Our People Will Be Healed

- Each one of us have certain gifts

that we've been given by the Creator.

But we need mentors

to help us enhance and develop those skills.

Children should be provided

with as much supports that we can provide to them.

My priority, my focus is social development;

ensuring that other people get treated

with fairness and respect no matter where they are,

making sure that they get educated

and that they get trained,

and that they get equipped with skills.

We have more infrastructure than most communities

and we're fortunate and blessed in many ways in that way.

But the infrastructure will only take you so far.

You need social development where the people are given

the encouragement and support they need

to be able to better themselves.

So we should actually

be doing everything we can to provide to the child so that

they can develop in a way that will help sharpen their gifts

and have confidence in themselves.

- This is a very beautiful school.

We had one of the buildings

that had been a former Residential School renovated

numerous times and it was an old building

so it was time to decommission that.

Obviously, the educational leaders

and the people from Chief and Council

certainly are visionaries.

We are part of a Provincial School System;

Frontier School Division has a tuition agreement

with the Norway Cree Nation.

We do have funding that is very comparable

to what other Provincial Schools get.

So, we're very competitive

to any Divisions in the Province of Manitoba

in terms of salary, in terms of benefits.

We provide accommodations for our teaching staff.

And there are times that we do have other teachers

that come from other First Nations Schools

and they come to Norway House

and they can't believe that.

- I really am happy with the funding

our schools get and I think that's partly because

we have a large population so we're funded per student

and we're a Provincial School

so our funding is good and I think we use it really well.

We have 84 teachers,

close to fifty percent are from First Nations

and most of them are from Norway House.

All of our Educational Assistants, almost,

I would say ninety percent, are from Norway House.

We tend to have teachers that come in and they're very happy,

they love working here.

- It's pretty easy to see that A would be an obtuse angle,

open wider than 90 degrees. B, acute, less than 90.

So, shape A, no, not a regular polygon.

- Our Early Years Wing is made up of 22 classrooms

from nursery to grade four.

Following Manitoba Curriculum,

we practise inclusion in our school

and in every classroom,

we do have children with special needs.

They are part of the programming

and they're in the classroom with everybody else,

participating in the activities.

It's accepted,

it's the norm for them and it's not at all

where these kids are singled out or they're bullied.

These children in their classrooms are always willing

to be their friend and be that helping hand

and that's such a blessing to see.

- When it was first Rossville School,

it was just N to eight.

And we had a separate high school,

but now that all the three wings are here,

like nursery to Grade 12 are all here,

so it's kind of different.

Sometimes it can be very hectic.

- Okay, so this group is doing well.

You have this five millilitres of hydrochloric acid here,

and we're going to put the magnesium ribbon inside.

You didn't see it?

You're going to watch to see what happens.

- So, which one of these has magnesium on it?

- All children have a right to learn

and all children are special in their own unique ways

and they all deserve to be in school.

Don't be surprised at what they can do.

What else do you notice is happening?

- It's starting to get thick, like the water thing looks more

like the metal part is coming off.

- The metal parts are coming off, that's the decomposition.

So what do you think is happening

to the magnesium ribbon?

It's going brownish/golden.

- So, what do you think is happening to it?

It's going brownish.

And we have a cup of chloride in there.

Turning to copper.

Thank you. Right.

- It's not too hard, I'll play at regular speed.

I've been teaching in this Program for...

this is my second year.

I started last year in September.

Ever hear this tune?

Ever hear that one?

That's the same song, just a different version.

That's the same square dance tune.

Ready to try?

Together, open in A.

One, two, three, go.

Okay, let's try it again.

Okay, one, two, three, go.

It reminds me of me when I was a kid,

it motivates me, it encourages me.

I'm not only teaching but I'm learning from these kids

about myself and just about life, right,

so it's definitely rewarding. I love it.

One, two, three, go.

We've been working

on retaining students in the high school,

because we had a problem for many years,

where we were averaging about two hundred students

in Grade 9 and then it would go down

and down and down and come to about 15 in Grade 12.

So, that has...

you know, we've identified that as a need

and we've really worked on changing our system

to keep kids in schools.

- One last one, okay? And underneath

at the edge of the bottom lip.

- I can't live up to those standards.

Yes, you can.

- No, I can't. - I believe in you.

- We've known it through the research for many years

that high school students like to sleep in the morning

and they're not really awake at 8:30.

So, we have altered our schedule

to have our high school start at 9:30.

So that way, we have a bus run to pick up all the kids

from 8:00 to 8:30

and bring them here and then the buses run again

at 9:00 to pick up high school students.

So, we encourage parents if kids miss their first bus,

rather than stay home all day, send them on the late bus,

we'll welcome them into our classrooms when they get here.

Our theory is that we would prefer to see them come in late

than not to come at all.

We're trying to have something for everyone,

so that, you know, no matter what your skill set is

or your interest area, we have something

that will draw kids in.

And next year, we will be looking at a graduating class

of somewhere between 60 and 70.

- I'm almost done, like, high school

and I'm so proud that I'm almost done.

So excited to be done.

It will be the tenth anniversary of our school being opened

and that's a real honour to walk up on that stage

on my graduation day.

High school was, like, the most wonderful experience

I could go through. It's going to be heartbreaking

when I'm done. I just don't want it to end.

Sometimes, like my friends are like,

sometimes my biggest,

my biggest encouragement to be the best I could be.

All the opportunities and programs that I've been in,

they really broaden my horizon into what I wanted to go into...

at university. It was so...

scary at first, but once I got there, I got used

to the university type of lifestyle.

We do lots of experiments and they'd show us like the labs.

The labs are very beautiful there,

they really made me want to go into that faculty.

That's where I'm going to be going in the fall, moving there.

To Winnipeg.

If you expect you're going to do great things,

you'll do amazing things

like go to university in Manitoba for a week

or see Ottawa for a week.

There's just been so much I went through,

going through high school.

- What's your favourite subject in school?

Gym.

Play with the toys.

Fiddle.

Hockey.

Math too.

Math, yeah.

- Geology. I've always wanted to be a geological scientist.

I want to be an RCMP Officer.

I want to be a carpenter.

And I also want to go to the Canadian Army Forces.

A professional hockey player.

I draw my dad, my mom and me.

Even my sisters and my other mom.

Do you have sisters?

How many?