going through a big mud pile , just edging along . I finally got pushed out of that system with a fifty average . I think they just wanted to get me finished . I was really a below average student according to my marks . I was really a very silent learner and you can ’ t be a silent learner in this system ; you have to speak , you have to present , you have to do it their way . And it never really resonated with me ," he says .
After residential school , Naytowhow spent his youth in search of himself . His search for harmony and balance began with attempting to live in the colonial culture . Knowing that education was important to earn a living , Naytowhow , who enjoyed athletics , found a physical education program at a university in Calgary that would accept him with his grades . The program was more about physical performance than academics , and , Naytowhow says , " I did really well ; it was all based on skill . I excelled and the first semester my marks were good so I immediately applied to the U of R ." Naytowhow was accepted into the Faculty of Education , but struggled through the next three and a half years before withdrawing from the program . " I was still trying to make sense of this culture that was imposed on me and I sort of got it , but I sort of didn ’ t . I just barely squeezed by .... I would try to read and I would read for a while and I would fall asleep . I was reading some scientific theory and my mind wanted to write a poem ," he says . for fulfillment and self , he drifted from job to job , moving from the North to the South , to the further north ( NWT ) and then back again , trying to fit into the Protestant work ethic of 9 to 5 work : " There was something about my experience at residential school that affected my ability to , not so much retain jobs , but stay in a job for any longer than two years . For some reason it was the limit of my mind and body . So I would move ; I would want to move : miskâsowin ( finding oneself ), and opapâpâmacihôs , ( moving about in life ), that searching for oneself . I wasn ’ t really fulfilled in the position I was doing . So I would just resign and take off ."
Having children made life a more serious affair and Naytowhow did what he could as a parent to try to maintain stability . He says , " I started being a father and looking after my kids as much as I could within the kind of terrible child rearing that I got through residential school . Some was good , you know ; it wasn ’ t all bad , but it was basically being parented by surrogate parents who didn ’ t — who couldn ’ t really take the time to train you to be a young man , a responsible young male , or human being . They just didn ’ t have time . There was no way they could raise me like a son . So I was trying to raise my own kids from a place of no parenting skills , not learning how to be intimate , not even knowing if I could
maintain a job .... But all along , I really was not feeling fulfilled as a human being , as a male , as a man . I wasn ’ t being all that society requires for one ’ s life to be in harmony and in balance , like having the 9 to 5 job , or having a steady income . It happened but it didn ’ t really make any sense to me ."
What did make sense , what always made sense to Naytowhow , was culture and ceremony : " Singing with the elders or praying with the elders , that was what made sense to me , of anything I was experiencing . The Canadian culture , the Protestant work ethic , just didn ’ t make any sense to me ."
All through his healing journey , Naytowhow was developing an awareness of his Indigenous roots , what he had left behind at the age of 6 , the lost memories of loving relationships and experiences with family members and his community . It started first with a realization in his 20s that he was Indigenous ( not Canadian as he had been taught ), and then the gradual addition of Indigenous culture and ceremony to his life .
While attending the University of Regina , Naytowhow picked up a drum for the first time : " I had a strong urge to go to the drum . I never looked back , ever since I hit that drum ." A visiting visual arts
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However , after withdrawing from the education program , and while he was working as an Education Liaison for the Friendship Centre , Naytowhow realized that without a degree he wasn ' t being taken seriously by the educational administrators , so he decided to finish his Education degree , but this time through ITEP ( Indian Teacher Education Program ) at the University of Saskatchewan . His practicum took him north to Stanley Mission , to a federally funded school . Naytowhow graduated with a B . Ed ., but he didn ' t stay in the teaching position he acquired due to a lack of support from the administration . As Naytowhow continued his search
( L-R ) Dr . Anna-Leah King and emerging Elder-in-Residence Joseph Naytowhow sing a sunrise song to the beat of the drum
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