LU education grads look forward to teaching

Ginoogaming’s Joan Esquega is focused on a teaching career after graduating from Lakehead University’s Honours Bachelor of Education (Aboriginal) primary-junior program.
“My ultimate goal is to get hired by one of the school boards in (Thunder Bay),” Esquega said. “I actually wouldn’t mind getting on as a Native language instructor.”
Esquega enjoyed working with students in their classrooms during the four-year program, which is geared primarily for students of Aboriginal ancestry and focused on issues related to Aboriginal education and working with all children, especially Aboriginal children.
“My first time teaching was last fall in my first practicum, but the year before I had to do a project where I ... taught a lesson unit to a group of students,” Esquega said. “I did that at an after-school program at a school where my children go and that was my first experience teaching.”
Laura Buker, assistant professor at LU, said the program fills a growing need for Aboriginal teachers in classrooms across the north.
“What they need to have in those classrooms are our Aboriginal teachers bringing culture, bringing language, bringing Aboriginal science and worldview into the curriculum, reaching our children and our youth in ways that lift them up and have them have a vision to proceed and also to graduate and move into the trades, move into higher education and move into the Native community,” Buker said.
Buker said the program provides students with a “distinctive difference in teacher education.”
“We have designed, developed and are teaching courses such as Aboriginal science and ecology, courses that directly address Aboriginal history and looking at youth and children as Aboriginal learners in the classroom,” Buker said. “We’re looking at specific literacy that are needed for our Aboriginal children in literacies of reading and writing.”
Pic Mobert’s Shannon Moorman and Aamjiwnaang’s Jessie Plain also graduated along with Esquega, the first graduates from the program.
“I would like to teach and I am hoping to head back to university in the fall for my masters,” Moorman said. “I always wanted to be a teacher — I love kids and have a passion for young children and families and empowering Aboriginals to become everything that they can be.”
Moorman said the program gives her a specialization that many teachers do not have, noting that Aboriginal student numbers are growing across the north and many teachers do not know how to relate to First Nations culture or language.
“I’ve learned the basic education skills, I’ve learned a lot about the Aboriginal culture,” Plain said. “There are things that are different but the same (between the northern and southern communities), so it’s nice to see that.”
Plain plans to head back to LU for the masters of education program next fall.
“I’m really open to go anywhere right now,” Plain said.
The program includes two modes of delivery: part-time for students taking courses from the far north and full-time for students on campus.
“They (part-time students) come down to campus in the summer and it takes them about six-and-a-half years,” said Judy Flett, Aboriginal education programs coordinator at LU. “We also have the full-time campus model where students take four years to complete their degree. Students also have a field study in their third year where they get a good taste of designing an after-school project and delivering it to students on a practicum.”
In addition to being prepared to teach Aboriginal students, Flett said the graduates are also prepared to teach in public schools.
“We have school boards that are waiting to recruit them so they are very marketable with their skills and qualifications,” Flett said. “The population demographics show that the Aboriginal population is expanding greatly, so the graduates are high in demand.”
Flett said next year’s graduation numbers will likely include about 10-12 graduates.