Local high school teachers are working to fill a gap in Culture Days programming in Flin Flon schools.
From Kindergarten to Grade 8, local students take part in the Superstar program in schools on the Friday of Culture Days. Now, students who have gone through that program and have entered high school will have the opportunity to take part in hands-on cultural activities to kick off Culture Days.
Natalie Milligan, a French immersion teacher at Hapnot Collegiate, has coordinated Culture Days events this year at the school with the help of several of her peers.
“For me, Culture Days has always been a really big part of Flin Flon,” said Milligan, who will participate in her seventh Culture Days weekend in Flin Flon this year.
“It was one of the first things I did when I moved here. It’s the way I met a lot of people, and I find it’s about getting out and meeting someone new and trying something different.”
Milligan explained that in her time as a teacher at Hapnot, the school has brought in a high quality guest speaker in advance of culture days. She said the speakers have been good, but that she feels Culture Days is more of a participatory event.
“I didn’t feel like it was leading into the weekend in the way it could,” said Milligan.
“It wasn’t like ‘Oh my God, this weekend I can do this, this and this.’”
Milligan began thinking about holding an afternoon of culture-based workshops about a year ago, in October 2017. She began actively pursuing people to lead the workshops around June.
“I was like, ‘It can’t be that hard to come up with workshops – we’ve done it before.’ All I was thinking in my head was, I know how talented the teachers at school are. I know they all have something they could offer if they wanted to.”
The response has been overwhelming. There are more than 10 workshops for students to choose from, from yoga to hoop dancing, a guitar workshop to songwriting, improv to medicine wheel based workshops, outdoor education to silk dying and beyond.
“Stuff came out of the woodwork that I wouldn’t even think of,” said Milligan, who added that several of the workshops are things that are already happening in the school, but that some students may not have had an opportunity to try.
“If kids aren’t getting them in their schedule, this is an opportunity to get it … or maybe they want to take that course,” she said.
Keeping hands-on Culture Days programming alive in the school gives students the opportunity to try new things.
“I find that, especially as adolescents, sometimes they’re nervous to get out of their comfort zone. To do something in an afternoon other than taking class and to be able to try hoop dancing or meditation or whatever it is, it gives them a chance in a place where they already kind of feel comfortable, hopefully, at school, to try something new with people that they know, and then decide whether it’s something they want to pursue,” said Milligan.
“Why wouldn’t we give them the chance to participate in culture, rather than hear about culture?”
Workshops will take place on the afternoon of Friday, Sept. 28 at Hapnot, while Culture Days kicks off that day in Flin Flon.
“I’m hoping it works out well, and I’m hoping the kids enjoy themselves,” said Milligan.
