Cherie's Story

Cherie’s Distance Education Story
Cherie began our conversation by introducing herself through her family relationships. “My mother is from… Inuvik, Northwest Territories and my Dad's from Fort Rez and they're both educators. My mom taught for over 35 years; she has retired, but she's still subbing and my Dad teaches second languages in Fort Smith. They both work there, and I literally grew up in a classroom.” Cherie says, “I have three children. My oldest son just turned 22, and I have a second son who's 18 … and my daughter's 14. When I had my first son my goal was to go back to school.”
Cherie said that getting her education “was a slow process.” Enrolling and completing “upgrading, which seemed [to take] like forever” was her first step. “I really wanted to succeed in obtain[ing] a career, that was my overall goal.” Cherie had to jump through many hoops to obtain her education. “I started off [in] basic education and I didn't know I had a passion for teaching until I started subbing in at the school here … I wanted to be a teacher.”
“I've worked my way up within my employment at Dene school. I started off as a school librarian. That's how I got my foot in the door and then I started subbing because they didn't have any subs in the community. So, I was their number one substitute teacher for about three years and then one day my principal asked me to go back to school. She wanted me to actually take TEP [Teacher Education program]. But I had other passions, I think through that work experience. So, I started working as a principal and then a teacher's assistant, and then a relief support worker and now I'm a Junior Kindergarten teacher.”
Cherie has worked and studied concurrently over the years. “So, I just [started] working my way up and going to school … I was able to accomplish that through putting my skills into action.” Cherie admitted that she is a shy person, however within her program she learned about well-being and developed her communication skills which helped her to share her passions and interests. Cherie says, “it all connects … before I really was a shy person. I didn't have much to say, but with the studies that I've taken it feels good to talk about your passion and really know what you're talking about …. It's such a rewarding feeling.”
Engagement.
When asked about engagement in her program Cherie responded by saying, “I felt engaged in school during my online distance education courses.” Initially, when Cherie began the Early Learning and Childcare program, “courses were done through teleconference.” Cherie appreciated having the real time connections with other students and her instructor. Although Cherie’s earliest teleconference experiences connected Cherie and her classmates to a southern instructor located in Toronto, Cherie acknowledges that “we built a really good bond like she [the instructor] was able to recognize our voices … over time … we're staying connected through teleconferences.” These real time connections fostered personal growth and Cherie says, “I believe that this made the biggest difference as over time I came comfortable with sharing my thoughts and opinions.” Being connected and engaged with others in the class helped Cherie and she expressed, “It was just a real eye-opening experience. I think for me, because after I started achieving my goals and being so dedicated, I knew it was gonna be hard work. But I just made short term goals and I just focused on those and that's what really helped me, instead of looking at the long-term goal because that was always frustrating.” Cherie summarized her thoughts by saying, “Although distance education has been long a long process, I'm proud of myself for not giving up. It felt very rewarding to be connected with other early childhood educators within the Northwest Territories and that we had that in common.” Cherie says, “I made a lot of friends and… I just grew so much as an educator and I feel like I'm an asset to my community.”
Engagement - Reasons for Cherie’s Success.
Cherie identified several reasons for her success, including paying attention to her internal motivation and professional relationships. Cherie identified personal skills she needed to focus on: “I had to practice time management and remain dedicated to short-term goals. I had to… do self recognition and reflect on my compliments and then set new goals and put my skills into action like I mentioned and I had to build positive relationships with my family and the families I worked with [including] my interns, my instructors, my colleagues.” Cherie was also motivated to succeed in early childhood because of her children’s needs. Specifically, Cherie shared that one of her children has “high-functioning autism and ADHD. So, through his experience in school and the lack of support that he had, it really inspired me to work with children, especially [children] that had difficulty with disorders … I wanted to be there for our future children. I wanted to be that supporter that wasn't there for my son in school … and I think by going back to school too… I really helped my older boy finish school too.”
