The last person to speak the oneida language in Lisa Doxtator's family was her father.
Today in Kingston, many miles from the Oneida Nation of the Thames near London where her family originates, Doxtator's three children are learning her ancestral tongue via the Internet.
Each school day at 11 a. m., Dakota, 13, Elias, 11, and Shaylyn, 10, go to the resource centre at Rideau Heights Public School, where they take their lesson online from teacher Norma Jamieson of the Thames Valley school board in London.
Their father, Mark George, is proud of their progress. "It's great because they come home and Elias says his name, hello and how are you in Oneida."
School boards across Ontario have started implementing the Education Ministry's new policy for First Nations, Metis and Inuit education. The primary goal is to raise high school graduation rates among children of aboriginal origins and to encourage self-identification in order to qualify for additional support in boosting numeracy and literacy skills.
But the improvements will be gradual and hard-won. According to last year's Campaign 2000 report card on child and family poverty, one in every eight children in Ontario lives in poverty. The rate is estimated to be at least twice that for aboriginal children living in urban areas.
If the Georges huddle together in front of the webcam, their instructor can see all three of them. Still, siblings being what they are, Dakota pokes mischievously at Elias's neck with a pencil. Elias, a middle child, barely notices.
After the lesson, Shaylyn said some of her friends think it's "cool" that they're studying Oneida instead of French. Some would like to join them in the online class.
The three began studying Oneida in preschool when they lived on the reserve. But in 2004, the family moved to Kingston for work and so that the children could get a better overall education.
"It's tough with a community with a high rate of abuse, violence, drugs and alcohol. There's a lot of apathy in the [Oneida] community. We have a lot of poverty; about a 90% poverty rate," said Doxtator.
The Oneida reserve has few paved roads and no grocery store or bank. In 2000, she said, only two out of 50 Grade 12 students managed to graduate from high school.
"I never thought of what I am as being a benefit. There are positive things about the Oneida community. It's hard if you want something more," she said.
Doxtator didn't grow up in the Oneida community, which helps explain her own escape from poverty leading to a master's degree in social work.
But it also created a conflicted life. Her father was a Nazarene Church minister in London who she described as "totally colonized."
"He rejected anything to do with his culture," said Doxtator. "But that was my identity, the stuff my dad was putting down. My mother was colonized, too. It means being influenced by the dominant culture -and totally abandoning our way of life."
Living in London also meant losing her native language. Having her children learn Oneida, however, helps keep the culture alive.
"My kids are already speaking Oneida," Doxtator said. "For them, it's finding pride in themselves."
Elder Jeanne Hebert, program manager for Mohawk Family Services on the Tyendinaga Reserve west of Kingston, said self-identification can be a good thing -but only if there is "after care" counselling in place. She said generations of families have hidden their ancestry, fearing racism and discrimination. Opening up in a non-native community can be especially difficult.
"Cultural identification is not a problem -it's a solution," she said. "The problem is racism. It goes on now. If you want them to step out of that box, it's going to affect them. They may take on issues they're not even aware of. When you open the box, it also has all the systemic issues that prevented you from being who you are."
Hebert was raised by her grandparents, who both suffered residential school abuse. Her grandfather had his Indian status revoked when he went off the reserve to work and make a living.
Hebert considers herself a "child of trauma," affected by poverty, violence and alcohol abuse in her family. She said she spent her own childhood "sitting on a fence. For many years, I identified myself as Italian."
According to the provincial guidelines, self-identification isn't restricted to card-carrying, status Indians. Children and families only need to claim ancestry, even if it goes back generations.
High school teacher and co-chief of the Ardoch Algonquins, Mireille La- Pointe, said that's an important distinction because federal and provincial governments have been defining who is and isn't aboriginal for too long.
"Does anybody tell you who you are and how to look at your ancestry?" she said. "The purpose has always been to make us disappear. It's best left within the communities to tell who is indigenous and who is not."
Hebert said that as well as ensuring backup services for families and children who self-identify, provided by native counsellors, aboriginals should also have a greater say in setting curriculum.
"We'll go along with this, but it's really hurtful to think that mainstream is going to educate our children. It's like almost all of a sudden mainstream wants to take it on. It's not that simple," she said.
"The system is constantly using an assimilation approach. I support this for the goodwill -it's a window to see who you are. It's a seed. But it's not the answer."