Arviat students learn resiliency, leadership

A new program at John Arnalukjuak High School in Arviat is teaching students how to manage personal and family stress. (HANDOUT PHOTO)

More than 30 students have embraced the Leadership Resiliency Program at John Arnalukjuak High School in Arviat, which aims to teach students how to manage personal and family stress.

“It might just be the early excitement [but] we have really high participation rates,” said coordinator Ross Paterson about the program, which started in February, with $2.2 million committed over five years from Public Safety Canada for the project.

Right now there are four groups of Grade 12 students involved, two of boys and two of girls, each with its own facilitator.

During their program sessions, each student “checks in” with the group and rates from one to 10 how they are feeling.

If there’s a low report, then the group takes time to explore why, in order to meet the program’s goals of teaching communication skills Paterson said.

“Not curriculum based as such,” he says, the program is made up of these weekly sessions, where the main objective is to develop communication and goal-setting skills.

That’s along with monthly “high adventures” camping trips. On these trips, the youth engage in traditional activities like igloo building or caribou hunting.

The trips’ traditional experiences don’t involve drugs or alcohol.

“When you mix in alcohol it’s a whole different ball-game,” Paterson said.

The program also includes service activities, which include contributing in a positive way to the community.

The last service activity was making caribou stew. “They peeled the carrots, they cut the vegetables, [and] they made the stew,” Paterson said.

The group then took the stew to the elders’ centre and lower-income families. The students “went out on skidoos, knocked on the doors and delivered their Sunday meal,” Paterson said.

During their weekly sessions, the students participate in trust games, he said.

Students also have plans to paint and decorate the program’s room, which isn’t viewed as a conventional classroom even though the part of program takes place during school time.

“The teacher’s desk is pushed out of the room,” Paterson said.

And students are welcome to speak Inuktitut and not necessarily English all of the time, he said, adding that “they’re not worrying about it, if they want to speak Inuktitut they can go ahead.”

The experience-based, hands-on learning style is successful with the students, Paterson said, because “there’s no pressure to participate. There’s no marks or grades or passes or fails.”

And during the weekly sessions students are slowly letting go of issues that bother them, Paterson said.

“Suddenly [you are] letting all that go and having fun with your friends in a school environment,” he said.

The program hopes these skills will help students to better cope after leaving school.

It’s all about “helping high school students develop their own personal strength, build healthy relationships and healthy communities,” Eva Aariak said in the legislative assembly this past October.