Carleton University’s Centre for Initiatives in Education (CIE) offers an Aboriginal High School Mentorship program where Carleton students work as peer mentors with Aboriginal high-school students in the Ottawa area, through involvement in the classroom, lunch clubs, after-school clubs, or cultural clubs. This program is the result of a partnership between the CIE and Carleton’s Centre for Aboriginal Culture and Education (CACE). CACE supports Aboriginal (First Nations, Inuit and Métis) students through their academic journeys at the university.
The mentors are role models and academic/cultural coaches who assist students with their coursework by offering learning strategies and practical advice; the mentors’ post-secondary experiences enable them to refer students to helpful resources and information as a bridge between high school and post-secondary or career goals. The positive relationship between mentor and student helps increase confidence, contributes to the achievement of goals, and fosters an understanding about learning and life challenges. Currently, Carleton Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students are working at the Odawa Urban Aboriginal Alternative High School, which offers a fully Aboriginal curriculum in a holistic learning environment. The mentor program has recently expanded to include two mentors at Rideau High School.
In 2009, CIE’s Aboriginal High School Mentorship program, CACE and Odawa Urban Aboriginal Alternative High School collaborated to develop the Manaadjitowaanwin or ‘Respect’ Workshop. The purpose was to provide intensive training for the CIE/CACE Aboriginal student mentors as well as volunteers and staff from other organizations who work with Aboriginal youth, and to develop resources for training future mentors. This workshop represented a pilot project in developing local Aboriginal mentorship resources.
Although the CIE has extensive experience in mentor training for multicultural situations, and many of the principles and practices of our university mentorship program apply to the high-school program, in the Aboriginal field, such programs are often founded in Aboriginal principles, for example, the grandfather teachings, and we had come to realize that our mentors need to be aware of these principles and understand the perspectives they offered on working with Aboriginal youth.
Additional funding will allow CIE to expand the program at Rideau High School by hiring more mentors and to develop a second workshop which will provide Aboriginally-based training for mentors and volunteers so that they will be better able to work with and support high-school students who participate in the mentoring program. Carleton University and the community benefit by having mentors and volunteers from mainstream schools and other Aboriginal organizations attend and materials developed which are based on the grandfather teachings and other Aboriginal organizing principles/teachings.
Comments
Hi! This is an interesting project. I like that there are connections between two schools in different parts of Canada. Can you tell me more about how the two schools partnered with each other? What are some of the activities in the partnership to ensure ongoing learning? What makes this an innovative and unique mentorship project?
Hello Carolyn, and thanks for the questions.
At present our partnerships are with two Ottawa schools, Rideau High School and the Urban Aboriginal Alternative High School. The partnerships are between the Centre for Initiatives in Education/the Centre for Aborginal Culture and Education and each school, however we are looking at ways to encourage joint activities between the two schools, particularly through cultural activities such as drumming.
The question of ongoing learning is profound and at least two-pronged: in the area of ongoing academic learning, for Aboriginal students to continue towards high school completion and some form of post-secondary education, the learning experience has to be positive. Our mentors provide tutoring and classroom assistance, helping students to overcome learning hurdles and experience positive associations with their schoolwork. They are also role models as Aboriginal youth who have overcome similar difficulties, have graduated from high school, and have gone on to higher education. They are always ready to answer students' questions and provide assistance in researching ongoing educational opportunities.
In the area of lifelong learning, our mentors organize and/or participate in social and cultural activities which hopefully the students will carry on in some form throughout their lives: talking circles, dancing, drumming, regalia making, camping trips, rock climbing excursions, other physical activities,fund-raising, and more. They organize lunches in one of the schools, which encourages students to feel more comfortable about asking for information about post-secondary or for academic support,which in turn creates positive feelings around being at school.
This program is unique in Ottawa, and the level of training/debriefing (weekly sessions and full-day sessions at the start of each semester) is extensive. Because these are paid student positions, our mentors are able to dedicate considerable time and energy to mentoring activities, and are able to help support themselves while making this significant contribution to local youth. Our assisting teachers in each school report that the mentors make a significant contribution to programming and support.
I hope this helps to answer your questions, and would be pleased to elaborate on any aspect of the program.
Best regards
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