Ben Calf Robe unique for 25 years

The Ben Calf Robe School­ St. Clare Elementary Junior High School celebrated 25 years of providing academic and cultural programming to First Nations, Metis and Inuit children in Edmonton on May 12.

The Thundering Spirit Drum group performed the grand entry drum song as representatives from the school advisory council, the superintendent of schools, the board of trustees, the Alberta government and the Ben Calf Robe School Dancers made their way to the stage.

During this time, staff and students positioned themselves outside the gymnasium door as they prepared for the Honoring our Grandfathers, Four Directions Prayer. Students from grades one through nine carried an object representing each Grandfather-fire, rock, water and wind.

Since 1981, the school has been teaching the lessons of smudge, sweetgrass and the sacred pipe to its students.

Principal Bryan Richardson, inspires them to build on their own strengths and values. He added that the "real significant teachings" come from the Elders, 14 of which come in on a regular basis to speak to the children about the Cree culture.

"We have such a great respect for our Elders," said Richardson. "That's a key attribute to the program to have those Elders come in and speak with the children. It really helps our kids' self-esteem because they see positive people in our community and they want to emulate them and they want to become an Elder."

According to Richardson a large part of the programming at the school is developed from what the Elders suggest and think would be beneficial to the kids.

"When we are planning for the next year, we have a circle with our Elders and we ask them what they want to see and we honor what they say and we bring it into our school program," said Richardson.

For example, the Elders suggested that for next year they would like to have more involvement with the kids, therefore Bryan Richardson created Wednesday and Thursday sessions, where the Elders will come in each week and talk with the children.

Although they have been in operation for 25 years, Richardson admits that they are still building the program.

"We're getting better at what we're doing in terms of how our program operates," said Richardson. "The kids get a well-rounded knowledge of all the medicines. We honor the grandfather and grandmother spirits of the four directions and we honor them with our medicines."

Those medicines are tobacco for the east, sage for the south, cedar for the west and diamond willow fungus for the north.

Richardson believes strongly in the school's program. He said the school is known in the Aboriginal community as being an academic school program that also teaches Native spirituality as much as catholicity.

"Our strength lies in our ability to coordinate the Native spirituality and the catholicity within the academic," said Richardson. "I'm not saying that the other schools are not doing a good job because every school is unique to its own design."

However, Richardson said the staff really prides themselves on providing the best education and ensuring that the kids really take hold of their culture and honor it.

"What we really excel at and what we're really good at is when the children come into the school they know that from the time they leave home to the time that they get home at the end of the day, they're going to get great love. They'll also get first class education in academics and in their traditional way, the good red road. I think that the self-esteem that we build in our children and the way that we help our children to realize and develop resiliency, so that no matter what happens in our lives, we will be able to handle it."