Matawa Learning Centre

Posted by admin on February 11, 2011

THUNDER BAY – Matawa First Nations are teaching their students to “Learn to Dream”. This is the motto of the new Matawa Learning Centre which was officially introduced to the rest of the world today, during a special Grand Opening Ceremony. The new facility located in the Matawa First Nations Management office in Thunder Bay Ontario, is a student-focused learning environment that has been specifically designed to help First Nations students successfully complete their secondary education.

The secondary school graduation rate for Aboriginal students is far below that of non-aboriginal students and according to Matawa Learning Centre Principal, Denise Baxter, this is because the mainstream education system does not provide for the specific needs of some First Nation students.

“The statistics show that the traditional high school learning environment is failing our First Nation students. High schools are too large and very intimidating for First Nations students, many of whom come from small, remote communities. The Matawa Learning Centre offers students a holistic education, one that considers their learning needs but also the personal and social issues that they may be facing. We ensure that our students don’t fall through the cracks and we are all accountable to each other to ensure that our students succeed,” states Baxter.

The Matawa Learning Centre is approximately 3000 square-feet and features classrooms, a computer lab, boardroom, and office space for staff.

Today, the Matawa Learning Centre celebrated its very first graduate. Eighteen year old Curtis Sugarhead of Eabametoong First Nation was presented with a plaque acknowledging his student success. Sugarhead stated, “I was finally able to complete high school thanks to the Matawa Learning Centre. With the support of the staff, students and my family- I did it.” Sugarhead hopes to get a job within his community and dreams of one day running his own business.

Baxter added, “At the Matawa Learning Centre, we ask our students to dream big and realize their potential beyond the basic entry-level jobs. We want to help our students learn that they can achieve anything they want if they are motivated and work hard. With a secondary education they can pursue the career or business opportunity of their choice.”

A total of 25 students between the ages of 15 and 21 years are currently enrolled at the Matawa Learning Centre. Student Danielle Yellowhead admits; “It’s never too late to come back, there is always something out there. For me it was the Matawa Learning Centre.”

Yellowhead lost her best friend at the young age of thirteen which caused her to drop out of school and fall into a depression. Yellowhead shared, “My siblings motivated me to come back to school. I want to be a better role model for them. I want them to look up to me and be proud. At the Matawa Learning Centre I get a lot of support from the teachers and Principal and it is a very friendly environment. Now when I look back it just makes me a stronger person.”

Yellowhead is expected to graduate by September 2011. She dreams of becoming a Social Worker in her home community of Eabametoong First Nation.

In July of 2009, the Matawa Chiefs in Assembly passed a resolution supporting the development of a Matawa Learning Centre.

Dreaming big

By Jodi Lundmark, tbnewswatch.com

Bruce Meeseetawageesic dreams of one day becoming a social worker in his home community of Fort Hope First Nation. 

“The youth in Fort Hope are not really on track anymore,” he said. “They don’t look forward to doing anything, like education and becoming something.”

Meeseetawageesic, 20, is working toward his high school diploma at the Matawa Learning Centre so he can become a social worker, go back to Fort Hope and help guide the youth.
  
He’s one of 27 students at the learning centre, which opened its doors in September 2010 but held a grand opening ceremony Thursday morning.
  
The centre was designed to help Matawa First Nations students complete their high school education after first trying traditional high school. 

The small size of the facility – one classroom and one full-time teacher – can be an easier setting to learn than a high school with 1,200 students when arriving from a remote community, said learning centre principal Denise Baxter. 

“The city is a bit of a culture shock,” she said. “In most of the northern communities, you can walk from one end to the other; it might take half an hour but you can do it.” 

She added there’s also not as much bureaucracy as the public school system, so social supports and outside assistance from experts in subjects like literacy, numeracy and even geography can be accessed quicker. 

“It’s like a family in that sense,” Baxter said. “We’re all together eight hours a day. In that family kind of environment you certainly do start to learn when someone’s not at 100 per cent and it allows you to give them that support they need.” 

Meeseetawageesic agreed the friendly atmosphere at the centre is what makes an ideal place to learn.

“It has a warm environment,” he said. “It’s a home kind of feeling.” 

While some of the students were overwhelmed by the regular high school setting, others have obtained several credits and just want something more focused, so they turn to the learning centre. 

