Earl Celesta

Earl Celesta stand outside the school where he works.

Earl Celesta went to Neqweyqwelsten School for just two years but now two of his own kids are going to the school and getting more of the benefit of the on-reserve community lead education that he started his schooling with. He now works for the band and the school doing maintenance work, but looks back at his time as a student fondly.

 “Probably one of the better schools, for myself, I kinda wish I did stick around a little longer just mainly for language and stuff, but I have a son who’s here now and he’s learning a lot more that I have,” he said. “It’s been awesome. I know the teachers. I grew up with their kids here in Chu Chua. I’ve always had that warm feeling when I come here, I work here as well.”

When asked what role he thought the school played in the community, he overwhelmingly thought it was important.

“They interact  with everyone who is in the community as well they do do some of the outside community as well so that’s for my kids, a lot of their friendships comes from outside of the community compared to just being on the reserve,” he said. “As far as Neqweyqwelsten School, I think being one of the big players in this community, I know for a fact that they are doing fairly well. I think they’ll do really good in the future and I’m just glad that my kids are part of this as well.”

“They also get a mixture of both (cultures) because we also have kids that come here that aren’t from the reserve, they’re just nearby... so that was like our biggest part, they’re learning our culture as well.”

That connection to his band’s culture and language has been good for the more than just his kids.

“Both of my children, one is in a head start program, I’m learning from them now and it’s mostly on my own language and it’s nice for them to be teaching me that when we’re at home. That’s the biggest my biggest goal for them is to have that language themselves because they can talk to my parents in the a language and I always ask them what they’re saying,” he said.

Celesta’s sister also has a connection to education. Brenda Celesta is a teacher at NorKam Secondary School in Kamloops. I talked to her last week about her job and hope to have some excerpts from that interview up soon.