"My name is Madison, and I have attended Grande Prairie schools for most of my life, including my years of post secondary at PRBI and NWP. Now I teach at a local high school.
I am delighted to share with you my wonderful experiences with Foundations for Life and how their programs have served my students.
As a beginning teacher, I was very excited to step into the profession that I had always dreamed of doing. And of course, being assigned new classes meant that I was in need of resources. At the time, some of my classes included Religion, and Career and Life Management.
As I read the various Programs of Studies provided by Alberta Education, ideas and activities were flooding my mind of what I could do with my students to have them fully engaged in their learning. But I must admit, when I got to the learning outcomes about healthy relationships and responsible sexual behavior, I remember thinking “I don’t recall that university lecture.” That’s when I was recommended to look into Foundations for Life.
Other teachers had recommended their presentations and how readily available it was to make this guest presentation happen, something as a beginning teacher I was certainly looking for. The open availability, no cost, and thorough information of what each presentation was about made it very accessible for me to decide what my students needed and when. Right from the booking process, to check ins prior to, during the presentations and even follow ups afterwards, rather than feeling like I was merely passing on an outcome box for someone else to check, Foundations for Life made this feel like a partnership to create a safe and welcoming environment for my students to learn about important topics that can be easily neglected.
A particular story that comes to mind is in one of my classes I told my students that we would be having a guest speaker come into our class later in the week. After class, one of my students came up to me and asked “is that cool lady coming to speak to our class again?” When I told the student, yes, a smile was on their face as they said they really liked her. The first takeaway is that a teenager referred to someone as “cool,” congratulations Bobbi, but the other is that this student was referring to the time Foundations for Life spoke to a class that I had taught earlier in the year. Months later, and the impact of someone showing care and Godliness to the students was clearly a lasting one.
These teenage students might not be eagerly raising their hands to ask the questions they are too afraid to ask in front of their peers, but as I watch the student who never stops talking actually listen and the kid who doesn’t come to class very often but did on that day because to them, this was worth hearing about, or I think about the student who later opened up about the troubles they were struggling with in their friend group, I unquestionably see the lasting impact of Foundations for Life.
In a world where students are constantly hearing mixed messages about identity, relationships, and self-worth, it is such a blessing to have a trusted organization like Foundations for Life coming alongside educators to speak truth, encouragement and hope into their lives. I am grateful for the partnership they’ve built within our schools, districts, and community, and for the heart they bring into every classroom they enter.
Thank you Foundations for Life for the lasting impact you are making on our students and educators– both the impact that we see and the unseen growth that continues long after the lessons."