Living Sky School Division administrators and board members have accepted that what's been done in the past isn't good enough, and they have committed to finding new strategies to close the achievement gap between First Nations students and non-First Nations students. One of them is to make Living Sky the kind of division that will give First Nations students opportunity to move forward, removing the negative connotation to education and offering them a warm welcome.
A major step has been taken in hiring Michelle Sanderson as First Nations and Métis Achievement Co-ordinator.
A major step has been in hiring Michelle Sanderson as First Nations and Métis Achievement Co-ordinator.
Sanderson, who venerates the ideals of the traditional White Buffalo Calf Woman legend, says "I'm really excited to be doing the work that I'm doing and when I go home at night I'm very grateful for what I am doing. I am very passionate about what I do."
Bringing indigenous understanding into Living Sky Schools will "take those really good values that are in the culture and share them so that First Nations people can feel engaged in education and feel good about being a part of it, and their voices are being heard as well."
Some of what Sanderson along with Living Sky arts consultant Sherron Burns and others have been doing includes setting up working relationships with elders and community leaders. They are developing a cultural resource directory of people who can bring enlightenment into the schools and encouraging teachers to take the catalyst training from the Office of the Treaty Commissioner (16 teachers took the training this year).
Understanding the things behind the achievement gap is key, says Sanderson.
"It's complex and it's multi-faceted and it's based on things that aren't in the present now, that are in the past, so we have to really be critical minded when we think about why the achievement gap is there to begin with."
Providing resources to teachers is crucial. Teachers who are coming across residential school history in their lessons can have resource list to help make it real for the students, says Sanderson.
"A lot of times people think it's something that happened so long ago and it doesn't really affect anyone now, but you know my auntie is walking around with those experiences in her mind and told those stories to her children. Understanding education is a difficult thing for First Nations people because traditionally it was used in a negative way," she says.
Now, families are being encouraged to tell their stories and to become a part of the system and to understand First Nations people and non-First Nations people need to share that history, says Sanderson.
"People think that a lot of this is in the past, but if we look in current history right now, 50 per cent of the kids in foster care are actually First Nations," says Sanderson, adding there are actually more children now in the foster system than ever went through residential school.
"That's profound ... the idea of taking First Nations kids out of their homes and putting them somewhere else where they can learn how, some would say, not to be First Nations.
"But," she says, "we are trying to honour the idea that it's not a bad thing to be First Nations."
