Education for aboriginal students found wanting

"An analysis of 2006 census data by the C.D.Howe INstitute reveals that only 60 per cent of aboriginal students aged 20 to 24 completed highschool, compared with almost 90 per cent of non-aboriginals.

"Within this average is a wide range between Inuit and on-reserve First Nations at 40 per cent, offo-reserve First Nations near the middle at 60 per cent, and Metis at the high end, with 75 per cent completion. The outcomes are widely dispersed among provinces and territories as well.

"The C.D.Howe report adopts a recommendation from the Caledon Institute of Social Policy that on-reserve schools should be administered by an education authority rather than individual ban councils and further recommends that successful strategies be expanded among off-reserve districts."

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Is this something that you would care to discuss, 2 ponies, given your expressed interest in posting here a couple of days back, if other FN posters here would share opinions:

quote:

I don’t think the piece has done much to encourage discussion about the issue she was probably trying to get at; that there’s probably too much time spent discussing our FN cultures & not enough time trying to figure out how we’re going to get out of the mess we’re currently in. It’s largely considered heinous & hateful to suggest that we allocate resources to teach science, math & grammar in our FN communities than we do to teach Cree, or about Sweat Lodges & religious practices & traditional medicinal treatments. I never learned a single kilobyte of information about Cree culture in 12 years of school, but learned plenty from my mother, grandparents, aunts & uncles, Elders – all in an informal setting. But now there’s a large cultural industry developing & a significant number of FN people (at least in my part of the country) believe without question that the solution to our problems is to force every FN kid to learn an FN language & culture in school. It’s basically not even open to debate. In my view, there is a significant “drift” towards the establishment of theocracies in several FN communities; at least 75% of the meetings I go to in FN communities start off with a prayer I take offense to this type of practice because I like to decide when & how I pray; with a braid of Sweetgrass in the privacy of my home – but sometimes I’m forced to hear a prayer to Jesus (from a FN person), other times a prayer to the Creator, the point is I’m basically forced. But is this open to discussion? No. And to suggest any other practice often results in being labelled with some pejorative term. There isn’t enough debate in our communities by & large; there isn’t enough discussion on how we’re going to allocate limited resources in an effort to ensure that youth have a chance at succeeding in this rapidly changing world, for instance. There’s a significant tendency for groupthink, and disagreements are largely solved by way of finger-pointing & allegations- at least in my experience as a 32 year old FN person with 14 years working in FN communities & organizations.

This editorial today, together with a feature obit on the late Jake Tootoosis, suggests the Globe's publisher might be doing a roundabout mia culpa.

Anyway, several of us here would really like to know more ourselves. Ever since hearing Thomas Berger's report, a couple of years back, commissioned by the people of Nunavut, aimed at trying to graduate more people at the university level, I've wondered at the general interest in all levels of education.

Through some campaigns that I have been working on around post-secondary education issues, I know one issue is the cap on the Post-Secondary Student Support Program. Basically (and I'm probably explaining this pretty crappily), when this program was created a while back, it capped funding increases at 2%, which not only hasn't kept up with inflation, but hasn't kept up with population growth or increasing tuition either. This has resulted in some big waiting lists for aboriginal students.

When it comes to education, I have been impressed by the thoughts of Ivan Illich contain in Deschooling Society (Harrow Books, 1972):

Learning is the human activity which least needs manipulation by others. (p.56)

School is not only the New World Religion. It is also the world's fastest-growing labor market. (p.66)

The alternative to school would be a network which gave each man the same opportunity to share his current concern. (p.28 )

Schools pervert the natural inclination to grow and to learn. (p.87)

Schools are socially addictive. Social addiction, or escalation, consists in the tendency to prescribe increased treatment if smaller quantities have not yielded the desired results. (p.80)

School is a system of regressive taxation: the value of a man's schooling is a fonction of the number of years he has completed and of the costliness of the schools he has attended. (p.88 )

It must not start with the question, "What should someone learn?" but with the question, "What kinds of things and people might learners want to be in contact with in order to learn?" (p.111)

A good educational system should have three purposes; it should provide all who want to learn with access to available resources at any time in their lives; empower all who want to share what they know to find those who want to learn it from them; and, finally, furnish all who want to present an issue to the public with the opportunity to make their challenge known. (p.108)

It is difficult to abandon the idea that we have an obligation to the young, especially to the poor, an obligation to process them, whether by love or by fear, into a society which needs disciplined specialization as much from its producers as from its consumers. (p.97)

[ 03 November 2008: Message edited by: Benoit ]

quote:

It is difficult to abandon the idea that we have an obligation to the young, especially to the poor, an obligation to process them, whether by love or by fear, into a society which needs disciplined specialization as much from its producers as from its consumers. (p.97)

As you can see, (above),there has not been, and there cannot now be any thought of abandonment.

