Speakers used as role models (for benefits of staying in school).

CALGARY

Many Aboriginal adults who think their school days are only yearbook memories may soon find themselves back in class again.

This time, however, they won't be in school for themselves but to help today's Aboriginal students make the most of their education.

That's the dream that Doreen L'Hirondelle of the Calgary Board of Education sees unfolding after the publication of an Aboriginal speakers bureau and resource directory in December 1996.

The proposed directory -- a who's who of Aboriginal people from the business, educational and institutional spheres in Calgary and southern Alberta -- was recently approved by the Calgary Board of Education.

The directory-style speakers' bureau will offer teachers a citywide network of Aboriginal speakers available to visit classrooms from kindergarten to Grade 12.

AGT, Alberta's telephone network, and Amoco Canada Petroleum Company are the education board's partners for the $33, 000 project.

"(The directory) will be a way for kids to have a role model," said L'Hirondelle. And what the successful adults will be modeling most of all is the benefits of staying in school.

According to L'Hirondelle, Aboriginal students in city public schools drop out at an alarming rate -- 70 to 94 per cent. This is more than twice the board's average early exit rate of about 30 per cent.

"[Aboriginal students] need to feel proud of who they are," said Carol Nelson, a human resources advisor for AGT and one of three AGT staff sitting on the project's seven-person advisory committee.

"[Aboriginal] kids are not comfortable in schools," L'Hirondelle observed. "Kids are not mixing with other students. We don't have a lot of graduates in Grade 12."

Grade 9, she added, is the worst year for drop-out casualties.

"How do we change that?" asked Nelson. "Number one: more Native people have to stand up and be proud of who they are in the business world. That creates role models for young people."

Nelson, who has spoken on radio, television and before live audiences, said that Native professionals often believe that "survivability" in the corporate world means remaining silent or hidden.

By speaking up, however, Aboriginal professionals can make a difference.

When Nelson talks to young Native people, they challenge her with the comment that she doesn't know what it's like.

"Yes, I do. I've been there. I've seen it. I've lived it. I know," Nelson explains.

According to L'Hirondelle, schools already use an informal but limited list of Aboriginal speakers.

"People use it over and over. What I'm hoping to do is have a broader context of people."

CBE's proposed directory was inspired by a similar publication, "Aboriginal Speakers Bureau -- Stay in School," published in 1992 for the Gabriel Dumont Institute in Saskatchewan.

Based on 121 responses from 220 schools, more than 600 Aboriginal students are registered in the CBE system.