I live and work in Waaswaaganing, which is the name of Lac du Flambeau in Ojibwemowin, the Ojibwe language.
Devon DeVerney | Lac du Flambeau
I have lived in Lac du Flambeau my whole life and work at Lakeland Union High School for a new program called Voyager. My childhood was pretty troubled. I grew up in a divided custody situation. At my mom’s there was no structure at all. At my dad’s, I didn’t get much attention, because he was always away working really hard to support us. School was mostly a nightmare. I felt like a failure. It was so hard for me to learn in that school setting. I dreaded being at school. I dreaded being at home. I got lost in drugs and alcohol for a while.
The one place I really felt at home was in the woods. I learned from the trees and from the animals I observed. The land and water were my teachers. My dad and other community members were part of that when they taught me what they had learned from their ancestors about hunting, fishing, and gathering. Looking back, it’s the only thing that saved me. John Winter was one of the few teachers who kept me going in school. He believed in me, he believed in every one of my classmates, as a person. He didn’t try to make me fit into a box. He paid attention to who I was and what I needed to become my best self.
When the Native kids on our reservation are in grade school and middle school, we make up about 97% of the student body. When we go into Minocqua for high school, joining students from feeder schools in other nearby communities, we become only 25% of the student body. It’s a big change. We become the minority, it’s almost like culture shock. In eighth grade you see all your friends in a classroom, then all of a sudden, you don’t see anybody. You’re the only Native in a classroom. It’s very challenging. That’s where a lot of our youth fall to the wayside and are unable to recover from that. And that’s not necessarily their fault.
Our Voyager program helps ease that transition and maintain a connection to our cultural ways. Voyager helps broaden the spectrum of possibilities in kids’ eyes. College may be for them, but we show that there may be other paths for them to follow as well. It helps them see that they can continue on their path of ecological, spiritual, and traditional knowledge from the lands that they were given. Voyageur focuses not only on using traditional practices to teach but also on getting students to see different avenues like various trades.
I was fortunate to get traditional and cultural teachings from my community and was encouraged by my dad. When kids don’t come from nuclear homes or places where they have support, school needs to be the next best place for them to find that support. I wish school had been that for me when I was growing up. I wish I could have gone to a program like Voyager, that was focused on me and what I wanted to do, and where I wanted to go. I wish I had had that support. That’s what we’re trying to create with our program. Being a new program we have our ups and downs. People outside the program don’t really understand the time and the dedication that it takes to be able to mold our kids into something greater than what they think they are so they don’t end up being a statistic or a dropout. We are dedicated to their success in whatever they want to be. No matter what they want to do, no matter who they want to be, their success and just being a good person and being a functional human in our community is our goal.
It is important to me that the youth in our community understand that a lot of people in our community are willing to help. All you have to do is ask.
I learned about fishing and hunting from my dad, but not a lot culturally. So I reached out to others in the community. Duane Poupart taught me how to harvest birch bark and make birch bark baskets. Wayne Valliere and Leon Valliere taught me traditional Ojibwe hunting skills such as snow snake and hoop and spear through the Ojibwe Winter Games. Arnold Jack, my grandpa taught me how to fish at all times of the year and how to set nets, clean fish, and take care of animals. I also reached out to other communities in Bad River and Fond du Lac and Menomonie. Joseph Gokee helped me tremendously by guiding me to live off the land and showing me the power of brotherhood, to give back to the community even if you don’t get anything in return. I learned from so many leaders and teachers and educators. There are just pieces from each community that I was able to go out and see and listen to and gain knowledge from. And I’ll continue to do that until the day I die.
And there’s also great knowledge in books too. Braiding Sweetgrass is a very good book that we should all live by. Lots of things in there that I hold close to my heart that I try to follow. That’s where a lot of stuff about who we are and what we’ll become stems from, just knowing that this Earth and this place is a gift that we need to nurture just as much as it helps us. And when we understand that, we’ll be truly free.
We bring this knowledge into the Voyager at Lakeland Union High School. Our program helps our students see through Native eyes, to keep the connection to our cultural ways. That things that come from the earth should be treated with respect and not thought of as just things to use, but more as gifts that we have been given. At Voyager we do things that our people have done forever, we harvest wild rice and harvest a deer to teach students what to do with the deer. We do things for the community too, like shoveling snow or delivering food to elders. Because at the end of the day, we’re all relatives.
Last year I was doing school online through Haskell University and trying to get my Native American studies finished up. The principal called me up and said that there was an opportunity with the Voyager Program, that this program was very new and very open-ended.
There was a spot there for a paraprofessional. That’s something that I always wanted to do, to be in education. I thought to myself, ‘Man, this is kind of fast. I didn’t think I was going to be in this realm of education for a few more years when I was kind of more established.’ I was really scared of doing something like that, but then I thought to myself, ‘Man, this is the opportunity you might not ever get again.’ And so I told him, ‘Yeah, I’m interested. As long as there are people in there that have knowledge and power, I want in that place.’
So I took that opportunity to learn from Jenny Van Arder and Fred Maulson. Jenny and Fred were the teachers this first year. Those two people have helped me grow tremendously. Because you think you know everything until you start doing it. This year has been probably one of the greatest years of my life, especially being around those kids who were pretty much in my shoes when I was their age. I was very troubled, and didn’t know where to go, or who I was. That’s pretty typical with a lot of students, especially when they fall behind. You don’t think you can see that light at the end of the tunnel.
It has been a very humbling and rewarding experience for me, seeing the growth in a lot of our most troubled youth. Seeing where they were in the beginning of the year, thinking that they had nowhere to turn. Some of them that didn’t think they were going to college are going to college now. I really like being there for someone that might not have anybody because I know that feeling. I know that dark place is a very hard place to come out of, especially with the appeal of drugs and alcohol and the things they think are the only things to do around here in Waswagoning. But in reality, there’s so much more to do. This is a beautiful place that a lot of our youth don’t understand quite yet.
Last year we had 25 students with two teachers and me. This year it’s one teacher and me. I’m still working on my degree through Haskell, although It’s been very hard to do both things. This will be my life’s work. It’s something that I believe in and want the community to see in a good light. I’m getting unbelievable support from the district and the principal and everyone around LUHS. The atmosphere for Native students has improved a lot. They actually want it to be a full four-year program. We’re just pretty much in the beginning steps of figuring out what we’re doing and tying those projects to high school standards so it’s applicable to anyone. Students are asked to enroll in the Voyageur program, and for some of them, it’s their only way to graduate high school. If they don’t go into this program, that’s pretty much it. But a lot of those kids, when you put down expectations and rules and things of that nature, it’s pretty much what they need and they prosper. Now, with a program that’s focused on them, who they are, and where they come from it helps them so much.
I always looked up to Goober, John Johnson (the current tribal chair). He and my dad used to take me hunting all the time and tell me stories. That’s where I went to stay out of trouble. They would teach me how to process deer and show me all the things that they would do with the deer. How to use the hooves and the brain, tanning, and things of that nature. Those things never left me.
It is important for teachers to understand that sometimes education isn’t the first thing on kids’ minds when they walk through that door. There can be a multitude of problems and a lot of times teachers see their students more than their parents do. When teachers understand that they can make a big difference in that student’s life instead of just seeing them as a checklist or a grade point, it can help not only the student but also the teacher teaching those kids. It makes our world a much better place. I want to be a part of that.
Devon’s story was produced by Carol Amour.
