In today's zeitgeist, diversity typically has one meaning: the mixture of people from different races and backgrounds. However, diversity is an important and much less limited concept that has driven the human race from the beginning.

Without genetic diversity, humans would never have demonstrated their amazing ability to develop new body features and physical details, or the ingenuity that enabled them to live and adapt toEarth's different environments over tens of thousands of years.

Diversity is not just built into who we are, it is also built into what we do. To honour diversity properly and to leverage it for all it can teach us and do for us, is a crowning achievement of humanity. If we want to continue to amaze ourselves in years and centuries to come, we must continue to embrace diversity by helping each learner in our schools develop their own unique abilities.

For that reason, we ensure that every person who wants to teach in FNSB schools has a fundamental understanding of the importance of diversity. Our whole-child approach to learning includes land and language as well as literacy, numeracy, early learning, and high school, for an approach to education that reflects our community’s unique needs.

Putting Yukon First Nations Learners First

To teach in FNSB classrooms, it is critical that people have a respect for the local culture, language, and community. We work to ensure that these are all reflected in our learning spaces, whether inside a classroom or outside on a trail.

While we have learners from many different backgrounds in our school communities, we make a great effort to honour our local Yukon First Nations culture and language. These schools are operating on these Traditional Territories, bestowing both a privilege and unique responsibility to explore, understand, and share culture and language that exists nowhere else in the world. These local cultures are the guiding lights in our pedagogical approach. We do this through signage, art, and stories, all of which students can see and hear in a way that reflects their own home life and cultural roots.

As a final pillar of community, we make sure that our outdoor spaces are also integral to each school community in a way that is relevant and meaningful for its learners. As educators, we understand that our children learn through their bodies more than adults do, and honouring this is another way we embrace diversity.

Uniting Curriculum and Culture

Too often, curriculum and culture exist in separate spheres. The unspoken assumption is that culture will happen after hours, perhaps in extracurricular groups, spiritual settings, or family homes. On the other hand, curriculum is what will happen in the classroom: numbers, letters, and social studies that may or may not have a cultural connection.

When we divide these two prongs of childhood education, however, we make our learners choose between them. They may get different messaging at different times, which is confusing. It forces them to reassess or disconnect from their own roots in ways they should not have to.

That's why the First Nation School Board is guided by local Yukon First Nations community members, whose role it is to support school teams in building and maintaining the most diverse and authentic possible relationships with the communities around them. In this way, we no longer need to choose between culture and curriculum.

We ask everyone who wants to teach in FNSB schools to understand this, and to work as a collaborative partner to be accountable to these ideals.

Building an Educational Experience on Yukon First Nations Values

We work to fully integrate the educational experience in our schools with Yukon First Nations values. We do this in several ways:

• Community Communities: Appointed by local First Nations leaders, these groups help ensure authentic relationship between the school and the local nation, and guide the operations of the school including the development of local curricula and hiring of educators.

• Local Relationships: We ensure to braid the wisdom of Elders and Knowledge Keepers, as well as the voices of youth into everything we do. We work with our families and community partners to build respectful relationships based on trust – relationships that honor the diversity of every learner and every home.

• Differentiation: it is not just cultural diversity that requires our attention. We must also pay attention to the learning diversity in our classrooms. Differentiating instruction to take account of an individual's innate strengths, areas of higher need, learning style, and choices is paramount.

Understanding this helps all those who teach in Yukon classrooms to do so more effectively, in a way that honours each child. In doing so, we not only see statistically higher literacy and numeracy scores, but proud and engaged learners who are more deeply rooted in their communities and culture.

Why Teach in FNSB Schools?

Are you curious about the different approaches represented by FNSB schools? Do you want to build local relationships with people of diverse backgrounds? Are you skilled at differentiating instruction, not only to meet different educational needs, but also different cultural ones?

Then you may wish to teach in anFNSB school. Our goal is to embrace diversity at every level, both within and outside the school, one learner and one educator at a time. If that sounds like you, then we invite you to join a FNSB school and become a member of our staff today!