Sciences, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe need to systemize it, do research on it, and implement it into our schools and make sure we\u2019re proud of it, so we can use that as a foundation for our dialogue with ministries and use that framework for all that we do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was very excited that my son got to be part of it.David Labba, a pedagogical leader at Altta Siida, whose four year-old son Joel Ante was part of the SaMOS project.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n David Labba, a pedagogical leader at Altta Siida, stressed the significance of SaMOS lessons in shining a light on Indigenous language and practices within a dominant culture<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s easy, even for a kindergarten like us that was already strong on Sami language and activities, to be influenced into maybe Norwegian or western ways of thinking or doing things, just because the culture is so omnipresent on TV and iPads and everywhere,\u201d Labba said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou don\u2019t even realize it until one day you sit down and realize \u2018Wait, that\u2019s not the way we should work and teach our kids here.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Labba said examples range from concrete things like prioritizing making Sami decorations for the classrooms that teach children about their culture and associated vocabulary, to more abstract things like putting less focus on the individual and instead stressing the collective and working together to solve problems whether in an activity or if a child is upset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Labba, whose son Joel Ante, 4, was in the SaMOS class, said he was thrilled with the project both as an educator and as a parent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was very excited that my son got to be part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Laila Susanne Vars highlighted SaMOS\u2019 strength in promoting individual teachers\u2019 childhood experiences, and teachings from elders and community members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Norwegian, Finnish and Swedish education systems very much influence the way we think about education, teaching and pedagogical teaching at universities,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s why decolonization is not just a process between the state and the Sami, it\u2019s also a process we need to undertake inside us in order to decolonize our minds and start rethinking our own education system to incorporate Sami values, ways of thinking and traditional knowledge in everything we do.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n SaMOS\u2019s leader Ol-Johan Sikku agrees, saying early childhood education steeped in Sami culture and language is one of the best bulwarks against assimilation, by giving children pride and teaching them to value their Indigenous heritage. He says that\u2019s part of what made working on SaMOS so meaningful to him, both professionally and personally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI grew up in a traditional family on the Swedish side of Sapmi, studied economics at Umea University and was engaged in different things like organizing the Sami parliament in Sweden and it was all really nice,\u201d Sikku said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut I felt something was wrong and realized later it\u2019s because I had high status in the Sami community, not because of my skills as a Sami, but because I had Swedish manners and a Swedish education. In my opinion, this is wrong and is not how it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the beginning of the project, the Sami parliaments in Finland and Sweden applied for EU funding to launch SaMOS in their countries simultaneously with Norway, but their applications were denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that the pilot portion of the project has wrapped up, next steps include developing ways to easily share the SaMOS findings and processes, not only across Norway, but eventually in Finland and Sweden as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Annika Pasanen, a professor of Sami sociolinguistics at the Sami university, was involved in a working group that submitted a report used in the SaMOS project on the importance of strong language models for language learning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She said efforts need to continue to standardize Sami pedagogical terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNowadays, \u201clanguage immersion\u201d can refer to basically anything in practice, from one hour a week language learning to total immersion and \u201cIn the context of language planning, it\u2019s very harmful because educators, parents, politicians etc have to understand that in language acquisition, certain methods can lead to certain results,\u201d Pasanen said. \u201cFor instance, one hour a week can lead to mostly symbolic learning of an endangered language, whereas total immersion enables effective acquisition and intergenerational language transmission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe should have common concepts of Sami early childhood education all over Sapmi. Everyone should know what \u201cSami kindergarten\u201d or \u201clanguage immersion\u201d or \u201clanguage nest\u201d means, what the role of Sami language is, which methods are used, what kind of results are to be expected and they should be understood and systematically used in all Sapmi.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Currently, there are two Sami language high schools in Norway, one in Kautokeino\/Guovdageaidnu and one 125km east in the village of Karasjok. Together, they graduate approximately 100 Sami-speaking students a year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sami education experts say there\u2019s high competition for those graduates amongst post-secondary institutions and attracting a portion of them to education careers is a challenge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA lot of young people don\u2019t want to be here because it\u2019s too small, they want to go to Tromso or Oslo for their education and it\u2019s not always possible to get them to come back,\u201d Sikku said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Vars agrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHere at the Sami university we\u2019re trying to recruit as many students as possible to the Sami teacher education because we really need them,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we often find ourselves in competition with other institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vars says that initiatives like SaMOS are important reminders of what can happen when Sami people and institutions at all levels pull together, something especially important as Norway goes through the Truth and Reconciliation process. (The final report is expected to be released in June.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n Separately run Truth and Reconciliation Commissions are also underway and at varying stages in both Sweden and Finland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s a challenge addressing Truth and Reconciliation through three separate processes because it doesn\u2019t take into consideration that we\u2019re living in four different nation states, with different legislation and policies,\u201d Vars said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She says this, among other issues, leads to disparities in Sami language and education even within small geographical areas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBecause of the border closures, you can have a family with one part living on the Swedish side of Sapmi and another part on the Norwegian side, but that one family faces different regulations and rights when it comes to education for instance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo when it comes to the importance of \u201csamifying\u201d education, and people ask if it\u2019s really worthwhile, the answer is \u2018Yes\u2019. SaMOS is a perfect example of what happens when you put together the Sami Parliament, the Sami university, the Sami kindergartens and the municipalities and have a very powerful unity and collaboration. If we could also do this when it comes to other things like hunting and fishing and other rights issues I think it would be more difficult for the state to divide and conquer us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had our share of that, but now it\u2019s time to have a strong front.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/thebarentsobserver.com\/sites\/default\/files\/resize\/lunette-bhb-1000x750.jpeg\")
\n
Sami languages in danger <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/thebarentsobserver.com\/sites\/default\/files\/resize\/img-7480-1-1-1000x750.jpeg\")
\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/thebarentsobserver.com\/sites\/default\/files\/resize\/school-1000x750.jpeg\")
\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/thebarentsobserver.com\/sites\/default\/files\/resize\/img-1959-1000x750.jpeg\")
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/thebarentsobserver.com\/sites\/default\/files\/resize\/tenteredim-1000x750.jpeg\")
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/thebarentsobserver.com\/sites\/default\/files\/resize\/img-7415-2-1000x750.jpeg\")
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/thebarentsobserver.com\/sites\/default\/files\/resize\/laila_vars-1000x750.jpeg\")
\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/thebarentsobserver.com\/sites\/default\/files\/resize\/img-7545-1-1000x750.jpeg\")
<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/thebarentsobserver.com\/sites\/default\/files\/resize\/img-1931-1-1000x750.jpeg\")
Working cross-border <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/thebarentsobserver.com\/sites\/default\/files\/resize\/img-1827-1000x750.jpeg\")
Filling the teacher shortage <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/thebarentsobserver.com\/sites\/default\/files\/resize\/img-1889-1000x750.jpeg\")
Truth and Reconciliation <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/thebarentsobserver.com\/sites\/default\/files\/resize\/img-7497-1-1000x750.jpeg\")
\n\n\n\n