LV Rogers has been a buzz of activity and nerves as students rally to finish their courses for this semester. Walking down the hallways you can see students giving presentations, studying for tests with cue cards in the cafeteria and giving each other high fives when the test is over. Within all that, there have been some magical moments of Indigenous learning. 

The BC First Peoples Socials 12 class just finished their Indigenous Excellence project where they feature one outstanding Indigenous person in any field of their interest. Students featured musicians, artists, politicians and change-makers. This project really highlights the incredible things going on to change the narrative of Indigenous stereotypes. It also gives Indigenous students excellent role models and the knowledge that Indigenous people are beginning to take space in what was once a very white-centric world of media. 

Students were exposed to Indigenous Tik-Tok in foods class, Indigenous star stories in science, and the Desautel case in Law class. Students are learning about the true history of the Land we call Nelson, and they are learning from Ktunaxa and Sinixt community. You can hear both Ktunaxa and n̓səl̓xčin̓ from students and teachers in the hallway and classroom, and our guests from these Nations also hear their language when they are greeted by our students. One of the English First Peoples class did a final project in n̓səl̓xčin̓, where they had to complete a fairly lengthy dialogue. They rose to the occasion and said that language learning was one of the most impactful parts of their course. 

It is through sustained effort that we change school culture, and you can feel the change at LVR.