Through the film Another Word for Learning, local director Jadis M. Dumas highlights the ways in which systemic racism in Canada continues to fail Indigenous youth through one girl’s journey with non traditional education.   

The self-taught filmmaker originally set out to be the star of the show, before meeting Aisha, her co-worker Gunargie’s 11-year-old daughter, who decided to pull out of elementary school. 

While showcasing the struggle of one Indigenous family, the film also highlights how the foster care system, mental health issues and colonization continue to harm today’s Indigenous communities. 

In light of the film’s screening at the 2020 DOXA Film Festival, held online for the first time due to COVID-19, SAD talked with Dumas about making Another Word for Learning. 

SAD: You tackle so much in the documentary—from decolonization to systemic racism, drug addictions and issues in foster care— and I was wondering if those themes evolved naturally or intentionally? 

Jadis M. Dumas: It was intentional and also very very organic, I had so many feelings about where and what to include because it is such a broad question, not just with education but the socioeconomic context. Myself being a settler, I was like “What is my role and my place being the person to share these stories?” So that was an ongoing conversation that I was having with Aisha and Gunargie. Also, specifically in Vancouver and in the context of the place like the downtown Eastside—which is notorious for drug addiction, extreme poverty and racism and just being a very much a scapegoat for a lot of the problems of so called Canada— it’s really important to make sure that the whole community that I was filming was really able to define what was most important and valuable to share. 

SAD: How do you think that Canada can do better in terms of learning? 

JD: I love this question and also so challenging because there’s never just one way of looking at it and I love being able to think about the journey of the film to the present moment. Thinking about how I would have answered this even before COVID and even today and it looks very different. One thing I remember at a critical point in the film making process on the very long journey of the film, was the national Truth and Reconciliation National (TRC) event happening in Vancouver. There was a lot happening politically in education reform in First Nations communities, and the same question kept coming up of “What about sovereignty?” “What about self governance?” You can’t tackle educational questions until you are able to rightfully receive the land back to the Indigenous people so we're seeing, I’d say a lot more attention being brought to these questions. When we think about the uprising in the Wet’su’weten and Mi’kmaw and so forth out east, there are so many communities that are doing so much to show that we can’t ignore what’s going on, enough is enough. How this connects to education is intrinsic. So many people need to be able to access that land to learn, and the thing that I hear from people in various First Nations communities is that we have to be able to get back to our elders and back to our families to have that knowledge that comes with the land. So there’s obviously a lot of things the government is going to try to do to be able to bring these issues forward in a respectful way in the public school system. But that’s not the answer, that’s just one part of the puzzle that we all need to start 

educating ourselves about. So it might look like un-schooling for a lot of kids, like Aisha, to just straight up leave the public schooling context to be able to seek out an educational journey that they pick and choose for themselves from the different resources out there. But that’s the problem too, where do these kids go to find these resources that can connect them to their culture? It’s not enough to just be throwing money at it. It has to be a full deconstruction of the public school system.

SAD: What do you hope the viewer takes away after watching Another Word for Learning ? 

JMD: I think there’s so much that we can get just by virtue of hearing this powerful 11-year-old girl making choices for herself which so many young people are doing right now. So what I’m hoping is that we start looking more seriously towards youth and giving them the support that they need. That we can see that actually the youth aren’t just the future of tomorrow, they’re the future of the now. These are the people who are shaping our society and we need to elevate them. So I really hope that people don’t just see this film about a particular Indigenous family, although Gunargie and Aisha and her family are amazing and outstanding human beings. 

One thing that comes out in the film is just the alarmingly high rate of apprehension in Canada and especially in B.C. The child's apprehension has to end. We can’t be having another wave of what happened with the residential schools in the 60’s scoop, and that is what is being called the millennial scoop. So I really hope people are able to question themselves and see how in their own communities and schools how they can support kids, Indigenous and otherwise. 

SAD:  What role do you think the arts have in this time, in social justice ? 

JMD: I am definitely someone who believes that art and the political are inherently near each other, you can’t make art and not be political about it. The way that it not only gives voices to people, but facilitates self exploring and being able to challenge our own ways of how we use language. Reviving Indigenous languages is an art in itself. It's just so magical how different, artists, musicians, writers, painters— a lot of Indigenous artists are doing the work and reviving language and reviving culture through these mediums. Gunargie does some incredible events in Vancouver that are all about bringing together 

Indigenous artists, such as the ​Red Jam Slam society, and Aisha herself is someone who needs art to be able to further her own freedom and explorations. I really think that no matter how you see yourself, whether you call yourself an artist or not, having access to creative tools is invaluable. I’m really excited and inspired to see what artists, especially Indigenous and BIPOC are doing right now to not only be exposing political issues but further building on that community of true creativity. 

SAD: Any final thoughts?

JMD: I’m very interested and excited to see where the conversation on education and alternatives to the regular public schooling are going to be going in all of this intensity of COVID-19 times. With a lot of school  going on online, different pods of kids and families are suddenly developing a new relationship to learning with their kids. I think it's a very interesting opportunity to also really challenge the way we’ve been thinking about schooling and learning.

You can watch Another Word for Learning through DOXA’s online programming until June 26, as well as through ​Cinema Politica.