 program we go in right into the classroom right into the Venkatov school and the program is a model that we're using and his name is Gilbert J. Botvin and there are three sections that we touch on personal self-management, general social skills and social resistance skills. So within those areas there are eight programs that we go through. The first one is self-esteem, decision-making, smoking, advertising, dealing with stress, communication, social skills, and assertiveness. And our other program that we cover is the after-school yellow bus program. How this works is Heather and myself get on the bus at the school with the children and we take the ride home with the students. We bring with us some material. We have these activity boards which will include either an Aboriginal activity or some hidden pictures. These activities keep the students busy while they're on the bus so it keeps them out of trouble. They are able to make friends at the same time as they're doing their activities and we're also on the bus to help the driver with behavioral problems and we're there to help against any sort of bullying that could take place on the bus. Currently I believe we are the only people that are doing this within Edmonton riding the school bus with the driver to ensure safety and fun and it makes it makes for a very rewarding experience for everybody. Well for the life skills we're in classes grades 3 to 6 so currently we're in six classrooms and we take a half hour out of the teacher's time which is actually within their health curriculum. The age group for the yellow bus is from kindergarten to grade 9. What in your opinion makes it an example of excellence in Indigenous education? Well they're learning a lot of things about basically well the personal self-management which is how you know goal-setting, problem-solving, decision-making. Social skills are learning how to communicate, how to make a friend, how to keep a friend and the social resistance skills is a big part of it. We teach about smoking in the harmful effects and also about alcohol in the harmful effects and within our teachings we just do a lot of fun activities within the half hour so we do a lot of role playing, a lot of question and answer and we do have some items that we bring in to do visual aids for example when we're talking about anger we have made a like a volcano and that's how we kind of show how when you don't talk to anybody your anger can build up and you explode like a volcano so we use our visual aids to to help teach us. And how do you measure the success of this program? Well at the beginning there are actually three levels so beginning school year September to December there's level one and then from January to March level two and mid-March to June level three and how the program works is level one and level two and level three we teach the same topics over and over and over again so they get for example self-esteem three times in a row. So within that first time second time third time it is built up and they're learning different things about self-esteem and within all of that the program is basically they're we're trying to have the kids cognitively hear the information and listen to the information and kind of take that all in and kind of level two they're kind of shifting their behavior into um gee you know that you know maybe I can help out a friend if a friend is being bullied and then the third level it's like at the end of the year we're hoping that they basically they have shifted so they actually will intervene when a friend of theirs is being bullied for example so how we measure that is we do have a pre-test and a post-test so in September we we have a pre and then after the first level we have a post and another post another post and so at the end of the school year we have significant valid information that we have collected that they are changing and they are behaviorally changing how they're thinking and what they're doing I believe that indigenous education is having some cultural aspect to the education that the students are learning if that is a language here in Edmonton the language taught in school is Cree at the school that we that we are a part of and we're very happy to be happy to be a part of Benkafrup school they also teach regalia making they teach how to dance palo dancing jigging fiddling beating all these different aspects which if we don't teach these things to the younger generation these things are going to be lost over time so I'm very happy to be a part of that what is your vision for indigenous education over the next 10 years well that's a tough one because I think it could go on and on basically every every day is a learning day and every year is a learning year and we've actually seen kids grow up we've been in school for five years now so we've been teaching this program there for five years and the stories that have come out of what we've taught kids are coming up to us and saying I you know I didn't take that cigarette when it was offered to me I helped a friend when the friend was being bullied I made a good decision for myself today I didn't steal that chocolate bar when I was peer pressure too so as we go down the years I think every year builds on the next year and the kids will be graduating from the school and being a part of society and and having their own kids and teaching their own kids what they've learned what information or materials resources do you need to achieve that vision aside from funding well I think we have passion I think me and Tanya we work together well and I think the school sees the the passion that we have for the life skills program and the bus program and we're very welcome in the school to partake in other activities that they're having we walk into the school and the kids are walking down the hallway and they wave to us yeah they're always happy to see us we get hugs every day yeah and and the other part is they tell us things that they haven't told anybody else so we're not teachers we're not a parent we're kind of somebody else that comes in the school and they basically can they tell us things and they they're happy to see us and and boy that they grow well like we've seen little ones grow and they're in some of them kids are taller than me now so um so that's passion I think the passion and and what we give and I think everybody sees that what I love to hear is yay we get life skills today are you on our bus awesome so the kids are very happy to have us in their classrooms and on their bus it's a lot of fun the programs that we teach are great they really are they're so good that I actually put my kids in that school just to be able to access these programs and to be able to to learn these different things