Our analysis of Illich at the time of his publication was that little applied within a larger society completely dependent on technological change, with which there had to be a working relationship. Romantic but not everywhere applicable.

Berger was out to help the Innu govern themselves, to begin with - just as he (properly) had warned FN people of the Mackenzie, a third of a century earlier, not to "buy" the pipeline offers.

At least, I offer that up as one perspective.

But I really look forward to seeing just what would have to be provided by way of RESOURCES to bring about more - if not perfect - equality of opportunity. That was the first concern of the late Christian Bay in a course devoted to social justice.(He was no Christian by the way [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img] )

[ 04 November 2008: Message edited by: George Victor ]

quote:Originally posted by George Victor:

Our analysis of Illich at the time of his publication was that little applied within a larger society completely dependent on technological change, with which there had to be a working relationship.

To save its face our education system has to insist that automatic and artificially-intelligent technology is dependable. But no working relationship is needed with reliable autonomous robots.

[ 05 November 2008: Message edited by: Benoit ]

quote:Originally posted by George Victor:

Care to flesh that out a bit, mate? Can't respond until I'm sure where you are coming from. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

As soon as the word dependency is uttered one should at least think at a possible cure. We are not doing so in the particular case of our dependency toward technology because our education system is flawed.

As soon as the word dependency is uttered one should at least think at a possible cure. We are not doing so in the particular case of our dependency toward technology because our education system is flawed.

(end quote)

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I'm not sure how you attain independence by becoming increasingly reliant on the dominant, invasive culture.  The world of technology includes various modes of transportation, all of which require a knowledge base for their application and maintenance.

 

Or are you advocating birchbark and dog teams?

 

As for that "flawed" education system: Surely the objective should be to make it applicable to one's own needs and lifestyle? 

I have read through all of the posts, but I am not sure what you are trying to get at here Mr. Victor.

I think all people(s) understand that education is key to a better future. It all depends on who's story is being told, and what is the ultimate purpose: assimilation or participation in society.

Too many of my friends and I wonder about the true purpose. If it really is participation then why does the education systems do such a poor job or representing Aboriginal values and histories in the curriculum?

The other reality is that our communities need to take more responsibility for educating our own. If the provincial / territorial systems are failing us, then we need to demand change. We also need to ensure that we have a culture of education where we demand our children graduate highschool. For too many families it is comonplace NOT to graduate HS.

But I sense you know / understand this Mr. Victor. I am not sure what you are looking for.

In a past life I had an opportunity to work with the Ministry of Education to review the curriculum when Ontario eliminate Grade 13.  We reviewed the text in Canadian Studies and History and noted a series of challenges.

We proposed having a section on treaties from both a First Nation and Crown perspective. We proposed discussing residential schools.  We proposed discussing banning of cultural ceremonies and asking students to consider the Aboriginal communities perspective.

Every single recommendation was ignored.  Perhaps our words were not the way it should have finally appeared in print, yet the notion we would teach these things in the text were all ignored.  

I have not been involved with this since then, so perhaps it has changed.  I sincerely hope so, though I doubt it.

It is difficult for Aboriginal people to alone to build the systems without a willing provincial partner.

There is so much to discuss about education ... caps on post-secondary education, transfer agreements between First Nations and near by school boards for FN students, the development of proper infrastrucutre in communities, examining the curriculum, ensuring other supports are available for students to access while trying to graduate (day care, counselling, housing supports, etc).

 Where to begin?
 

I am aware of John Richards work for CD Howe, but remain skeptical about the methodology.  I don't have it here, but I know he compared success rates in BC, and over lapped which jurisdicutions were responsible.  The conclusion that FN people in schools not controlled by FN's could hardly have been a surprise. These institutes are not funded at the same level, do not have the same levels of support, and also do not have the same degrees of outcomes.

We also cannot be blind to the fact that FN's are doubly cursed that supports outside the schools do not exist in the same manner in urban areas.

It seems to me that a more sound policy support would be to provide an equity of resources into the system, THEN assess outcomes.

I thought it interesting that Richards did not conclude that Aboriginal students do better when ripped out of their communities and are placed in non-Native schools.  The research could have supported that as well.

 If anyone is interested the report we are talking about is here:  http://www.cdhowe.org/pdf/commentary_198.pdf

 But this most recent one is even better:

http://www.cdhowe.org/pdf/commentary_276.pdf

and finally:

http://www.cdhowe.org/pdf/Backgrounder_116.pdf

 

Cheers!