Kuujjuaq high school students slug it out at school

Cyril Boone and Xavier Beaupré, who teach Secondary Four classes at Kuujjuaq’s Jaanimmarik School, are ready to listen to what their students think about school. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

KUUJJUAQ — Secondary Four (Grade 10) students at Kuujjuaq’s Jaanimmarik School say they’re sometimes bored to death in class.

”When I’m bored, I just sit there,” says one student. “I draw on my desk,” confesses another.

There are about 20 students in Secondary Four, who study in French or English.

But now they’ve come together to talk about what they know best: their school and dreams for their future.

Asked what they’d like to change at school, they respond slowly with suggestions.

“Paint the walls” another colour than yellow, they say.

And bring the school more up-to-date, by offering computer classes and installing wireless internet throughout the building.

Jaanimmarik, built 25 years ago, has one slow internet connection that serves several computers that students can use.

But there’s no computer teacher, and no way to for them to learn how to use the web for either fun or education.

Students also want more activities, like culture classes for boys, elective courses and sports.

Only the girls take culture classes. There’s no culture teacher for the boys.

And two years ago they stopped having what they call “interests” (or “options” in Nunavut), periods set aside for learning non-academic skills, like shop or photography.

One student recalls building a robot out of Lego. Fun stuff.

And there’s no organized in-school team sports for any students in the school who are over 16. One student wants to see martial arts, another hockey: something or anything to break their days of listening and learning in a second language.

What they like about school includes art— everyone’s favourite class, along with Inuttitut— “we need that.” And math, ”because you need math in everyday life,” a girl says. “Sometimes it’s hard, but it’s easy if you listen.” “I want to be a nurse, so I’m into it,” another one says.
Also French, because “you need to know the language for your future,” and science on account of its hands-on activities.

In regular academic classes, the students say they enjoy projects, with “teachers, who are more fun” and take time to help students, one says.

“Even if it’s hard work, you can understand it easier if the teachers are good,” a girl says.

“I had a teacher a few years ago, if we didn’t understand it in French, he would explain it in English, and it helped me a lot and the rest of students in my class,” says another girl. “I’d like a teacher like that.”

All but two of these students are trilingual.

No matter what language the students study in, they talk to each other mainly in Inuttitut.

All but two speak Inuttitut, and Inuttitut is important to them, a given, because “I am Inuk,” one says.

There’s another characteristic that binds these students together: they’re survivors.

Most of the kids who started out in Grade One with them have dropped out.

“I want to pass,” says one student. “I don’t want to flunk things. Most people when they skip, they don’t know what we’re doing and they’re behind. It’s important to stay in school if you want to get a good job.”

“It’s hard, but you have to do it,” says another.

Some of their former classmates are too wasted from drugs and alcohol to make it to school.

“One of my friends is failing a lot. She’s into the whole drug situation. I tell her every day to stop but she has quite a few friends who do it. I try to spend as much time as I can with her so she won’t do it, but then she gets pulled away by her other friends,” a student says. “She comes to school but sometimes she skips. She says ‘I should just drop out.’”

Some of these Secondary Four students say also they also smoke dope or party occasionally. But they’re still in school.

Why? “Strict parents,” a girl responds. “It’s the parents’ job to get their kids to school,” another says.

And there are consequences if they don’t show up. If students skip school or arrive late they must go to the main office and return with a slip of paper stating whether their absence was okay or not.

Without that permission slip, after three no-shows or late arrivals, they face detention after school. That’s 45 minutes spent in a classroom with a teacher, doing nothing, they say.

Most of the students who show up regularly like these students now can expect to graduate.

Many of the Secondary Fours hold already down part-time jobs at local stores or at the arena. One works 32-hours as a cashier, after school and on weekends to “have something to do.”

After graduation they’ll see even better opportunities, according to researchers who draw a direct link between finishing school and having a good job, income and health.

But for some of Jaanimmarik’s Secondary Fours, this success in life may lie outside Nunavik.

Nearly all want to go off to college in the South.

When asked about their ambitions, “to get out of this community” is one student’s response.

Secondary Four students at Kuujjuaq’s Jaanimmarik School, shown here in the school library, say more activities, sports and better internet access would make their school time more interesting. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)