“They might be 18 or 19 and thinking ‘Oh, I’m just sick of high school,’” said Baxter. “They know they want to graduate. They have a goal…Some of them are still finding their path and some of them are well on it and know exactly what they want to do.” 

The Matawa Learning Centre is about 3,000 square feet and features two classrooms and a computer lab.

‘Family feeling’ good for students

A new education centre’s intimate and personal approach is translating to success for Aboriginal students looking to earn their secondary school diploma, the principal said Thursday.

“Everybody that’s come here has found that the traditional high school setting is no longer meeting their needs,” Denise Baxter said during the official launch of the Matawa Learning Centre.

“Maybe it never did, but they did get through a little bit of it,” Baxter said.

“Previously, they might have tried alternative education centres that may not have worked either; they’ve just gone home.
And then high school maybe got finished when they were 30 . . . maybe never.”

The Matawa Learning Centre — located at the Matawa building on S. Court Street in Thunder Bay — came about after Matawa First Nations passed a resolution that called for the formation of an alternative education centre with a different approach, Baxter said.

“It’s very individualized,” she said. “It’s very much using differentiated instruction to ensure that all the students’ needs are met at whatever skill level they have.”

There are 27 students currently enrolled, typically between the ages of 16 and 21, Baxter said.

While they’ve all started pursuing their secondary education, not all come to the centre with any credits. Still others come straight from their home community, which presents its own challenges.

“After Grade 10 is finished in their own community, they had to come out to go to school,” Baxter said. “To go to a larger high school was just too intimidating for some of them.

“There’s 1,200 kids in a school, three . . . or four storeys, multiple hallways, 80 teachers,” she said. “Lots of the research has shown that if kids have a caring adult that they can connect with every day . . . they are more likely to be successful in school, and that’s just harder to do in a big place.”

So the teachers at Matawa Learning Centre do just that.

If a student isn’t there by 9:30, for example, Baxter calls to see if they’re OK. Sometimes they’re sick; sometimes they’re having a tough time that morning and are running late; sometimes they have family visiting and want to spend more time with them, in which case, Baxter said, the school allows the student to come in after lunch and get caught up.

The point is, the teachers, she said, make the effort. And the trust is building, with students now often calling in themselves if they won’t be in class that day or are running late, Baxter said.

“We’re asking these young people to leave everything and everybody, and come and live with strangers,” she said. “That’s hard for anybody.”

The centre has run one semester, and graduated one student. Baxter said another two students are on track to graduate after semester two, with two more within reach of earning their diploma this year.

Danielle Yellowhead, 18, is currently working through Grade 10 and 11 classes at Matawa Learning Centre.

Yellowhead said it’s really a new start for her.

She said she was just 13 when she lost her best friend to suicide, an event that sent her into a two-year depression.
“I just quit school,” Yellowhead said. “It was very hard for me.”

Matawa Learning Centre has helped her in a lot of ways, she said, adding she aims to continue her education after her time there, with the goal of becoming a social worker.

“I had a lot of problems when I was growing up,” Yellowhead said. “Now I want to help other people.

“I like that my principal and my teacher, we can have a lot of one-on-one time with them,” she said of the Matawa Learning Centre environment. “We can work at our own pace.”

Fellow student Bruce Meeseetawageesic arrived with seven credits earned at an adult learning centre in Thunder Bay.

“Here, it’s friendly, warm, kind of a family kind of feeling,” Meeseetawageesic, 20, said. “No one judges you.”

He, too, is looking to study social work.

“The youth are not really on track anymore,” said Meeseetawageesic. “For them it’s all about drugs and alcohol.”

The confident Meeseetawageesic earned kudos from Thunder Bay Mayor Keith Hobbs earlier in the morning after Meeseetawageesic gave a short address to mark the launch.

Hobbs singled him out as a natural leader.

Yellowhead and Meeseetawageesic’s words about Matawa Learning Centre are similar to what Baxter hears from other students, she said.

“A lot of the students have actually said they like it here,” she said. “It’s comfortable for them. It’s small, it’s familiar.

“People in the building might be relatives of theirs . . . or people from their community,” Baxter said.

“They always have a touchstone for family and a place to centre themselves.”