Robert Pogson

Hey! I attended a pretty cool conference. Actually I missed the first two days because weather put a low cloud ceiling over Shamattawa, but the two days I did attend were great.

On the first day, I attended a session on bullying by a wonderful lady who had lots of inspiring stories from her personal experiences and some famous and not so famous people. Her thesis is brilliant. Instead of struggling to deal with the bullies, she advises that we focus on the 80% who are not bullies and condition them to respond more positively to bullies by informing authorities or supporting each other. She said the way to get kids to confide in adults is to teach them about bullying and to promise (and keep the promise) of confidentiality. She told a story describing how a sibling of a bully spilled the beans at such a session and caused a dangerous situation to be nipped in the bud.

On the second day, I attended a session about funding from INAC and how schools need to deal with it. I was shocked to learn that INAC funds schools by a simply inadequate formula based on student population and not on all the costs of education. Then there are five year plans (shades of Stalin…) unresponsive to population increases and the like. This explains why teachers ten years ago were paid pretty well in this system but now have fallen far behind. We shared horror stories about how bands were shifting funds from education to support housing because the whole system is not well funded. While education gets a fair amount of funding, the lack of funding in other areas squeezes bands. We learned about openness and how it could help to make sure adequate planning is done to commit to spending monies properly and to follow through.

I learned other amazing things, like one school that had been built over a cave where snakes hibernated and because the building is warm in winter, it crawls with snakes! Yipes! I like snakes but most people have negative reactions and kids can be downright mean. These are harmless garter snakes but they certainly do not belong in a school. see Snakes Alive

Another school has no computer teacher so I offered to help remotely. Another wants to upgrade/expand/better utilize IT so I may help there, too. Maybe, I will have to delay my retirement or make it an active one.

To top it off, on the bus ride in on the second day, a couple of kids got on the bus and one had no bus fare. For $2, I felt good all day. Priceless. I did not want to be the bystander who did nothing when a wee kid was in trouble.