"You Can Do It!"

Thursday afternoon Waneek Horn-Miller spoke to the conference attendees about her life and her thoughts on resiliency. She says that over the course of your life you gain different ways to be resilient and when you face adversity you can then pull techniques from this toolbox, or quiver of arrows. It was clear from Waneek’s stories that she feels family is an important source of learning resiliency skills; she said that her mother showed her how to be strong and her sisters showed her how to make her own path. It became very clear that the lessons learned from her mother have played a large role in helping her to become the strong person she is today.

Waneek told stories of her mother’s activism, such as the time she released live rats in Jean Chrétien’s office, who at the time was Minister of Indian Affairs, in an attempt to have a landfill location changed. Needless to say, the dump was moved soon afterwards. Waneek also spoke of how her mother brought her along to Oka in order to show her how strong of a people she comes from. Examples such as these helped to fortify the warrior spirit of the Mohawk people within Waneek, something which has helped her to be more resilient throughout her life.

Her mother also made sure that Waneek was aware of the hardships she would face, but was always encouraging. She taught Waneek that she would have to give her all in order to overcome stereotypes; from a young age she was told “It’s going to be hard, but you were born with everything you need to make it.” Waneek’s mother also did whatever she could to help overcome these challenges, when she introduced Waneek to the world of sport she enrolled her and her sisters into sports without judges so that their “Indian-ness” would not be a problem. When Waneek was young her mother had her watch the Olympic Games, the event captivated her and she set a personal goal to one day compete in them. Instead of being patronizing, her mother gave her validation and told her “You can do it!” Years later, Waneek would go on to become co-captain of Canada’s 2000 Olympic Women’s Water Polo Team.

What stood out the most for me about Waneek’s story was the powerful effect one’s family can have. In many cases like Waneek’s this is for the good, but unfortunately it is not always this way. However, others can also have a strong influence in contributing to the resiliency toolbox of children. I believe that as educators and role models, people working with children in schools have a duty to help develop this toolbox. By providing encouragement and validation to children, and by setting a strong example, we can help them to learn not just what they need to know for the test but also skills they will use when facing adversity throughout life. What do you think? Post your thoughts in the comments.