What's up with school for Inuit?

personally i think that for us inuit youth to have a successful post secondary experience is to have people in the school to relate to, you have to be able to communicate with people of similar cicumstances. you also need to have a feeling comfort in the school. you need to feel safe in teh school and feel comfortable with the student body and with the teachers. there are a lot of situations where students feel they don't want to be in school because of lack of trust. and a personal experience that i will share about the student to teacher relationships that affected my choice of wanting to attend school was, a teacher daily doubted my ability to graduate and openly talked negitavely about the inuit and and our tradition and customs. this was not only noticed by my self but also by several of her students. therefore i think the environment of teh school needs to be considered, what kind of environment are the students being put into?

Bravo Jason, for a wonderful article which sheds a lot of light on the situation which continues to promoted "learned helplessness". Not only should Inuit students be encouraged to plan their travel, accomodations, choice of institutions, they should also be able to have choice of what courses they would like to pursue and not just be lumped into the "social sciences" .

I think this article has some very good points because I have always thought that the post-secondary education for Inuit in
Nunavik wasn't working. I went through university and successfully graduated from undergraduate studies, and my funding
was sponsored by an Inuit organization that didn't give me weekly or monthly cheques, only lump sums of money every
3 months. This method of funding worked for me because it taught me how to budget my money while I was studying, and
I worked part-time to keep up with expenses other than my tuition and books. It was hard work, but it felt normal because
the majority of university students I studied with were working part-time as well.
Nowadays when I see Inuit students in the south studying in school, I can't help but feel that they are not working hard
enough because everything is paid for them. I am not generalizing all Inuit university or college students are like this,
for I have seen some Inuit work very hard in school, but these exceptions are far less than the majority of Inuit students
that do not take their post-secondary education seriously.

Jason, I think your article is great, and very true. Its all about responsibility. Responsibility for ones self. Before I contacted anyone about funding for school, I researched the colleges, programs, and courses I wanted to take. I contacted the school that I wanted to attend first and met with them for information. Honestly I was scared to be put into "social science" as many people are. And I know from other peoples experiences that this is the program you will be put into when you start college. I've even heard stories of people being discouraged from taking the course they want to take, and being told that it will be to "hard" for them. I made sure that I had a goal first, and that I knew what I wanted to do for myself. I think that if you are going to go to college, you must know what you want to do, and what you want to study. Education to me, is kinda like stepping stones, you go from one to the other to get futher and futher. There are so many wonderful courses out there. Awareness about what you can study is so important. All it takes is a click of a button on the internet. There was a career fair in Montreal not long ago for young Native People across Canada. All types of role modles and sucessful Native motivation speakers were there. I loved it. Maybe a simple little course can do the trick. All about options, what you can study when you go into college. Students can be introduced early in their secondary studies. So they have time to think about what they want to do, which is something that everyone in the whole world has a hard time doing. Finding something that makes you happy can take a whole life time. There is something out there for everyone. I found out that there are many programs in Canada made just for Native people by Native people, focasing on culture. Like Dancing, Singing, and Art. I only wish there were such programs for Inuit. Colligal based education on our culture. I guess that would take Inuit students studing more in colleges and universities and at the same time our culture, values, language and traditions. A dream, a wish, but very possible. I may be funded for school, but its me who goes to school every day, its me putting all the hard work into it, I work just as hard as any other student in the classroom. The organizations there to help me are there for me finacailly. Take adavntage, get the education that you want, why not? Looking at things from a differnt perpective, your point of veiw can change everything. Success can mean differnt things to different people. Its up to us to decide what is success to ourselves first, then to carry it out. Responsibilty for oneself is very rewarding, and should always be incouraged in order to achive even more of what you want in life.