A teacher’s culture of confidence
Cree educator’s journey affects her students
WETASKIWIN At Sacred Heart Catholic School, some students felt so insecure, they hid behind a curtain of their hair, as if it would make them invisible.
Natalie Bear knows that feeling — demurring through the school day, a lack of pride in her identity weighing her down.
Since she was a child, she believed becoming a teacher would be her pathway to a different life.
“I’m trying to reclaim who I am as a Cree woman,” she said while sitting in her colourful office in Wetaskiwin’s only Catholic school recently.
The 37-year-old from the Bigstone Cree Nation is now a role model, sounding board, and the Indigenous cultural heart of the K-9 school with 545 pupils.
“Natalie’s been really instrumental. She’s on her own journey. It’s impacting our school,” Sacred Heart principal Verna Sand said.
Bear’s time as a student “wasn’t always a positive one,” she said.
A kind Grade 2 teacher in Wabasca named Mrs. Lowe made her feel visible and important with simple acknowledgments that brightened her day. Those little gestures can make all the difference to students, Bear said.
Now, she aims to be that teacher — especially to the 20 per cent of Sacred Heart students who are Indigenous. Many students are bused to the school daily from reserves in nearby Maskwacis.
Bear teaches physical education to the school’s youngest students, a leadership class to junior high students, and is a learning support teacher, working more intensively with small groups of First Nations, Métis and Inuit students, and those who are learning English.
Her office in the centre of the school is also a place where students can drop in for any reason — whether it’s for help with school work, or to vent about a problem.
“I think that it is important for all students to see an Indigenous teacher role modelling for our Indigenous students,” Bear said. “They need to see people in all roles, because we know that there are lots of struggles and barriers in First Nations communities for our students.”
Bear runs an extracurricular First Nations leadership group for students, which has been a successful way to encourage them to embrace their identity and grow confidence, she said.
There, she trains students to lead the blanket exercise — an interactive re-enactment of what happened to Indigenous peoples when Europeans arrived in North America. Narrators walk participants through history by handing them babies, then whisking them away, displacing them from land, and introducing small pox. It’s intended to build empathy and understanding.
Students also sing and dance at assemblies and lead their classmates in games. Some accompany Bear on an annual trip to Kananaskis to learn traditional teachings from elders.
Last year, Bear also led the school’s participation in Project of Heart, in which each student decorated a tile in honour of a residential school survivor. A mosaic of those tiles, framed around former prime minister Stephen Harper’s 2008 apology to residential school survivors, now hangs in the school’s sun-drenched atrium.
As she works to improve fluency in the language herself, Bear will begin teaching students Cree at a lunchtime club, come January. Holding a for-credit Cree class in the school is a longer-term goal.
Bear also helps her colleagues who want guidance in how to discuss residential schools in class, and tries to build relationships with parents — some of who are reluctant to come into the school, Sand said.
Bear helped organize the St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic school division’s First Nations, Métis and Inuit learning day in September, which brought Indigenous leaders from across central Alberta to teach more than 400 division employees.
The Alberta Teachers’ Association’s First Nations, Métis and Inuit education council named Bear the province’s outstanding Aboriginal educator of the year in recognition of her effort.
These moves are some of the steps schools are taking to adopt the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action to improve student success. Indigenous students in Leduc-based St. Thomas Aquinas, like their counterparts across the province, are more likely to drop out of school, and are less likely to graduate from high school or pass provincial exams than the average student.
It’s a gap educators across Alberta are anxious to close.
When Sacred Heart first incorporated more Indigenous cultural activities and recognition, the principal worried about pushback from some parents. It hasn’t happened, she said.
“We’re pretty solid in what we’re doing, in that we feel that this is right.”
Fellow teachers tell Bear they’ve seen huge changes in some of their pupils, who are becoming more confident in class and putting more effort into their schoolwork.
Sand points to a student in Bear’s leadership group who has never been enthusiastic about coming to school.
“She puts on her regalia and she turns into a different person. She literally just stands proud, and she will dance for the entire school. This is a girl who otherwise wanted to be unnoticed,” Sand said.
Bear, a mother of three, is happy with how her role has evolved from a more conventional classroom teacher to a job that allows her the flexibility to connect with so many students.
“It’s a passion for me. My heart is with my people.”