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Confidence boost makes the mark
Skylynn Cook credits teacher, mom with turning grades around

Kassina Ryder
Northern News Services
Published Monday, July 15, 2013

RADILIH KOE'/FORT GOOD HOPE
Skylynn Cook says she's proof that sometimes, all you need is a little encouragement.

NNSL photo/graphic

Skylynn Cook, a Grade 9 student at Chief T'Selehye School in Fort Good Hope, says encouragement from a teacher and her mother helped her improve her Grade 8 marks last year. - photo courtesy of Juliette Cook

Cook, who will enter high school in the fall, said she didn't begin Grade 8 in the best way possible, but after some pep talks from her teacher and mom, she turned her entire year around.

"My teacher told me I was a leader of the class, and I started believing it and doing more work," Cook said.

Her mom, Juliette Cook, said taking time to talk to Skylynn about her potential seemed to be exactly what she needed.

"At the beginning of the year she wasn't doing very well, and I started sitting down and talking with her," Juliette said. "She was listening and she started really improving in school after we started talking."

Cook said once she started focusing on her schoolwork, she learned everything from how to draft a proper letter to how hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, works.

While her favourite subject is English language arts, math was her weakest subject. Yet Skylynn still finished her assignments, including one made up of page after page of algebra questions.

"It was really hard, but I still did it all," she said. "I didn't really do good in math, so I didn't really like it, but I just kept trying."

Her hard work paid off. Cook received multiple awards at the end of the school year, including Student of the Year.

Juliette said she was proud of how her daughter worked to reach her goals.

"I was really pleased with her and happy with her," she said.

Although school is over for the summer, Cook said she has no plans to slow down. She travelled to Whitehorse for Junior Rangers training at the end of June where she went white water rafting, zip lining, rode horses and learned how to perform swift water rescues.

Cook attended training as a Junior Ranger last summer and said after pushing herself this year, she finished the Monkido, an intense obstacle course, for the first time.

Next on her busy schedule was a trip to London, Ont. to participate in a student exchange trip.

Skylynn left for London on July 8 and was scheduled to return to the community on July 12.

On the other side of the exchange, about 14 students from Ontario visited the community during the week of July 1.

Cook said she and other community members taught the visitors about their culture.

"We already went for two boat rides and we had a cookout," she said. "We were teaching them how to cut up fish and we're teaching them how to do traditional games."

Cook was scheduled to return to Fort Good Hope on July 12, but her time at home will be short.

On July 25, she is planning to travel to Yellowknife for the Fostering Open eXpression among Youth camp, also known as FOXY.

While her mile-a-minute summer vacation is keeping her occupied for now, Cook said she is already looking forward to Grade 9.

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