Aboriginal Educators Discuss Recognizing, Reclaiming and Revitalizing Their MultiCompetences in Heritage/English Language Usage to Promote Aboriginal Students Success in Formal Education.

He was 7 years old; just arrived; small, alone, afraid; standing on the gravel playground behind the residential school. He spied his cousin, “Wai (Relation)!, ” he called. His cousin’s face clouded over with fear and anger as he covered his lips with his finger. DON’T! he signalled his young relative. The window above them flew open, “English, only English is spoken here! ” a fat white face growled. He was silenced. (personal communication, E.R. Atleo, June 2008) He had his first lesson in suppression of the expressive demonstration of his competence as a developing social person, an indigenous language learner and speaker. At a neurological level, he would suppress those systems of linguistic competence that he had achieved in those first eight years. Alone, in a system of negative re-enforcement, he would learn another language which alienated him from his body, his territory, his heritage and himself. It would take him many years of self-alienation in the environment structured by English to reconnect to the embodiments of his early years and heritage before he could come home to his language and to himself. As a hereditary chief and an Aboriginal educator, it was a matter of social justice to sort these distances, reduce or eliminate them as a legacy for next generations through hi