A small rural school in Beaver Creek, Yukon, is showing how to shake up education under the territory’s new First Nation School Board.
“That’s what we want to bring to them, is, ‘this is what we do, and you just be yourself.’ So it brings peace, and calm.” “We want people to be just talking, happy, laughing. Kids just playing at whatever they wanted. They observe by their eye, and they see stuff. Maybe it doesn’t show much, what they’re seeing right now, but 10, 15 years from now, they’re gonna think, ‘Oh yeah, I remember that. That’s what happened, that’s why it happened.’”School principal Heidi Warren has been in Beaver Creek for six years.
Beaver Creek, population roughly 100, is a border town and home to the White River First Nation. It’s Canada’s westernmost community, just a short drive down the Alaska Highway from the U.S. border. Many visitors drive through but few stay for more than a meal or an overnight rest. Now, under the board, there’s talk of more Indigenous language instruction, on-the-land learning, and involvement of elders and community knowledge-holders. Schools will continue to follow the B.C. curriculum, but community members are to have more say in how to reflect local culture and values in the classroom and curriculum.
“It’s building the community up, and that is what we saw today,” said Melissa Flynn, the new school board’s interim executive director, after the celebration. 'It’s building the community up, and that is what we saw today,' said Melissa Flynn, interim executive director of the Yukon First Nation School Board, at a celebration in Haines Junction earlier this month. We are not starting a First Nation School board where it’s just Indigenous kids invited. We have entered communities and invited every student that is a part of that community into our schools. And so I think it’s a model that really defines what truth and reconciliation can be.
I recall writing a 1500-word essay in my final English exam in Grade II, denouncing the failure of 'settler' education for First Nations peoples and advocating for an 'on-the-land' curriculum to be added to the generic 3Rs-standard used across the nation for everyone.
I am sure the First Nations people of Beaver Creek do not consider it to be a Canadian community.
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