Cherie explained the professional influences on her success through a conversation she had with the principal in her school. Cherie said, “I mentioned to my principal that I was doing an interview with you and he mentioned like how driven I am and what an amazing person I[‘ve] become … he came back [to work after a leave] and he's noticed such a difference in where I am compared to where I was when he left.” Cherie also acknowledges the importance of the relationships she has with the children in her program. “A lot of children tell me that they love me. I've been given little notes like ‘I love you’ and today a little boy gave me a paper and had a big heart and I don't think he was thinking of me when he drew it, but when he saw me, he gave it to me. So, I've, I've watched the kids grow and they've, you know, they've known me for at least eight years now.” Cherie also says, “I think they really appreciate the fact that I'm Aboriginal and that they could make that connection with me because I share the language and I share the culture.” Cherie identified the importance of being a role model to Aboriginal students in her school and how important it is to be able to share her culture and ways of knowing with the children.
When asked about her personal beliefs that helped her to reach her goals, Cherie responded by saying, “I am able to be successful, I had to tell myself that off right off the bat. I had to change my lifestyle … in regard[s] to the people I was hanging around with, so I had to cut off ties with [some] people. So, I am able to be successful, I can set goals and achieve one at a time. I am worthy of happiness and success. I'm able to achieve anything if I want it bad enough; it will be done. That's what I had to tell myself. I had to really believe in my ability to achieve my goals. Because growing up in [a small south slave community] at the age of 14, we were transferred to Hay River and we had to live in a residential school and the educators there weren't happy about us being transferred there because it was more of a workload for them. So, they told us stuff like you're here because your parents didn't want you … you're not smart and really criticized Aboriginal students, so it really affected my self esteem. I believed that I wasn't smart for many, many years … I had to believe that I was smart and now that I'm achieving like honors. It's so rewarding, you know, like, it's sad to say that it took so long, but I'm just happy it's happening. That's what I focus on.”
Relationships.
Cherie describes many supportive relationships in her life and throughout her educational journey including her relationships with her family, colleagues within the school system, and instructors in the Early Learning Childcare program. With regards to Cherie’s family relationships she says, “I've been supported [by] my family and value their patience. My common law and my children have been growing with me throughout the years. I don't regret going back to school and the amount of time it is taking as I'm a positive role model to my children. They look up to me and appreciate how hard I work for our well-being as a family.” Cherie also says, “I use the Dene laws and I use my parents and my grandparents. I took my kids pictures and I used our lifestyle to build my philosophy and it was really …inspiring for me to reflect back and look at how young they were when I started my learning journey and how patient they've been with me and how proud they are.”
On supportive relationships within the school system, Cherie explains how supervisors and colleagues supported her educational journey: “educators that wrote reference letters for me when I first got into the program” supported her application into the program. Other educators “watched me grow …. I started off as their support worker and now I'm doing their job, like I replaced them so they could move up because we're all working. We're all working at our own career goals. So, the lady that I was working with last year is working towards a master’s [degree now] …. I did my field placement within my certificate program [with her] and she'll probably be my supervisor again for my diploma.”
With regards to instructional supports within the program Cherie says, “I can honestly say that 90% of my instructors value my work and expressed gratitude toward my effort. I'm pleased with the Early Learning Childcare instructors as they are just as passionate as I am to be working in the field of education. It truly makes a world of difference when educators support and acknowledge each other. So, I said majority of instructors helped me to be successful through their proactive encouragement, as they always focused on my character strengths and praised me for my ability to share my work experience. They inspired me to teach with a passion as they do. This I stay true to and value their guidance and through my educational experiences.”
Currently, the program is offered virtually through weekly Microsoft Teams sessions, which has opened up other types of connection for Cherie and other interns enrolled in the program. Cherie shares that students are able to “do small group activit[ies]” which allow students to stay connected and support one another. Students, who may already have past connections and relationships look forward to reconnecting face to face. Cherie says, “during graduation, I’ll see my friends, I’ll see my classmates in Smith. I’ll have about three of them with me and then a lot of them come from Inuvik, where I come from, so they know my Mom, they know my grandparents and they get to know me and it’s really nice.”
Course Content and Resources.
When Cherie was asked about her thoughts on course content and resources she says, “I think it's educational and purposeful.” “They give us links and stuff like that. They have good examples, but we usually do all the work ourselves. So, we sit in there and they lecture to us and then after we do our two-hour meeting, they give us assignments based on our session and then we just go to town. Yeah, and we reflect on whatever we learned in that session.” Cherie adds, “Everything relates to our work experience.” Cherie appreciates when instructors prepare curricula “that reflect on Aboriginal curriculum and philosophy and inclusion and all that, like I could really connect with that. So, I think the resources are limited, but at the same time I really value all the effort that instructors put into it. I think … [that] they go over and beyond, and they work with what they have just like we do.” Another important point Cherie makes is, “Yeah, and one thing I like is that they, they look at us as interns … they really have a high respect for us. They don't look down at us the way my high school experience was. So that's a good thing, yeah.” Cherie also realizes that not all interns in the program have the same opportunities or life experiences; she says, “I think the ones [interns] that don't have access to certain work experience are the ones that struggle the most.”
