ATA’s newest hire to expand PD reach into south

Jackie Young, a teacher and Indigenous education consultant from Calgary, will join the ATA’s Professional Development (PD) team to expand the presence of PD programming in southern Alberta. 

With nearly three decades of professional experience, Young brings to the PD program area a wealth of knowledge as a teacher and leader, as well as a strong commitment to relationship-based learning.

Young decided she wanted to be a teacher in Grade 2, after she was asked to leave the classroom for talking during story time.

“As I sat outside the classroom door, tucked under a table in the hallway, I remember thinking, ‘I want a job where I can talk all day and not get in trouble for it,’” she said. 

“What  I didn’t realize in Grade 2 was that teaching would become so much more than just talking. It would give me the opportunity to build relationships, share stories, learn from my students and colleagues, and hopefully make a difference in the lives of my students the way my teachers made a difference in mine.”

Young earned a bachelor of education degree from the University of Alberta and began her career with the Sturgeon School Division before relocating to the Rocky View School Division in 2000. Since 2006, she has worked with the Calgary Catholic School District, taking on roles that expanded her impact beyond the classroom, such as district diverse learning teacher and behaviour consultant.

Most recently, she served as an Indigenous education consultant, where her work focused on supporting schools, teachers and school leaders in developing meaningful approaches to Indigenous education.

“That experience has taught me that meaningful change in Indigenous education does not come from a workshop alone,” she said. “It comes from relationship, from sustained learning, and from teachers feeling supported as learners themselves.”

Young has also supported professional learning as an ATA Indigenous education PD facilitator since 2018, an experience that provided her with insights into the ATA’s PD programs offered across the province.

“I have seen the difference it makes when teachers across very different communities come together around shared learning,” she said.

Set to work in the ATA’s Calgary office beginning this summer, Young is looking forward to strengthening relationships with Elders and Knowledge Keepers across the province, working with the Walking Together facilitator corps in a new way and helping build professional learning that allows reconciliation to become practice.

“Most of all,” she said, “I am looking forward to supporting teachers across Alberta as they continue the work of meeting their professional standard around Indigenous ways of knowing in their own classrooms, with their own students, in their own communities.”

With her career grounded in a relational approach, Young also emphasizes the importance of identity and relationship in her work. She shares that she belongs to the Fond du Lac Denesłiné First Nation in Treaty 8 and is Métis on her grandfather’s side, with family names including Lafferty, Mercredi and MacDonald. She is also of European ancestry through her father’s family.

“I share this because in Indigenous Protocols, knowing one another’s nations, families and lands is how relationship begins,” she says. “And relationship is the foundation of everything I do.”