Meryl Smith Lawton

Culture In The Classroom | Students in the halls od Amiskwaciy Academy.

Before the morning song, the Amiskwaciy Academy is all but silent. In the lobby, a girl sleeps soundly on a couch with a rack hanging above her head stuffed with pamphlets ranging from sexual exploitation advice to adverts from post-secondary institutions. The literature runs the gamut of issues most of the students at Amiskwaciy face.

“Kids come here with humongous grief and loss issues,” says Maureen Yates-Millions, the school’s principal. “We get them on the No. 1 task, which is their education. But also they have to be surrounded and feeling comfortable and safe. This needs to be the safest place for them so they can come and learn and grow.”

Amiskwaciy is a Grade 7 to 12 public school that was created eight years ago to address the needs of urban aboriginal students, and they come from across Canada to attend. With the guidance of several elders from the aboriginal community, Amiskwaciy has woven Cree culture into the standard Alberta school curriculum.

“If I wasn’t here, I wouldn’t be the person that I am,” Grade 12 student Lorne Ghostkeeper says. “I’d be a slacker, I wouldn’t have high grades.”

When he’s not writing poetry, Ghostkeeper plays in the drum line that performs the daily morning song — just one of the traditions Amiskwaciy is passing along to younger generations of aboriginals who may not have access to their culture otherwise.

“Morning song is a prayer song that we use to start the day off in a good way. I’ve been doing it since Grade 7,” he says. “It’s hard to explain. When I first heard the song, I had to learn it. I had to be able to sing it. When you take that stick and hit it against the drum, it’s like feeling your heart beat in your chest. The sound goes straight through you and you feel so uplifted when you hear it.”

However, keeping spirits high isn’t enough to ensure that students graduate. There is also a need to provide support and counselling right up until the point where students select a post-secondary program to pursue, Yates-Millions says. That was the motivation behind the development of new skill centres focusing on bringing Amiskwaciy students closer to the world of post-secondary education. Last year, with the help of NorQuest College, a health-care option was added to the course list, as well as access to a functional hospital room where students could get a taste of the college’s nursing program.

NAIT is also jumping on board to revamp the academy’s kitchen to facilitate a culinary arts program and will also provide an airplane to the academy so that students can learn about aeromechanics.

Amiskwaciy is also working closely with the University of Alberta to bring the Aboriginal Art Centre Project to fruition. The program would see hip-hop artists working closely with students to develop artistic skills and provide an outlet for student’s creative energies.

“These kids are capable of great things,” Yates-Millions says.