Cherie also shared her thoughts on the progression of the program from a teleconference program format to a virtual online approach. She says that the way the courses are offered now is “really good … we get to see each other and it's once a week … and I think it's, it's a better program now because the instructors no longer in Toronto, these instructors work together at the same campus … I think it makes a really big difference.” Cherie also shared her thoughts on having northern instructors teach from the NWT, “I think that [it] makes [a] difference because they just know the program like the back of their hand, because they're doing it all day and then they meet in the evening and they're doing it again and they work as a team to grade papers.”
Assessment and Evaluation.
When Cherie was asked about her thoughts on the grading process and the use of the competency assessment profile [CAP] she respond, “I put a lot of effort into it [CAP posts] and I go over and beyond, but lately I've been telling myself, you know because I know what I'm like, my profession, I don't stress out about editing like I used to. Because I would do it [get stressed out] and then I wanna reword it and it just would be a waste of time … I was never good at short and sweet, but now I'm getting better at it.”
Challenges.
When Cherie was asked about challenges she experienced, she indicated that time was a major challenge; “time made it difficult because I did my studies within the Early Learning and Childcare through distance as I wasn't willing to relocate to Yellowknife.” … [Sometimes courses weren’t available] “it just made me feel anxious because I had to, like, wait till they offered my courses to me. So sometimes I'd have to face a semester where I already took the courses and I'd have to wait for the following semester.” Technology is also a limiting factor in remote postsecondary education in the NWT, however administration in Cherie’s program is working to improve systemic inequities by providing jump drives to students with limited broadband capacity. Cherie says, “I work with the college where they give me a, a … what is it called? It's not a jump drive, but you plug it into your laptop and you get Internet. Yeah. So, they [administration] they gave me that access. So, it's really good that way.”
One Word to Describe Why You are Successful.
Cherie had two words to describe herself. When she was first asked during the interview, she identified the word “dedication”. However, after she shared some of her story she indicated, that in preparing for our conversation the “word was actually content”.
Most Important Thoughts from the Interview.
Cherie says the most important thoughts from our interview are, “That I never gave up; I consider myself a leader. Like, because I'm leading, I inspire other people to achieve their goals today. I guess that I'm just proud, I'm proud of who I am, I'm proud of where I'm from, and what I've become, you know, overtime. I'm just proud, yeah. Mm-hmm.”
“I'm so willing to help people today because throughout my journey, I didn't really have the support from the community. Although I'm a quiet person, I still don't feel that I have support from the community, the people that watched me grow up and watched me thrive and grow and they don't come up to me and say ‘congratulations’ or anything like that. And I've learned that, you know, it's not important what other people think of you, but it would be still nice for them to acknowledge your success and be happy for you. So that's a really big thing for me when I meet people and I wanna help them. Like when they said that you were looking to interview people, I felt that you're trying to do your job and I wanna help you do your job and that what I have to offer you is valuable to what you're trying to accomplish too.”
Final Thoughts – Gratitude.
Cherie says, “And it makes me feel really privileged and honored to, to, to be working within my community. Yeah. And it made me feel really good to know that … my principal considers me as an asset within our team.” Cherie also says, “I feel that I'm very fortunate to be working in the Aboriginal community, especially one that I grew up in because I could really relate to some of the assignments.”
Cherie says, “I had to be dedicated, to my dreams, to the things that I set out to do long time ago. And when I did that, I was… discourage[d] because I knew it was going to take long, but I knew what I wanted in the long run and at the end of the day, I'm, I'm so proud of myself for achieving my goals and I'm so fortunate to meet people like you and I just feel so happy and content.” Cherie is looking forward to her graduation where she will be able to reconnect with other interns to celebrate their success. Cherie also wanted to share this: “I've been a leader within my community as an educator, as a student, within Aurora College, as I encourage others to pursue their educational goals and strive for success.”