This website can be used in conjunction with the resources available at the Glooscap Heritage Centre in Truro, Nova Scotia. Named after a figure often found in many Mi’kmaq legends, both encompasses a great deal of Mi’kmaq cultural information, history, and knowledge. Although only in it’s infancy, the website hosts online training, media, and educational resources.
Decolonizing Our Schools: Aboriginal Education in the Toronto District School Board
Report presented: September 30, 2010. Written by Aboriginal scholar Dr. Susan D. Dion, along with Krista Johnston and Dr. Carla Rice
In this report, the authors describe the work of the Urban Aboriginal Education Pilot Project (UAEPP) in Toronto District schools (TDSB) between April 2009 and September, 2010. It’s interesting to note that the goal of the UAEPP is to deliver education that is “worthy of our children and our ancestors” in a large, diverse urban context. Much of the report is based on the research findings of the Talking Stick Project.
The research confirms what Aboriginal parents, students, and educators already knew: institutions of formal schooling are failing to provide Aboriginal students with the educational environment and experiences that they need to achieve success. Urban Aboriginal students face a number of unique problems – they are unable to find suitable connection with cultural knowledge and do not see themselves represented in the curriculum. They are “encouraged to attend school in the spite of a long, negative, and hurtful relationship between Aboriginals and schooling.” School employees in urban settings face unique challenges in first of all recognizing Aboriginal student populations and then delivering programs when FN students are dispersed across a range of schools. Additionally, almost all educators lack the requisite knowledge and training for meaningfully teaching Aboriginal subject matter.
After interviewing and studying approximately 200 students, parents, teachers, administrators, community members, and other stakeholders the following four key findings were generated:
1. TDSB must recognize the importance of understanding and responding to Aboriginal students, youth, and their learning needs
2. Meaningful incorporation of Indigenous issues must be supported by providing thoughtful pro-d for teaching staff
3. Schools must be transformed in order to Decolonize and Indigenize learning spaces
4. Aboriginal Education must be supported at all levels and prioritized by establishing internal and external partnerships
Some of the many other recommendations:
———– Decolonizing our Schools is as powerful an educational research report as one will ever read. The authors pull no punches and directly challenge the stereotypes and misguided thinking of those who declare that Indigenous education should be compartmentalized or marginalized because Aboriginals are a minority in their classrooms/schools. This report reminds us that were all the products of a colonial legacy that has ravaged Indigenous practices. In many ways, the report is a refreshing departure from the non-committal babble that emanates from school district research departments. Of course, it has to be…the topic is simply too significant for any lesser approach.
This short film explores the bond between Aboriginal youth and Elders and unites them in talking circles with the goal of sharing of words of wisdom. Elders from the Dene, Cree, Blackfoot, and Metis from across Alberta helped provide the guidance that was central to the program. The relationships were coordinated by the Alberta Native Friendship Centers Association and the Alberta Aboriginal Youth Council. This summary of their work was filmed in Jasper, Alberta – August, 2007.
The film begins by reminding us that Aboriginal youth are the fastest growing segment of Canada’s population and facing a strong set of challenges. Like their ancestors overcame, the conviction is conveyed that through belief in their culture, in their own self-worth, and through a sense of belonging, these difficult times will be overcome. Through the guidance of Elders (always capitalized), Aboriginal youth are coming to know their culture and appreciate their traditions and customs.
A focus on emotion characterizes much of the film. Many of the youth require emotional guidance and have been subjected to discrimination. Many Elders mention that lack of spirituality – lack of a belief in a power greater than yourself – is harming youth and getting them caught up in the material world that is full of ills such as violence, drugs, alcohol, and disengagement
One girl describes being the only one of 8 in her family who does not drink or do drugs. This is a sobering reality for some in the Indigenous community. Becoming human and humble and moving away from the arrogance that characterizes substance abuse is described as a healing quality that needs to be spread among the youth. This type of wisdom is passed on during hours and hours of informal discussion with Elders.
It’s interesting that most of the Elders featured in the film were women and many of the participating youth were teens in crisis. The ability of the women to be both nurturing and candid seems to have played a role in helping the youth who are interviewed to move away from harmful behaviours.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3_e6M-Lulo&feature=related[/youtube]
http://portal.unesco.org/es/ev.php-URL_ID=6220&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Simply marrying up science and traditional/indigenous knowledge is not an option. Too often, science has sifted through the sandbox of traditional knowledge and taken what was seen as valuable (bio-active ingredients in plants that can be used for profit) and discarded the rest.
Often discarded was the cultural and spiritual base of traditional knowledge. Science has long claimed to be culture free, and logical and thus the best world view, when in fact this in itself is a cultural assumption! We need to “listen to our own historians and philosophers of science, then we must acknowledge that science has another face that is not the one most commonly presented for public consumption. Science has its own historical, social and cultural context. From its very origins, science is anchored in a dualistic worldview that separates Culture and Nature, sets humans apart from other living organisms, and opposes the rational and the spiritual. This will to separate, reduce and compartmentalise is both science’s force, as witnessed by enormous advances in Western technology, and its weakness” as can be seen by the problems that modern science has gotten us into recently!
What also needs to be considered are the intellectual property rights of the owners of the knowledge. Just like the patent of a drug must be respected, even though it can save lives, so to must the intellectual property of a group of indigenous peoples.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmgFSu-owxU&feature=relmfu[/youtube]
In this video, Daniel Wildcat explains two unique ways that science and indigenous knowledge are working together to combat/adapt to climate change.
