Rachael Bowser

Rachael Bowser at the Neqweyqwelsten School

Rachael Bowser is a 24 year old First Nations woman living on the Simpcw Reserve, north of Barrier. She has an easy smile and warmth to her personality. 

I met Rachael when I went to tour the Neqweyqwelsten School on reserve. Rachael went to the school herself and now is back on a contract to be the technical assistant at the school. She’s part of the school’s move to bring more technology into the classroom. I spoke with her as she worked at a Mac computer in a classroom full of light and colour. Large containers of paint were stacked on shelves and around the room were number cards, each with the Shuswap word for the number carefully typed below.

I talked with Rachael about her experience at the school and what it’s meant to her as a person.

“I had so much fun growing up here. I wouldn’t know what being in the public school was like when I was younger but growing up here was just so much fun because most of the times were with family. We lived really close. We live in a really really close area so we’d play with each other after school, play with each other before school, play with each other during school so it was really cool growing up with everybody and I just remember having so much fun with anything and everything,” she said.

But staying at Neqweyqwelsten only last until Grade 7 at the latest. For Rachael, the transition happened in Grade 6.

 “It was a little bit nerve wracking. I was a little bit nervous starting out in a public school because here in my grade I had two other girls with me and we had two other guys in the same grade with us so making the switch from having 30 kids in the school to going to a classroom where there’s 30 kids was huge for me, but it was fun.”

Even thought the transition to Barrier was made easier because Neqweyqwelsten and the elementary school had build an existing relationship, Rachael was glad to have spent the early years of her education at Neqweyqwelsten.

 “It definitely made my education a little bit better. I think it did anyway. Learning was a lot easier. For one when I was growing up, it was not uncommon, it’s still not uncommon, for a parent to come in and substitute like you know when teachers need days off so you know sometime my mom was in and she would substitute and even with other parents, they’d be in on supervising duties. I don’t know, it was just really easy on the education because parents were involved in every step, I mean from getting us ready in the morning, sometimes they’d even wind up coming to school with us cause they were substituting or supervising at recess,” she said. “The teachers were there and they helped you grow at your own pace. It wasn’t like you were set in one pigeon hole with the rest of your class. You were really able to grow on your own and you’re really able to be an individual which I remember being.” 

The school is not just important to her but to the community.

“The school was, for me, growing up the bee-all and end-all because it was the centre of everything,” she said, “I guess it’s almost a second home but we grow up learning that it takes a community to raise a child and it definitely does so the school so the school’s definitely played a huge role.”

When I asked Rachael what role she thought education played in First Nations communities taking back responsibility from the Federal government, this is what she said:

“Education plays a huge role in that process because with this school, I know that this school isn’t part of the school district so we don’t have the same curriculum and its huge I think because we make our own curriculum at least as far I can tell the curriculum has always been slightly different than what you get in the public school. For me, it’s a huge thing because when we were younger we got to learn our own language so instead of learning the required French, we were learning Shuswap and that’s carried on even up until today. I still know a little bits and words.”

For Rachael, a lot of her pride in her culture and herself comes from her experience at the band school.

“Growing up in the area, growing up on reserve, going to school on reserve, I probably take it so much for granted just because it the norm for me.”

 “It definitely played a huge role in teaching me just about everything we are as a people so I guess I take it for granted now but it’s pretty much played a really huge role in my life,” she said. “What I love and what I know doesn’t just stay within the community but it spreads and other people get to learn about it too, definitely spreads to other communities.”

But growing up, Rachael’s learning happened at home too.

“A lot of where my learning came from came from home. I mean not only was I learning at school, you know learning about the language and learning about our culture and our people and learning math and stuff like that at school but I was going home and my dad hunts and my mom runs a fisheries program so I learn a lot about fisheries so we learn all of our traditions at home so it’s not just you learn something at school and you go home and you live your regular life but you’re going home and you’re still learning about traditions.” 

These formative years at the Neqweyqwelsten School has help her better see where she fits in the world.

“I’ve gone out and met other First Nations people and they definitely don’t have the connection to the culture that we’re taught as children so it’s definitely definitely had a huge impact on me being able to stand up and say this is who I am and I’m proud of it,” she said.

“Having the positive experience that I had growing up and going to school here has really made me proud of who I am and really proud to say, yes, I’m a First Nations, I am a Shuswap woman, this is where I grew up, these are my people. It’s made me really proud to say that and not only am I proud to say it, I’m proud to definitely be living here, growing up the way that I did and still living the way that I do.”