Empowering Indigenous Students through the development of their Soft, social Skills

This workshop will be focused on developing an appreciation for the importance and benefits developing the soft social skills of Indigenous youth. The history between the Canadian state and Indigenous peoples all across Canada has been traumatic. Residential schools, day schools, and the Indian Act have dramatically affected social relations in the communities. All humans have 4 important core needs. For a number of reasons, including the historical trauma that has taken place, many Indigenous youth struggle to have these needs met in positive ways and sometimes resort to avenues that create problems for others in the community and at school. Schools are in a good position to work with large groups of youth for large chunks of time to build relationships that nourish the needs of Safety, variety, Importance and love and belonging. It truly benefits all. It has been my experience that every action can be traced back to a need that is seeking satisfaction. When you start to ask questions about what is going on in the persons life, solutions are sometimes easy to coach the youth into solving on their own. This is very empowering to the youth and can be used as a catalyst or reminder when the student comes into another obstacle. It involves developing a students ability to self reflect and to self regulate. This all begins with teaching and modelling what good listening actually physically looks like…how elders listen. So, a large part of my approach is listening to first hear and validate, then to understand and then reflect on how I can guide. The river of life that Indigenous youth find themselves can be very dangerous and scary. Schools sometimes forget this and place their own needs for control over the very real rapids and whirlpools that are on the minds of students before they walk into the school in the morning. I was introduced to Trauma Informed School training in Gesgapegiag and I had one full school year to try and implement parts of it…the results I observed were absolutely incredible for how my classes ran and what I was able to achieve with the students because this key ingredient of listening to them helped to relax them and helped them develop skills that I know will be useful to them for the rest of their lives. In a word, it helped me understand the river they were on.