Background:
Through discussions with educators there have been some frequently occurring comments that continue to be expressed regarding their comfort level and perceived ability to engage in discussions regarding Aboriginal Education in their classrooms. Through this lesson and activity series these comments will be addressed by resolving the assumptions underpinning these comments and to move the discussion forward.
Some of the most frequent responses are:
- “I don’t know enough about Aboriginal people to answer questions that might come up.”
- “I am not Aboriginal, so I would have trouble speaking for Aboriginal people.”
- “I do not have Aboriginal people or deal with Aboriginal issues in my class/work place, so this material is not really relevant.”
It may be useful to comment on these comments up front at the beginning of the first online activity in order to alleviate the discomfort that students may experience in raising the comments themselves. It may also be more time efficient to acknowledge these concerns and provide some ways of thinking about the assumptions that drive them.
Q. “I don’t know enough about Aboriginal people to answer questions that might come up.”
Educators often cite their lack of knowledge of Aboriginal issues as a source of anxiety during classroom discussions. The key point is to recognize that they do not need to be “experts” in Aboriginal histories and cultures to have an effective classroom discussion. The situations (in the video for this lesson series) that students discussed in their interviews had little to do with “facts” about Aboriginal peoples and histories, and more to do with how difficult situations occur and how they are dealt with – or not dealt with – by instructors. This point may help educators feel that they can speak through their discomfort, rather than remain silent because of it.
Q. “I am not Aboriginal so I would have trouble speaking for Aboriginal people.”
It’s not the educator’s responsibility to speak for Aboriginal people. While it is important to recognize that educators are in a position of authority in the classroom, it might be more useful to think of teachers as being there to help students think through their comments, map out their assumptions, and develop more nuanced and less problematic ways of thinking and speaking about Aboriginal issues.
A related response that non-Aboriginal people have in discussions of Aboriginal subject matter is that because they are not Aboriginal, they have nothing to contribute to the discussion, or that they don’t know how to enter the discussion. As a facilitator, the educator may want to make a statement at the beginning of the first lesson that anticipates this concern. Such a response might be most effective if it includes the following points:
The significance of acknowledging social position and that their concerns about speaking reflect this;
- This doesn’t mean they don’t have anything to contribute to the discussion;
- Their understanding of the issues and white privilege contributes to the discussion;
- The ways in which you talk about this material matters;
- Acknowledging their social positions identifies the experience that they bring to the discussion, and that they don’t presume to have knowledge of the experiences of others who are also a part of the conversation.
Q. “I do not have Aboriginal people or deal with Aboriginal issues in my class/work place, so this material is not really relevant.”
It is worth questioning the underlying assumption of this kind of statement, since classroom discussions that include Aboriginal content do not solely take place in programs or courses designated as having an Aboriginal focus. A course on postcolonial critical theory, for instance, may include discussions of the history of colonization in North America and its impacts on Aboriginal peoples. A course examining social contexts of health issues might address the social dimensions of health issues affecting Aboriginal people. Likewise, a course on critical issues in special education would also discuss the impact of public education and residential schools on Aboriginal peoples and potentially delve in to the various rationales for why Aboriginal students are still over represented in four Ministry of Education special needs categories in 2012.
Reference: The information above has been re-worked from the work of Crey, K. & Perreault, A. (2008). What I Learned in Class Today: Aboriginal Issues in the Classroom. First Nations Studies Program, UBC.
Over Representation of Aboriginal Students in Special Education:
Over-representation of Aboriginal students in populations of students with special needs has been well documented both in research literature and in the data collected by the Ministry of Education of British Columbia in its student-level data collection system (McBride, 2001). The Aboriginal student population makes up 11% of the total student population in BC. Of the 63,899 Aboriginal students in the province in January 2012, 53% were identified with either sensory, learning or behavioural disabilities. This background information is not meant to insinuate that these statistics are in error, but it is meant to give us reason to pause to contemplate other reasons why Aboriginal students may not be prospering in the BC public school system.
Lesson Plan Title: Evolving Educational Discourses
Course Materials: Developed from Crey & Perreault, “What I Learned in Class Today: Aboriginal Issues in the Classroom” from the UBC First Nations Program. In addition, an essay “Cognitive Assimilation, Culturalism, and Diversity: Evolving Educational Discourses for First Nations Students” by Marie Battiste was also used.
Course/Subject: MEDS 530– Critical Issues in Special Education.
Duration: 1 hr.
Course Mgmt. System: WordPress Blog and ProBoard (free) Discussion Forum
Audience: Second Year Masters Students – Vancouver Island University
- The students in this course are already classroom teachers. This course is aimed at making these teachers more comfortable with having the important conversations with their students regarding assimilation, culturalism and diversity as it relates to Aboriginal Education (both past and present) in BC.
Prerequisite Skills: Certified Teacher
Materials/Equipment: PC or Macintosh with Internet connection
Purpose and Rationale: The purpose of this lesson is to assist the master’s level students in this course to better understand that public education is in the process of overcoming a long history of institutional racism. Our experiences are an effect of this history, and while the issues are troubling and complex, allowing them to remain unacknowledged would mean participating in this history; confronting these issues and taking part in thinking about ways of addressing them is where there is hope.
There is no “one way” to address this issue; teachers will have to respond to situations as they occur. The materials included in this lesson are meant to provide a springboard for discourse that can be adapted and developed further for anyone who is willing to conduct a similar workshop (for adults) on culturally and politically sensitive issues.