Today’s PresentationTo enhance your understanding of:

• To recognize the tragic consequences of the residential school system and how it impacts Aboriginal people today.

• To question the ethical implications of removing children from their homes and communities for the purpose of “civilizing” and assimilating them in the dominant society.

• Cultural competence • Relationships, partnerships, collaboration• Success for Each Learner: What does (or should) this

look like?

Why Focus on Aboriginal Education?

• The gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students in terms of high school completion has narrowed only slightly in the past two decades.

• The question arises to why schooling continues to be such an alienating experience for Aboriginal children and youth.

Report Card rates BC schools on Aboriginal students academic achievement

To narrow the gap between them and their non-Aboriginal classmates,According to the Report Card on Aboriginal Education in BC;

released by the Fraser Institute

The Province Newspaper (Monday, October 18th, 2010)

• ‘We have a very serious problem with inequality’Report on B.C.’s kids say 15 per cent are struggling, especially aboriginals, and one in four say there’s no one in their family they can talk to about a serious problem

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010)

• ‘IT’S AN EPIDEMIC’ More then half of children taken into government care in B.C. are aboriginal, and this childhood development manager says the situation is getting worse

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

‘YOU GUYS HAVE TAUGHT ME HOW NOT TO BE, BASICALLY’

Beth McDonald is talking about heralcoholic mother and abusive stepfather. She says she is determined to raise her six children the best way she knows how.

Jail conditions for Canadian aboriginals a 'disgrace': Ombudsman

CBC News • Aboriginal offenders are routinely discriminated against by the corrections

system and are far less likely to get parole or be rehabilitated by their experiences in jail, the ombudsman for federal prisons says.

Manitoban organizes gruelling bike ride to speed healing after suicides

• CBC News • Members of an aboriginal family in northern Manitoba are planning a

140-kilometre bicycle ride to raise awareness of the tragedy of suicide — and to help themselves heal after being personally affected.

Prisons failing AboriginalsThe Province News

• The number of Aboriginals behind bars has increased 43% in the last five years.

• The prison system perpetuates conditions of disadvantage for indigenous people.

• The disproportionate number of Aboriginal people in prison ‘continues to cloud Canada’s domestic human rights record.’

• First Nations, Inuit & Metis make up 23% of Canada’s total inmate population, despite being just 4% of the overall population.

Prisons failing Aboriginals con’t The Province News

• Indigenous women are even more over-represented: in 2010/2011 they accounted for almost one-third of all federally incarcerated women, an increase of more than 85% over the last decade.

• Also found Aboriginal offenders are more likely to spend longer portions of their sentences behind bars, and are more prone to self-mutilation while incarcerated.

Traditional Territories of Yukon First Nations

Yukon First Nations - Languages

According to oral tradition, the Yukon First Nation peoples have lived in this land since Crow, a mythological creature of the time, made the world and set it in order.

Archaeologists calculate that the first humans inhabited the Yukon more than 10,000 years ago, crossing the Bering land bridge, from Asia.

Today, the First Nations peoples belong to the Athapaskan or Tlingit language families.

Yukon First Nations History

Yukon First Nations Today

The term First Nations is used throughout the Yukon (instead of Natives or Indians). It recognizes our people as a distinct nation and the fact that our ancestors were here first.

Today there are fourteen First Nations in the Yukon, eight different Aboriginal languages.

There are many similarities among us, and there are subtle cultural differences that make each one of us unique.

Some of our traditional lands overlap with each other, others extend into parts of Alaska, the Northwest Territories and northern British Columbia.