Kicking off this season's Island Lecture Series on Tuesday, September 19, are two guests who are NOT talking about islands, but rather something that resonates with islands and islanders from the North: Sami culture from Lapland.  

Pigga Keskitalo will present “Sami Educational Viewpoints From the Past and Present.”  In this presentation, Keskitalo will review Sámi education history and current practices. Currently, there is a need for innovative solutions so that everyone can reach education in their Indigenous languages. Endangered Sami languages have developed distance education since the 1990s so that children and language learners – despite their location – can learn Sami languages. In Finland, there is a Sami language distance education project. The Academy of Finland-funded research project, ADVOST, concentrated on developing this distance education in a small children’s context. The research project also implemented land-based education, storytelling, and playful learning into distance education. Keskitalo will present this project and core results in addition to the new research project LINCOSY (funded by the Finnish Research Council, former Academy of Finland), which concentrates on Sami language teaching in the Nordic level.

Laila Nutti will present her PhD project about the pedagogical use of yoik with the title: “The Use of Yoik, Traditional Sami Singing, in Education”

Pigga Keskitalo and Laila Nutti are on Prince Edward Island as part of the ConnectED Scholar Exchange, which aims to create connections between early-career scholars and researchers across the Arctic. Hosted by Dr. Kathy Snow (Education), David Varis (Education/IKERAS), and Dr. Laurie Brinklow (Island Studies), our guests will meet with graduate students and educators across the Island from September 18-21, 2023.

Find more information at https://islandstudies.com/events/upcoming-events/