have increased – because education is a tool. It’s a very valuable tool, and more and more people are seeing that.”
19.8 Observations of Gladys Christiansen Soon after graduating from NORTEP in 1985, Gladys Christiansen was appointed to the Northern Education Task Force, so she quickly gained an appreciation for the issues facing both Band-run and provincial schools across the region. For years, Christiansen was the Director of Education for the Lac La Ronge Indian Band, heading up a department that handles Aboriginal Head Start programs, pre-school to Grade 12, adult training, post-secondary, employment programs, and recreation. She also served as an advisor for the Saskatchewan Literacy Commission on northern literacy issues, and as a board member for Northlands College. Like fellow Lac La Ronge Indian Band member, Ray McKay, Christiansen began her career in another field altogether. After completing training as an accounting clerk at Northlands College, she began working in the Band’s education department at the central office in La Ronge, when, as she recalls, “they were just starting to talk about Indian control of Indian education.” Intrigued, she decided to go back to school and began taking night classes, eventually studying at TEP while continuing to work for the Band at the same time. She began her teaching career as principal, teacher and bus driver for a two-room Lac La Ronge Indian Band school in Sucker River. “I don’t think we would be at where we are now, in terms of community development and everything else, without NORTEP/PAC,” Christiansen says. “When I first started here (with the Band), there were very few Aboriginal teachers in the (Band-run school) system… and the few Aboriginal teachers they had were not from here; they came from the south. Now if you look at our school population today, the majority of the teaching staff are TEP graduates, and the administrative positions are held by First Nations, and primarily La Ronge First Nations (people). It really makes a difference (to have the NORTEP/PAC option) because, for example, we have so many more students that are completing Grade 12, and therefore we have to try to provide more programming to accommodate those students, so they have a place to go, because we still have many students who don’t want to move to the south for a university education,” she says. “Those NORTEP graduates, they know the importance of education, and they encourage their children too, and they assist them to be successful in school, so of course it just keeps going from there, continuing to get better for everyone.” As a TEP grad herself, for example, Christiansen has been a self-described advocate for the program – and, in fact, her husband Gerry enrolled in TEP after witnessing her experience. “Once you have the education, you can have a good job and your family life gets better, and so you want that for everybody else. So first you try and get your immediate family to go back to school, and then the larger community,” Christiansen says. “You never stop learning…. When I’m 65 years old, I’ll still be learning, and I’ll want to learn something. There’s so much to learn.” Although she is pleased by the expansion of culture and language education in northern schools – including her department’s own Cree curriculum development programs – Christiansen feels there is still a lot more to do, especially with specific training for language teachers. 84 |