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U.S.-inspired program restores Inuit approach to students

Nakasuk School teachers adopt new anti-bullying approach

GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

Teachers at Nakasuk School brainstormed on different ways of dealing with troubled students at a Restitution Peace Project workshop in October.
(PHOTO BY GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS)

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Non-Inuit are bringing Inuit schooling back to Iqaluit.

That's how Oonga Kilabuk, a 44-year-old teacher, views an international program on classroom management that's being taught at Nakasuk School.

And she's ecstatic to see it happen.

The program, which held its second workshop at the school last week, promises to reduce bullying and misbehaviour in classrooms by training teachers to handle troubled students.

Kilabuk, who teaches Grade 4, said the program, entitled The Restitution Peace Project, will return students and teachers to the Inuit tradition of not blaming a person for their misbehaviour, but looking to understand why they did something wrong.

"I'm so happy it's coming back," Kilabuk said of the project's approach to discipline. "It's no stranger to us, our culture. It's really looking at a child itself, rather than the thing that happened."

While students were nearing the end of their spring break, Kilabuk and a dozen other teachers, mainly women, wrapped up their second week-long workshop in the Nakasuk library. The group, which spent five days learning about the program's philosophy from a teacher from Illinois, said they've already seen progress in their classrooms since training began in October.

Teachers in Yellowknife first brought the program to the North in 1998, after seeking ways of tackling a growing problem with drop-outs, bullying and classroom disruptions. The program, funded in part by the federal department of justice, draws on the writings of William Glasser, a U.S. psychiatrist. After three years of using his methods, suspensions dropped to eight students a year from 49 at J.H. Sissons School, where the program was first applied in Yellowknife.

At Nakasuk School, teachers said they found children change for the better if they ask their students why they are disrupting class, or bullying someone, instead of immediately punishing them without discussion.

Kilabuk said the program fills a void left over the past few decades, where the turbulent growth of Iqaluit has deprived children of the support that comes with living in a small, tightly-knit community. She said parents used to know their children better, and in general, neighbours helped each other with their problems.

"Way back, when the place was smaller, you had to know people. That means knowing people inside and out," she said. "There was a lot more sharing, and co-operative hunting, anything.

"People were more relaxed about asking for help back then than we are now."

As a result, she said, teachers now more than ever need to apply a more compassionate - or Inuit - approach to schooling.

Liz Courtney, a Nakasuk teacher who lobbied to bring the Restitution Peace Project to Iqaluit, said the committee that organized the training sessions made a priority of including Inuit teachers by translating training books into Inuktitut, and providing translators at workshops.

Courtney said the recent workshop gave teachers practical advice for the classroom, but will also help them deal with troublemakers from around Iqaluit. Courtney said Nakasuk's central location makes it a prime hangout for bullies, whether they're from the school or not.

"We're dealing with things from all over town," she said. "This is a community-wide approach to dealing with bullying. It's finding a way to accept them [troubled youth] and finding a way to help them meet their needs with out interfering with others' needs."

Courtney said parents should rest assured that although the approach may seem lenient, the school still maintains a zero-tolerance policy on bullying.

And while Courtney reported improvements in her own classroom, she said no one should expect all of Iqaluit's bullying woes to disappear immediately.

"It doesn't have to be done overnight," she said. "You take it one step at a time."

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