While interviewing a colleague for my essay, she reminded me of Tribal Journeys and how important it was for young people to have authentic experiences.  It is not enough to be digitally engaged or go on virtual canoe trips.  The Tribal Journeys site is full of stories of expeditions, past and present and how to sign up for expeditions in the future.  The focus is on having indigenous young people travel through the Salish Sea in much the same manner as their ancestors did.  Huge canoes have been fashioned and as they move along the coast over about 25 days, they are welcomed at villages.  The site also has a great deal of information of a more general nature, regarding First Nations communities along the Coast of British Columbia and Washington.  Much like the video we watched about the Fraser River journey, Tribal Jounreys gives young people a chance to bond with each other, with Elders and with the land, and in this case, the sea.  It has become apparent to me while writing my essay that the land in many ways dictates the nature of the First Nations communities.  Coastal communities are connected to the sea and the land as well as rivers.  Plains cultures would have different issues.  Knowing the environment is critical to knowing the culture and there won’t ever be a “one-size fits-all” answer to addressing the issues facing First Nations communities.

CyberCircles is a paper written by Canadian researcher, Mike Patterson of Carleton University.  Patterson’s focuses the paper around many of his personal accounts of the positives that “cyberspace” and social media tools have had within the Aboriginal communities.  One of the biggest concerns is what Patterson calls “Institutional Interference: academic, Aboriginal, and other organizations have varied degrees of acceptance of these tools.”  Fear and reluctance of using such tools are real elements that the Aboriginal communities face, and it can be linked to the potential lack of training. “Cyber networks and communities have to develop their own technical expertise. There is an ongoing need for community capacity building to address these challenges and use video communications to its full potential.”  If education isn’t available to provide assistance to successfully implement cyber/social media tools, than the value and meaning of them becomes lost.  It doesn’t just stop with a “one-time” training session, the tools that are currently being used within cyberspace, are active and useable for the now but like everything, change occurs, and with these changes, retraining is necessary.

It does seem to be a vicious circle of how the in-and-outs of technologies are, but if we don’t focus on the “how” we can change the ways, the circle will remain broken, and the divide left unattended.

Patterson, Michael. CyberCircles: InternetWorking for Aboriginal Community Research.  Retrieved July 20, 2011.

Killick Centre for E-Learning Research

To continue focusing on Bridging the Gap of the Digital Divide, repeated concerns have been made in regards to the culturally relevancy of what students are learning in Aboriginal communities.  The Killick Centre for E-Learning Research (2011), observed the experiences of a sample high school group from Coastal Labrador.  The course facilitators and participants of the study raised the concern about the content not being culturally relevant. Educators understand the importance of engaging the learner.  When course content is relevant and engaging, the learner is apt to be motivated towards success.  Educators demonstrated this, when adaptations to the core content of a English Grade 12 course within a pilot program were made, “We’re in the process of piloting a new course here, an English First-Peoples 12 course which is basically English 12, which every student needs to have, written exclusively with Aboriginal content for the resources. So the plays, instead of doing Shakespeare, they’ll do an Aboriginal play. The poetry is all from Aboriginal authors; the short stories are the same. The first cohort that went through here, their provincial exam results were 10% higher than Aboriginal students taking [the regular] English 12.”

(Sharpe, Phillpott, Bourgeois 2011: p.61)

Sharpe, Philpott, Bourgeois. (April, 2011). A Pan-Canadian Survey of E-Learning for Aboriginal High School Students.

AFN Virtual Summit on Indigenous Institutions of Higher Learning documents the virtual summit that was held March, 2011, to discuss the issues relevant to First Nations Institutions of higher learning. It was hosted by the First Nations University of Canada in Regina. The report includes many statements from students and educators. It is frequently noted that there is often a general disconnect with the mainstream curriculum and methods and location of delivery. There are, in mainstream institutions, historical barriers, social barriers and financial barriers to attendance and success as is outlined in the report that is quoted, prepared by Katenies Research and Management Services: The Business Case for First Nations Post-Secondary Education, prepared for the Assembly of First Nations, May 28, 2007, pp. 10-11.
In the article, Jesse Robson (page 11) reminds us that there is a general misunderstanding that First Nations students are not paying for their education. He points out that most of the students have student loans and that this is “the furthest thing from a free ride.” (page 11) Blair Stonechild on (page 11) points to the importance of having a “healthy identity,” something that can be challenging for many of the students dealing with the legacy of Residential Schools. Attending an IIHL goes a long way to healing that wound. Shauneen Pete (page 13) states, “we are family, literally ….and that we teach in an intergenerational manner,” that is more in line with her values. She appreciates the support of her elders within this educational system.
Many of the students indicated that they need funding and support for computers for transportation. Overall commitment to stable funding to support programmes continues to be an issue as is stated in the section on “What do IIHL’s need to strengthen their role in the Post-Secondary Education system in Canada?” (page 14) Of course, that’s a challenge in the face of general fiscal restraint from all levels of government. However, it is clear that the students benefit from learning in an environment that supports both the their academic needs as well as their cultural needs as First Nations people in Canada.

Unrepentant , produced in 2008, stresses that the issue of racism and prejudice against First Nations people continues today. While researching infomation regarding my local school system I came across this sobering video regarding residential schools, in particular in Port Alberni but also other areas. It follows the story of a United Church minister, Kevin Annett who chooses to expose the tragedies of the local residential school. He is removed from the church and his family is destroyed all in an attempt to silence him. It is the continuing sage of injustice regarding the schools. This was happening in the face of many lawsuits being filed regarding abuse in residential schools. It’s striking that so many people barely survived school, many of whom are the parents and grandparents of the students in my school district. It is certainly critical that teachers organize the classroom with this in mind. To my mind, school is not supposed to be about survivial. It’s supposed to about learning and sharing and growth. It also strikes me that this is part of the deep-reflection on my own culture and even though I didn’t move here until 1998, I may represent that culture, because I’m a non-aboriginal teacher. The critical point for me is that this happened recently and is ongoing and it is part of the key to student engagement. Annett continues to write on the subject in an attempt to tell the truth in spite of ongoing attempts to discredit him.