The first is a research project at the University of Kansas that is looking at the movement and changes of ice sheets using satellite imaging. The University of Kansas asked the Haskel Indian Nations University to partner up on this project, and Wildcat’s idea was to have students and academics on the research team helping to explain how culture and land coexist.
The second had students at the Haskel Indian Nations University and Northwest Indian College working directly with technology to understand and solve local issues.
Both of these projects are valuable ones to the Native and non-native communities, not to mention all of humanity. The first project has First Nations people explaining the link between land and culture and how and why this is necessary. Perhaps if Westerners had more of a connection to a region, there would be more regard for the land. The second project skips the middle man–the non-native researcher–and has the First Nation people working directly with the technology to solve real problems that affect them daily. This has many positive repercussions in my mind, including, but not limited to celerity of problem solving, relevance of the issues being solved, bolstering of the local FN economy, bolstering of the local autonomy…
http://www.cbp.ucar.edu/documents/Winds_of_Change_ClimateChange.pdf
This pdf is a bit of a review of the discussions and events at the Seven Generations Conference in 2008. Of particular interest to my research is the interview with Daniel Wildcat who is a professor at Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas. His specialty is in Indigenous knowledge, technology, environment and education. The epiphany he describes through story in this interview is my thesis for my paper. While working with NASA and remote sensing satellite images of Earth, he decided that First Nations people were “local sensing” experts and that the two forms of knowing–scientific and indigenous–work together to create a larger, more accurate picture.
Indigenous knowledge can certainly give scientists more specific, holistic information about what is happening at ground level or “in real life” (as opposed to in satellite images on on pages of data), but the rapid rate at which things are changing, and the extreme nature of the changes often renders the problem solving skill set of the particular indigenous knowledge ill equipped to deal. Thus, scientists and indigenous thinkers need to collaborate in order to problem solve and troubleshoot the solutions to this massive issue.
The high rate of suicide within the Aboriginal youth population is greatly concerning. The Honouring Life Network website is working towards preventing suicides within the Aboriginal Youth population by providing a network in which Aboriginal youth can share their experiences and gain access to numerous suicide prevention resources. These resources are also available to Aboriginal communities and youth workers. The site receives funding from Health Canada and is an Aboriginal-run entity. The Honouring Life Network website displays a way in which Aboriginal communities are working towards improving Aboriginal youths’ lives by connecting and educating them through the use of technology.
The National Film Board of Canada has an “Aboriginal Perspectives” website which serves to provide access to a range of documentaries that reflect important aspects of Aboriginal culture and history. The documentaries included in the site are comprehensive in scope with documentaries falling under seven themes. These themes include arts, cinema and representation, colonialism and racism, history and origin, indigenous knowledge, sovereignty and resistance, and lastly youth.
The documentaries within the youth theme are intended to provide insight into the struggles that Aboriginal youth face. Also, the youth section of the site provides a place for the achievements of Aboriginal youth to be showcased. The youth section of the NFB’s Aboriginal Perspectives website is extremely pertinent to my chosen topic as it displays a clear connection between technology and youth. The site allows for a digital “voice” to be given to the stories of Aboriginal youth.
http://www3.onf.ca/enclasse/doclens/visau/index.php?mode=theme&language=english&theme=30666&submode=teachers
While conducting research for my study, I came across a website from the Rochester Institute of Technology which describes a pilot workshop conducted by the Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (AbTeC). In this pilot program, Native Youth from the Mohawk Kahnawake Survival School help to design videogames based on traditional stories from their tribe. Based out of Montreal, the goal of AbTeC is to encourage Aboriginal use of online and media based technologies to strengthen Native cultures. In addition, AbTeC is committed to encouraging the participation of Aboriginal Youth in taking part creating video games and virtual reality worlds. To meet these goals, AbTeC has created a video game/virtual reality world workshop (Skins) for Aborginal Youth to teach them how to design, program and create video games and virtual worlds. Members of the academic world, artists and the technologically advanced worked together to help build the curriculum and discuss “the role of new media technologies in North American Indigenous cultural production, outlining curriculum for teaching First Nations youth how to use such technologies, and testing curriculum.” In 2008-2009 at Kahnawake Survival School, AbTeC observed and recorded the following:
For a more comprehensive look at the Skins project follow the link below.
http://www.rit.edu/gccis/gameeducationjournal/skins-designing-games-first-nations-youth
This research project, which was developed in the First Nations Studies program at UBC, examines the discussions regarding Aboriginal issues in the classroom at UBC. The film, What I Learned in Class Today: Aboriginal Issues in the Classroom, which was directed by Karmen Crey (from the Sto:lo nation) and Amy Perreault (who is Metis) covers issues surrounding being Aboriginal including history, art and land claims. In the film, some Native students talk about the experience of feeling pressured to lead discussions for an “aboriginal viewpoint”. At one point in the film, one of the Native students remarks that, “It’s a responsibility sometimes I really relish in and sometimes I really feel like I’m carrying a brick on my back”. The website continues with Crey and Perrault’s findings and features videos of student and instructor interviews and reaction to the project. For example, the information on the website indicates that many Aboriginal UBC students found many Native cultural discussions extremely traumatic. This experience led to student`s coursework being affected and some who were unable to return to class. As a result, the project was created to develop a better understanding of the issues and to “improve the conversations around politically and culturally sensitive issues in a classroom by asking: how does cultural communication happen in a classroom, and how can it be improved?” The site has been important to my study because it provided me with more insight into Aboriginal youths’ experiences in the western educational system. In addition, it is another example of how Native youth are using technologies such as websites and video technology to voice their experiences and concerns.
http://aboriginal.ubc.ca/2010/12/01/training-film-fosters-frank-aboriginal-discussion/