What's to Be Done With the Fox? Inuit Teachers Inventing Musical Games for Inuit Classrooms

Abstract

This paper explores the issue of culturally responsive music curriculum content in the context of a music course that I taught on three occasions for Nunavut Arctic College's Teacher Education Program (NTEP). The 19 Inuit students who attended the course were working toward achieving certification for teaching in Nunavut schools. One of the assignments asked the student teachers to invent and peer teach a musical activity that adapted some of the concepts, materials, and skills I brought to the course to something traditional to Inuit culture. Three questions emerged from this assignment: What themes would their musical activities address? What values and traditions would be embedded in these themes? How would these themes relate to the themes expressed in the wider culture—in Inuit‐produced carvings, printmaking, weaving, legends, and poetry? A thematic analysis of the student‐designed activities revealed a connection to the “land” in ways that we do not see in Eurocentric music curricula, and the chosen themes were consistent with those that are present in other Inuit cultural products. One student's assignment is presented as an example of a musical activity that positions the Inuit relationship with the land at the core of the activity, while drawing on ideas from both Inuit and qallunaat (non‐Inuit) traditions. I conclude that Inuit‐created musical activities that are derived from Inuit experience have a role to play in decolonizing the curriculum for Inuit students.