Elephant Thoughts First Nations and Inuit Education

Since our inception, Elephant Thoughts has serviced nearly one quarter of First Nations and Inuit schools across Canada. Our strength in Canada’s most remote schools is in providing tools that allow for the academic success of aboriginal students. We believe all students deserve a chance at an excellent education that provides the necessary foundation for post-secondary learning and career success. There are many challenges to providing consistently high standards of education in remote communities. We work with schools and communities to help overcome those obstacles.
Our programs help schools, teachers, and students excel. They address issues such as; shortages of qualified teachers, lack of availability of specialized resources, student apathy and low attendance, lack of community and parent connection to the schools.
All of our programs excite students to learn while building on the strengths of aboriginal students. Our interactive programs are all created by teams of professional educators from special needs educators, to specialist teachers, to First Nations teachers, to teachers with years of experience working in the north. This collaboration of ideas combines to create the most exciting and effective programs imaginable. These interactive programs combine academics, culture, and exploration. They encourage and build the students’ confidence as they engage both students and communities alike. Elephant Thoughts cultivates a love for learning and helps students build the self-esteem necessary to chase their dreams.
Consistent programming from Elephant Thoughts results in students displaying higher levels of motivation, they become more eager to achieve more and go farther in school. Teachers are armed with more great ideas and resources. Elephant Thoughts helps school boards, students, and the communities achieve a higher standard of education year after year.
Our education program synopsis includes in-school programs, community workshops, intensive tutoring programs (to enable graduates), mentorship and student leadership programs and summer camps. Our greatest success has been in enabling graduates through one-on-one and classroom tutoring in science, math, english and history. This is a program that was started three years ago at the request of a principal in the Cree School board in Quebec. When he contacted us he was desperate as his school had lost their science teacher at the beginning of the year and there was little hope that his students would be able to pass their end of year science exam meaning graduation would be impossible. Elephant Thoughts Executive Director Jeremy Rhodes drove to the community for a 6 week intensive tutoring program of which the students were more than thrilled to participate in. Out of 9 students all of them passed their science exams giving each of them renewed hope and self-confidence to continue their studies.
We have since been delivering tutoring programs throughout the year in the 9 schools that comprise the Cree School Board in Quebec with great success. We have enabled graduates in schools that have not seen one child graduate from high school in over 9 years. What started out as a group of 9 last year grew to around 100. We can safely say that every student who joins our program and stays with it will pass their exams. We put the students through rigorous testing before they write giving them the confidence to pass. There is no question that education is the key to new beginnings for these students. At Elephant Thoughts we have agreed for years that our greatest measure of success will be when the communities are filled with a majority of native teachers. That is when we will know we have really done our jobs.