Fort Good Hope rapper shares struggles in N.W.T. education system

A recent federal audit says the Northwest Territories education system is falling short in a number of areas including delivering education in smaller communities. That's something a rapper from Fort Good Hope, N.W.T., says he knows all too well.  

Dylan Jones, who is also known as Crook the Kid, dropped out of school in Grade 10. 

"I wasn't doing too well in school," he said, noting he and his classmates were struggling with the loss of friends to suicide, the impacts of addiction, and other challenges in their community. 

"In a lot of isolated communities, there's a lot of hardship and a lot of loss and a lot of really, really adult realizations you're forced to come to as a very young person," he explained. 

"School was like a pretty tough grind at the time, and what I was getting from it and what I thought of my future, it just didn't seem important enough to continue."    

Jones said at school, he and his classmates were "force-fed the essentials program" so there was little motivation to attend classes or do well in school and no mention of going to college or university. 

"We were being spoon fed this dumbed down version of school," he said.

"School was kind of just what we did during the day."

Schools in smaller communities also have the "bare minimums" when it comes to resources, Jones said, but students know that in southern towns, including Yellowknife, students have access to sports and science equipment as well as shop and mechanics classes. 

"[It's] something you'd see on like an episode of Degrassi but you had to question whether or not it exists in real life." 

I can't honestly say I had the support from the school system growing up in isolated communities at all.- Dylan Jones

It can also be a challenge, Jones said, when teachers come from the South with little understanding of life in isolated northern communities. But the biggest problem, he says, is with the education system itself. 

"I can't honestly say I had the support from the school system growing up in isolated communities at all," he said. "There was good people involved but the system itself ... I don't think is made with success in mind." 

After leaving high school, Jones said he worked labour jobs for about a decade and struggled to pay bills. But he believes had he be given support in school to strive for a better future, he wouldn't have had to struggle. 

It was the encouragement of his wife, Jones said, that led him to get his GED. Now he's studying environmental and natural resources technology at Aurora College in Fort Smith. 

"Now I know what I'm capable of. I know that I have options and very few limitations moving forward after this process," he said. "It's absolutely life changing."