She didn’t graduate high school, but that hasn’t stopped Naujaat’s Candy Ivalutanar on her journey to becoming a teacher in her community.
“That’s my dream,” said Ivalutanar about teaching in Naujaat, where she lives with her family.
Originally from Kugaaruk, she withdrew from school after having a child – not for any lack of passion or success in the school system.
“My child is more important than I am, so that’s how come I dropped out of school,” said Ivalutanar. “I was doing very good in school. It’s just that my child came first.”
She moved to Naujaat in 2006, getting married the next year. In 2009, Ivalutanar started driving the school bus in Naujaat, where she also became a substitute teacher.
“I would go to work at 7 and without having break or lunch, I would work till 5,” she remembers. “It was like a 10-hour job.”
That’s when she wanted to start pursuing a teaching career more seriously, and as soon as she was accepted in the Nunavut Teacher Education Program (NTEP), she quit work and enrolled in classes.
Currently finishing off her third year in NTEP, Ivalutanar said her partner and two younger daughters have been her biggest supporters.
“It’s hard, because I never graduated high school,” she said. “When I just started [NTEP], I thought I was going to fail the first year, but I still haven’t failed and I’m still going. It’s stressful, it gets hard at times, especially at the end of the year. I’m happy that I’m not just alone in this.”
Last fall, Ivalutanar was awarded the Qulliq Energy Corporation’s annual Laura Ulluriaq Gauthier scholarship, earning her $5,000 to go toward supporting her studies. The award recognizes a Nunavut post-secondary student who is demonstrating a combination of community leadership, an extraordinary commitment to educational achievement and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
“It’s going to help me a lot,” said Ivalutanar. “It’s a great honour because I’m sure a lot of students tried and I’m happy that everyone supported me in this.”
Now with two daughters in school – one turning 17 in March, the other 12 in October – Ivalutanar makes sure they know the importance of education.
“We get them up every morning and they go to school daily,” she said. “I’m happy that they’re doing great. That’s a good thing, that we know we’re doing good somewhere.”
As a teacher, Ivalutanar wants to make sure Inuktitut is strong in the territory.
“We’re starting to lose our language,” she said. “It’s coming in very fast. I was thinking that we need more Inuit teachers — talk more in Inuktitut — instead of having teachers coming from down south.”
With how prevalent technology is these days, Ivalutanar thinks there must be some ways to leverage technology to teach the language – though she has a personal preference for physical books.
She’s not quite sure what she wants to teach when she gets back into the classroom, but she loves math.
For anyone struggling with school, Ivalutanar urges them to press forward.
“Keep going no matter what, because we’ve all got this,” she said. “I never graduated high school. I’m still going.”
For more stories from Degrees of Success 2024, click this link and scroll down to Special Features: https://www.nunavutnews.com/e-editions-nun