Ed. classes & culture a winning combination at SUNTEP

SUNTEP Saskatoon Co-ordinator Sheila Pocha, second from left, joins SUNTEP students on a trip to the Navajo Nation in New Mexico, a valuable cross-cultural experience for the Saskatchewan teachers-in-training. Behind the group is the famous "Shiprock", a 1,700-foot-high sacred mountain formed by a volcanic vent 27 million years ago. Photo courtesy of SUNTEP Saskatoon

SUNTEP Saskatoon Co-ordinator Sheila Pocha takes a break in the program’s resource centre, in McLean Hall.

If you don’t look closely, it’s all-too-easy to miss one of the real success stories on campus.

In its unassuming offices and classrooms in the basement of McLean Hall, you’ll find the story of SUNTEP (the Saskatchewan Urban Native Teacher Education Program) – a long-running program that, by making a few culturally sensitive adaptations, manages to bridge the gap between Métis and First Nations students and a fully accredited four-year Bachelor of Education university program.

The result is that SUNTEP, begun in 1980 under the authority of the Gabriel Dumont Institute, the province’s Métis educational organization, has now been successfully running three teacher-education programs – one each in Prince Albert, Saskatoon, and Regina – for 21 years, and has graduated a total of 534 fully qualified teachers. The majority, 79 per cent, are women.

SUNTEP Saskatoon Co-ordinator Sheila Pocha says there are a few important keys to SUNTEP’s success.

The first is the fact that, still being a direct-entry, four-year program, with its own space in McLean Hall, first-year SUNTEP students receive lots of peer support and caring one-on-one attention from faculty and staff.

Also, Pocha says, there’s a real effort made to build Métis and First Nations cultural components into the program. The slight modifications from the regular U of S College of Education program include Cree-language lessons, Drama, and cultural art activities.

"We try to maintain arts, especially as it relates to Métis culture," Pocha says.

On top of that, each year a group of students goes to Winnipeg for the Festival de les Voyageurs, rich in Métis culture.

Another group goes each year to New Mexico for a week of cultural and educational interaction with people in the Pueblo and Navajo Nations.

"The students work many bingos to get there," Pocha says.

She is a firm believer in the value of such a wide exposure to Aboriginal cultures, combined with rigorous teacher training in the SUNTEP program allied closely with the mainstream U of S College of Education program.

The first two years at SUNTEP, students attend in their own program’s space. In the final two years they tend to combine in-school four-month internships with coursework in the regular College of Education.

Pocha is proud of the students, who work through the program with almost no dropouts and a higher-than-80-per-cent employment rate after graduation.

She’s also proud of faculty Anne Boulton, Skip Kutz and Linda Lysyk, and secretary Ruth Daniels.

The SUNTEP space in McLean Hall has a jam-packed resource centre for students, as well as a common room.

Pocha understandably has a soft spot for SUNTEP. She enrolled as a 19-year-old in 1982, graduated in 1986, and taught in the North and in Saskatoon Public Schools before returning to SUNTEP as Co-ordinator in 1998.

She says through the dedication of staff and students, and a high-quality, culturally sensitive teacher-education program, hundreds of Métis and First Nations people are becoming valuable teachers in schools throughout Saskatchewan.

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