Welcome to White Fox Learning

Welcome to White Fox Learning!

In this first blog post, I'd like to introduce myself and share the story behind why I started this business.

My name is Diane Ellis. Before I tell you about White Fox Learning, I want to be completely transparent: I am a white woman who creates Indigenous language teaching materials.

To explain why, I first need to tell you a little about myself. I have been involved in First Nations education, culture, and language—through both my work and my family—for more than 40 years.

After studying Native Studies at Trent University, I decided to become a teacher with the specific goal of teaching in a First Nations community in northern Ontario. It was 1980, and teaching jobs were scarce. On the very first day of Teachers' College at the University of Toronto, we were all called into the auditorium and told that most of us wouldn't find teaching jobs after graduation. But I wasn't worried—I already knew I was heading north.

My first teaching position was in an Ojibwe community with a one-room school on an island in Lake of the Woods, Ontario. My apartment was on one side of the building and my classroom was on the other. It was quite an adventure—but I'll save those stories for my next post.

I spent seven years teaching in First Nations communities in northern Ontario, followed by fifteen years teaching English as a Second Language in southern Ontario. But the North kept calling me back. Eventually, I returned to work for a First Nations organization that supported schools throughout western Northwestern Ontario. More recently, I spent a year as a Learning Coach in a small Inuit community on Baffin Island, Nunavut.

One of the many things I learned over those years is that there is an urgent need for quality teaching materials in Indigenous languages. I heard that message over and over again from local teachers.

Teachers working in English can simply open one of the many educational catalogues and choose from thousands of resources. Publishers compete for their business, sending sample materials, special offers, and discounts for schools to purchase the latest products.

Indigenous language teachers, however, often spend countless hours creating their own materials. Many handwrite worksheets in syllabics or cover English text with tape so they can write translations in their own language. Even something as simple as cutting out syllabic bulletin board letters becomes a never-ending task. At the time, manipulatives in syllabics simply didn't exist.

People often ask why publishers don't produce materials in Indigenous languages. There are a couple of reasons.

The first—and probably the biggest—is that there is no single standardized writing system for any Indigenous language in Canada. The languages I have worked with, learned about, and experienced include Oji-Cree, Ojibwe, Cree, and Inuktitut. Within each of these languages are many dialects, often varying significantly from one community to the next. While there have been ongoing efforts to create more standardized writing systems—particularly in Nunavut—many speakers understandably want to preserve the unique ways their own communities speak and write.

The second reason is simply economics. For commercial publishers, the market for any one Indigenous language is too small to generate the profits needed to justify large-scale publishing. In the end, it comes down to money.

That is where I hope White Fox Learning can make a difference.

One of my goals is to create resources that can easily be translated and produced in any Indigenous language. Although I don't speak these languages, I have become very skilled at typing in syllabics. I can help teachers design and produce professional-looking materials that reflect their own language and dialect.

My other goal is to help northern teachers gain access to materials that truly reflect life in northern Canada.

I still remember putting up an alphabet line in my classroom during my first years of teaching. It included pictures of animals and objects that many of my Ojibwe-speaking students had never even seen before. One that has always stayed with me was R is for Raccoon. There were no raccoons where they lived in northwestern Ontario.

Teaching the seasons was equally frustrating. Most commercial resources showed spring with daffodils, tulips, umbrellas, rain boots, and children running around in T-shirts. But spring in northwestern Ontario looks very different. It means the snow is maybe starting to melt, ice fishing derbies are still happening, the days are getting longer (and a little warmer), some birds begin to return (though not robins), and you can finally trade your heavy parka for a lighter winter jacket.

Those experiences taught me that representation matters. Children deserve to see their own communities, languages, seasons, and ways of life reflected in the materials they use every day.

That belief has guided White Fox Learning from the very beginning, and it continues to shape every resource I create. I hope you'll follow along as I share more stories from my years in northern classrooms, the lessons I've learned, and the journey that led me here. Thank you for stopping by—I look forward to sharing the next chapter with you.