Victoria Alexander spent much of her time in elementary school in detention.
Her education troubles continued into high school and by Grade 9, she was skipping classes, consistently showing up late for school.
Enter the Eagle Centre at Prince George Secondary School and a land-based program that Alexander, now 19 and a graduate, said finally changed the course of her learning journey.
Taking the class felt like she was back at home in Takla Landing, hearing stories from the Takla Lake First Nation elders.
"It just felt right," said Alexander, who was also experiencing problems at home.
"It helped with a lot of stress issues, helped me focus and started to make me friends."
For more than two years, she's also been part of the school district's aboriginal education youth advisory research group.
"The youth, we're not only learners, but we're also teachers," said Alexander, who is one of four students involved since day one.
"The fact that we can share our experiences I think helps a lot."
"I wanted to help make a difference for my little siblings and cousins and make sure they don't make the same mistakes that me and my other peers made."
That's exactly why Shari Wallace, the aboriginal education department's researcher, brought them on board.
"They're the ones that any research is going to impact. We have to keep them at the centre of the process," Wallace said.
The goal of the youth group, the research Wallace is doing and School District 57's aboriginal education department more generally is to increase the appalling graduation rates and education outcomes for aboriginal learners.
"That happens in creative ways," said Wallace. "There's no magic wand. There's things that every school can do and creative ways that every staff person and teacher can look at."
In School District 57, the aboriginal graduation rate was 48.8 per cent compared to 81 per cent of non-aboriginal students in 2014.
"Projects work and especially projects where the kids can really believe in it and make a difference."
Alexander and her counterparts - Isaiah Johnson, 18, Maisie Woods, 17 and Tyler Adams, 18 - agree that hope is what kept them coming back for the monthly meetings.
"I just think it's an amazing opportunity to be able to try and help the future generation," said Adams. "I feel like we're moving forward a lot faster than I was even expecting which is awesome."
It's also been a forum to develop friendships and build communication skills, trust and self-esteem. Next summer, the department hopes to offer a transition program to target the vulnerable years from elementary to high school.
"That was 100 per cent youth driven," said Wallace, adding it will give Grade 7's a chance to meet new students to form stronger connections with peers and teachers.
But the students unanimously agreed the pinnacle of their work was the recent production of a documentary, called Crow Brings a Message, which will be made public in the fall.
The plan is to show the documentary to educators and principals as a conversation-starter.
"Hopefully that will make them realize what needs to be done and we can start implementing aboriginal education more in schools," Adams said.
Johnson, who will enter Grade 12 next year, was the student face of the documentary, asking questions of the district's superintendent, teachers and elders.
It was a challenge for Johnson, who said he struggles with communication.
"I'm not really the kind of person to go up and ask for help from one of my peers or a teacher. I try and do it on my own so that throws me behind pretty far," said Johnson.
Even so, Johnson recounts one moment in a Grade 9 science class when he was compelled to speak up.
The teacher asked a student to read a piece in the text book about spirit bears.
"When they got to a legend part of the story of the subject one of the students made a comment about how aboriginal words are too complicated and how... stupid it is."
Johnson shot his hand up and said: "This is my culture."
The comments stopped after that but he still feels the sting of that moment, and the need to defend his culture.
"I didn't really find it nice how he was being pretty arrogant and mean about aboriginal language considering all of our language is never written, it's always just said," said Johnson, who is Tsimshian, which translates to "People of the Skeena."
Alexander's advice is to address ignorance by asking questions.
"When you ask question you get a better understanding instead of just assuming," she said.
Education and the residential school system
Alexander's grandparents all went to residential schools. As she discussed the trauma that reverberates through generations, her eyes welled with unshed tears.
"It runs through the blood," said Alexander, recounting their issues with drugs and alcohol. Her father also "picked up the habit," of drinking.
"It's just that whole thing of trying to forget. They're trying to drown all their memories in alcohol and drugs and they don't know it but they're actually saying it when they're drunk.
"It's pretty shocking what you hear from them, when they got raped and beat, it's pretty scary."
It took years for her grandmother to get clean and address her memories of Lejac Residential School at Fraser Lake.
Lejac was home to 11 men charged with sexual and physical abuse as well as Edward Gerald Fitzgerald, charged of 21 counts of assault against 10 boys, and "one of the worst documented individuals in the residential school system," according to the Indian Residential School Survivors Society. Fitzgerald fled to Ireland in 2002, a country with which Canada has no extradition treaty.
When Alexander was in elementary school, some teachers told a very different story.
"We heard about the residential school and how much it helped us," Alexander remembered.
"Some of the teachers said it was okay, it was good, but they didn't quite understand it themselves."
For Alexander, trust in teachers and counsellors has been a barrier, though she built better connections through the Eagle Centre and the aboriginal education department.
But understanding and acknowledgment of history can be a path forward.
"Not everyone agrees about it. They say it's in the past," said Alexander, recalling one classmate who asked why they had to learn about residential schools - a system that involved more than 130 schools, with the last one closed in 1996.
"It kind of hurt."
Talking has helped her come to terms with that past and her present.
"I learned a lot from the elders," she said, and touching on issues of domestic abuse: "They're still children, they're lost.
"What they got taught, they teach it to their children and their children pick it up," she said.
"My father's not the best role model, but he still deserves love."
She sees herself as an elder in training.
"I learned from my parent's mistakes so that's why I'm somewhat better I guess.
"Me and my siblings are trying to break that habit," she said of alcohol abuse.
"We just gotta learn how to break that cycle."
