Native EducationNative Education

Education ? Education ? What does that mean?What does that mean?

• Write a definition.

1. Education is …

2.2. How do you learn best?How do you learn best?

• Lets brainstorm and come up with a list of ways people learn and ways to teach … we are not just talking about in school.

Education

3.3. What do we know about traditional What do we know about traditional education in Native communities?education in Native communities?

Before European contact Native people in the Maritimes were educated through… (finish this sentence)

Advantages Disadvantages

4. Why do Aboriginal people want to control their own education? Aboriginal people want to control their own education because …

5. What are the advantages and disadvantages of Aboriginals educating themselves? (List)

Native EducationNative Education

Write down the title above but from now on only copy those pages that have this little fella in the top corner!!

Pre-contact EducationEducation in pre-contact Mi’kma’ki was informal and contiinual.

Children learned by watching, listening and imitation. Almost as soon as they could toddle around camp, little boys and girls were playing with toy spears and tiny bows, practicing the arts of stalking and trapping, studying the tracks and calls of mammals and birds as they tagged after their fathers and uncles or brothers.

A small girls crawling into her mother’s lap as she wove reeds into baskets might be given a handful of reeds of her own, and shown how to plait them. Later her mother would teach her how to gather reeds, how to dry them and where and when dye-plants might be found to colour the reeds. As a girl grew older, she learned the seasons and uses for hundreds of plants, and she might live a time with a great-aunt who could tell her how to prepare medicines from bark, leaves, seeds and roots.

Both Boys and girls had to know how to make, repair, load, paddle, and carry a canoe. All these things and more they learned as they helped with daily chores, or listened to elders telling stories about why the world was so. The Mi’kmaq used myths and stories to teach children the truth about the world as they saw it: about the properties of plants and animals and their relationships with human beings; about the way in which people either get along or fight with one another. Through these dramatic and humorous stories, the children learned about life, and about the history, customs and manners of their people.

Pre-contact Education

Education in pre-contact Mi’kma’ki was

The only time my education was

interrupted was when I was in school

- George Bernard Shaw

Two Views of EducationTwo Views of Education

What it meant to the Commissioners of the Colony of Virginia:

What it meant to the Chiefs of the Iroquois Confederacy:

In 1744, after signing the Treaty of Lancaster, the Commissioner of the Colony of Virginia offered to educate six sons of the Chiefs of the Iroquois Confederacy at a college in Williamsburg. The commissioners received this reply:

“Several of our young people were formally brought up at the college of the Northern Provinces; they were instructed in all your science: but when they came back to us, they were bad runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods; unable to bear either cold or hunger; knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer or kill an enemy; spoke our language imperfectly; were therefore neither fit hunters, warriors or counselors, but they were totally good for nothing. We are however not the less obliged by your kind offer, though we decline accepting it. And to show our grateful sense of it, if the Gentlemen of Virginia will send us a dozen sons, we will take great care of their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them.”

The Historical Pattern

In the 100 years following Confederation, the federal government used education as a way of assimilating Aboriginal peoples and eliminating their distinct cultures. In the view of the government, the traditions of many Aboriginal groups had no commercial or military value.

Educators in residential and reserve schools especially targeted:– Aboriginal ceremonies. Many officials

perceived these ceremonies as heathen and a waste of time.

– Aboriginal language. By forcing children to speak only in English, the government believed children would then lose their sense of identity as Aboriginal people.

As a result of this educational policy, many Aboriginal students were emotionally scarred.

The assimilation policy underlying Aboriginal education was laid out explicitly in the federal government’s White Paper of 1969. Aboriginal groups strongly objected to this document and increased their push for more control of their lives, especially in education. Since the early 1970’s more and more First Nations have begun to operate schools. In 1977 there were 64 band operated schools and today there are XXXX. These schools were educating more than half the children living on reserves, and 75% of students were remaining until grade 12. As well, the number of Registered natives and Inuit attending post-secondary institutions had risen from 321 to over 26,000 in just 20 years.

Despite these signs of progress, the proportion of Aboriginal students completing high school and attending university remains lower than the Canadian national average.

Improving Education

The experience of First Nations students at off-reserve provincial schools can be difficult. Students often face racism in non-aboriginal communities and if separated from their families to attend school, suffer homesickness. The curriculum taught has limited Aboriginal content, and school material and policies may contain unintended bias against Aboriginal students.

Band operated schools also face the challenge of incorporating Aboriginal knowledge and concepts into the curriculum. Ideally, the school experience should strongly emphasize learning the students’ Aboriginal languages and preparing students to make contributions to their communities and nations if they so desire.

Read the article the follows and write an editorial response to the article incorporating the following three questions:

1. Who is responsible for improving education for First Nations students?

2. What can they do?3. Is this a simple problem to fix or a complex one?

Why?

Dear Editor,After reading “Aboriginal drop-out rate draws a failing

grade” …

Hot Seat to follow!!!!

Aboriginal drop-out rate draws a failing gradeAboriginal drop-out rate draws a failing grade  

In Brief: Too many aboriginal students still fail to finish high school and some In Brief: Too many aboriginal students still fail to finish high school and some radical reforms are needed, a new report says.radical reforms are needed, a new report says.

  The Leader-Post October 24, 2009The Leader-Post October 24, 2009

Decades after most of them closed, the notorious Indian residential schools continue to haunt Canadians. It's not just the sad lives of many of its survivors, who were torn from their families and often cruelly treated in a misguided attempt to "assimilate" them into the then-white, Christian mainstream. Equally damaging is the impact on First Nations education today, which the author of a new study says is "in a state of crisis" because of the high drop-out rate. Prof. John Richards of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver says the high aboriginal population on the Prairies is a major contributing factor to Manitoba having the highest provincial average of high school dropouts (21.5 per cent) among adults 20-24, with Saskatchewan in second place at 18.3 per cent. The national average for this group is 13.8 per cent, according to 2006 census data. Countless studies have consistently shown dropout rates of more than 50 per cent among First Nations -- and he says the "cultural alienation from formal education" among aboriginal people is understandable considering the residential school legacy. Richards cites a 2003 Canadian Senate report that found "deep mistrust" of mainstream education among some aboriginal people and he says efforts by band councils and provincial governments to counter this alienation have met with "limited success". Richards has some good ideas for improvement, starting with early childhood education which all aboriginal children should have access to, on or off-reserve. He also calls for more "aggressive affirmative action" to encourage aboriginal post-secondary students to become teachers and cultural role models. Richards says "stand alone" reserve schools operated by bands lack the resources to provide adequate education, particularly considering their high proportion of special- needs students. He says the federal government should offer higher per-student funding in return for bands transferring the authority and budget for on-reserve schools to the aboriginal equivalent of provincial school districts. It's crucial, Richards says, for aboriginal communities to get more involved in education and its ultimate reward: the key to a healthier, more rewarding life.

The Failure of John FredThe Failure of John FredCase StudyCase Study

• Read

• Rate

• Discuss

Timeline ActivityTimeline Activity

With a partner or in small groups you are to organize the information chronologically and place them on the timeline provided.

Come to a consensus before gluing anything in place.

Materials: Historical Overview of “Indian” Education in Canada

Timeline