For Betty Knighton, the goal isn’t teaching people what to learn, it’s about teaching them how they learn.
Knighton is a program assistant with NETP’s a-m’aa-sip Essential Skills program, which seeks to unlock each client’s learning potential by uncovering the learning mode (hands-on, visual, verbal, etc.) that best suits their intellectual makeup.
For each client, the seven-week program begins with a Structure of Intellect assessment, Knighton explained.
“You do a three-hour assessment that is timed,” she said. “We want to get a snapshot of a little piece of who you are.”
The assessment focuses on 27 different abilities within three different categories, Figural, Symbolic and Semantic, and they all integrate together to determine how you, as an individual, learn best.
Part of the process is also for each client to look back to determine where they may have had difficulties in “getting it” because the information was not presented to them in their optimal leaning mode.
Classroom education has typically involved one teacher delivering information verbally, with limited visual aid – often just more words, written on a blackboard. If you’re a hands-on learner, it can be terribly frustrating.
“We do the assessment, and it gives a print-out of what their strengths are, in reading, math, auditory/visual. If some areas are low, we have modules that can build up that ability. Their abilities can be modified and improved. And they do fluctuate.”
The combination of recognizing ones’ abilities, then working to build on strengths and improve weaknesses, can be a game-changer.
“When you know how you learn, you can ask the right questions so you can do what you need to get the information.”
The program uses a set of graduated modules, specific to each ability, to improve individual strengths and weaknesses. Knighton said at first there were difficulties because the modules originated in the U.S. and reflected an American viewpoint and culture.
“We have since developed modules that are more adapted to First Nations language and culture.”
Then there is the Educational Sensory Integration program.
“That’s the gym. But it’s not to build body muscles. It’s to build ‘brain muscles.’”
The ESI program uses a series of exercise stations to work on different parts of the brain.
“It’s mainly balance. In order to have balance, you have to be able to calm your mind.”
Balance is critical if you’re working on a construction site, Knighton said, but learning to achieve that inner calmness and stability pays dividends in any learning or workplace situation.
NETP brings in a wide variety of facilitators, including BMO, which offers a budgeting workshop. First Host focuses on frontline greeting and reception skills. Theresa Kingston teaches life skills, while Island Health conducts resume-writing and interview skills workshops.
There are also a number of certification programs that offer an aboriginal perspective, giving respect, knowledge of place and spirituality equal weight with literacy and numeracy. Instructors include Andrea Stoney-Amos, Isaac Charlie and Jan Green.
“And we also have the Sharing Your Voice certificate. It’s very good for interview skills – how to get up and speak. It’s really good for going back to school, because you often have to get up and give presentations.”
For Knighton, who grew up in her home community of Ditidaht (“I’m Tseshaht on my Dad’s side”), getting an education meant spending a good chunk of her childhood sitting in a bus.
“I lived in Ditidaht and travelled for school from K to 12 here in Port Alberni,” she said. It was an hour and a half each way.
From the point of view of time spent, all that commuting now feels like time wasted, Knighton said. Especially because, after being immersed in the a-m’aa-sip program for the past couple of years, she recognizes how that travelling time could have been spent far more constructively, using individual learning techniques, she said.
After graduating from Alberni District Senior Secondary, Knighton spent one full year at North Island College before moving back to Ditidaht, first working at the community store, then the school, and finally the band office.
“Then I moved out here to head back to NIC,” she said.
Knighton studied marketing, and realized she had found her own strength – not so much selling things, but in the ability to communicate and to ask questions. That summer, she was hired by Zellers, while the uptown retail store was winding down its local operation.
“But I wanted to learn more retail skills, so I came to NETP. They already had my resume, and they offered me a job on reception.”
At the end of the summer, instead of returning to NIC full-time, she accepted her current job as program assistant. She does continue to study at NIC, however, despite the pressures of raising two children, six and three, on her own.
“I’m taking financial accounting. My ultimate goal is to become a chartered accountant,” she said.
