The Medicine Wheel with Kathryn Froelich

One of the first things that we did do was we looked for models native models professional models because part of it is post-secondary success part of our grant focuses on making sure that students are ready to do college you know or a technical school or something you know and so we tried to figure out how can we get professionals in the schools so that they can visit with the kids you know and so the kids can see them that you know what here’s someone that looks like me came from my same kind of can relate to what I came through and they’re doing you know they’re successful at their job they’re professionals so that was a key component of what we do at mr AC with project and primary circle is to do that so mmm we brought in a doctor and at our school at white shield and standing rock it actually was my daughter she’d just finished residency and she hadn’t gotten a job yet and she said you know I want to do something I want to do something to give back does that generosity piece I want to give back she said so you have something for me to do because i’m done with residency and i’m just waiting to hear from firm about my job so i said sure you can go into the school will go to Standing Rock because she used to be a nurse as an RN at the high school in 48 and I said in white chill you’re from there so easily this is a perfect thing you know perfect you know opportunity so we did that we had to go in and she took her stethoscopes along and she worked with the high school kids and talked about her career path talked about being a young mother a single mother at 18 talked about struggling you know ficially and going back to school and designing to be a nurse and then working at 48 school I mean now for its the hoth hospital there and deciding that she was going to be a doctor and then going back again you know and the challenges and struggles now with four children you know all of that you know so she we used the Medicine Wheel as a career path we use that model as a career path and I still have that we were trying to develop a curriculum around it but that’s yet to come we have a good start but anyway and then having the kids look at what are their strengths you know so we have the students go through helped and she helped with that what are your strengths where are your what do you want to do you know and what’s going to help you to get there and all of this came up what your those kinship humor all of those areas came up as far as what’s going to help you get there your relatives they’ll help you need a babysitter because you have class they’ll they’ll help you just have to ask the humor you’ve got to be able to laugh at yourself you got to be able to laugh at you know challenges and mistakes that you might make we all make them what was the first 10 ceremonies you know you yes you will need you need an anchor spirituality some kind it doesn’t matter what you know whatever you need that you need that grounding you know traditional someone to talk to you know a mentor someone so that’s kind of what she did with each of the groups you know and then we went on and we brought others in we brought in Loretta bat Heart Ball who’s also a culture medicine kind of person a woman and but she’s also used to work for in the health field with Indian Health Service and then retired so then we started thinking about local experts and how their jobs they walk into Worlds how they might be at the tribal office as a ficial person but yet they still have all you know this cultural knowledge and so when we would bring them in they could do both they could talk about their success as a professional but they also could talk about how culture and language help them help them and how they still walk in those two worlds so it was important to keep it local those professionals so that the kids could really see themselves you know and you know I didn’t realize you know they didn’t realize that it’s there are successful professionals all around them you know they’re just not in the school they never see them in the school you know so that’s kind of what we did