Posts from — November 2011

We often hear that technology should never be used for technology’s sake.

In my last post I asked “Who are we?”. Wondering who the children of aboriginal ancestry (including my two children) are that attend our schools. I began investigating. I began with the information to be found on the Statistics Canada Website but was unsatisfied with the findings. Only information for Trail, BC was found yet we are a district that comprises six municipalities and many other small communities.

(2011). Achievement contract. Retrieved from School District No. 20 Kooteny-Columbia website: http://www.sd20.bc.ca/tl_files/Achievement Contract/2011-12 Achievement Contract COMPLETE.pdf

School district no. 20 kootenay-columbia board of education. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.sd20.bc.ca/board.html

Place and Community-based Education in Schools (2010) is a book by Gregory A. Smith and David Sobel. Their discussion about an approach to teaching and learning that starts with the local, addresses two critical gaps in the experience of many children now growing up in North America: contact with the natural world and contact with community. The book offers a way to extend young people’s attention beyond the classroom to the world as it actually is, and to engage them in the process of devising solutions to the social and environmental problems they will confront as adults. This approach can increase students’ engagement with learning and enhance their academic achievement.

The book also explains the purpose and nature of place and community-based education and provides multiple examples of its practice. Through the book, the detailed descriptions of learning experiences set both within and beyond the classroom help me and other readers understand the process of advocating for or incorporating local content and experiences into schools.

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) is the national Inuit organization in Canada, representing four Inuit regions – Nunatsiavut (Labrador), Nunavik (northern Quebec), Nunavut, and the Inuvialuit Settlement Region in the Northwest Territories. Founded in 1971 ITK represents and promotes the interests of Inuit on a wide variety of educational, environmental, social, cultural, and political, issues and challenges facing Inuit on the national level.

ITK web page has a publications section that contains a wide range of important resources related to Inuit education. As an example, through studying for my research paper I found a very interesting article: “The Literature on Inuit-Centred Curriculum and Teaching Approaches” that explains three dominant themes in the literature concerning Inuit-centred curriculum and teaching approaches as: 1) importance of understanding the broad social and economic relations which shape curriculum; 2) analysis and recommendations regarding pedagogy for Inuit-centred teaching and curriculum; and 3) policy and governance issues affecting Inuit-centred curriculum and teaching. (http://www.itk.ca/publication/documentation-national-strategy-inuit-education). In terms of practice and policy, the article also reveals many experiments and innovations for Inuit curriculum and teaching.

http://www.itk.ca/

The following video clip is a great visual about the future of Aboriginal education.  It provides a very strong statement about the need and right for Indigenous peoples to educate their children and raise them within the richness of their culture.  It pulls the past into today, and looks to tomorrow.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVg0NgIrFTQ&feature=related]

This is a literature review focusing on virtual learning environments and e-learning in the
Context of Te Reo Māori and Kaupapa Māori Education.  Some of the main areas discussed include:

• Teaching & learning practices for e-learning environments
• E-learning for Kaupapa Maori peoples
• eLearning principles and practices for Indigneous learners
• Discussions on culture, relationships, and pedagogical issues

I found it helpful in my study of eLearning for Indigenous learners to read about a study conducted with a specific group of Indigenous learners.

http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/72670/936_LitRev-VLEs-FINALv2.pdf

On the Ontario Ministry of Education’s website there is a page called “Aboriginal Perspectives: A guide to the Teacher’s Toolkit”.  The first section provides lists of the expectations in the revised curriculum that contain Aboriginal perspectives.  The second section consists of teaching strategies related to these expectations to use in the classroom.  The part I found most helpful was the information on culture, tradition, and language.  It introduces the “language of the circle” as well as other aspects of Indigenous culture. While not comprehensive, it provides a goo introduction for mainstream educators.

www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/aboriginal/toolkit.html

An article by Paul Hughes discusses Aboriginal ways of learning and learning styles. After presenting some background information on Aboriginal education in Australia, he describes some of the links between culture and learning styles, and provides a new model of learning.  I found his discussion on the primary and secondary differences between Aboriginal and western learners very helpful.

http://www.aare.edu.au/97pap/hughp518.htm

Phillips Indian Educators: Outside the Box/Within the Circle

Best Practices of Indigenous Education

As an American non-profit organization Phillips Indian Educators seek to “dramatically improve education for Indian students by ensuring that all educators or Indian students are knowledgeable enough to competently incorporate indigenous best practices into their teaching”. The ad-hoc group is currently composed of Native educators and administrators, working together to face the challenges faced by Native children and young adults in charter and public schools. The website provides a set of best practices of Indigenous Pedagogy and provides resources based on four holistic values in Indigenous learning: knowledge, respect, sharing and wisdom.

Experiential Learning in an Indigenous Context: Integration of place, experience and criticality in educational practice

By Kevin O’Connor

This is a 123 page report on using experiential learning to enhance indigenous learning. The Executive Summary states that many of the programs outlined in the report “successfully utilize experiential and placed-based initiatives to address the lack of success and disengagement amongst Indigenous students by promoting a holistic form of education that values the importance of place and its cultural knowledge” (O’Connor, 2010, p.4). The author states that “ The primary objective of this research is to discover which elements of experiential and place-based education lead to greater engagement of Indigenous students and improved educational outcomes” (p. 4).

First Nations Holistic Lifelong Learning  

This is an amazing resource that introduces the First Nations Holistic Lifelong Learning Model in the form of a ‘pedagogical tree’ where each part of the tree portrays a different dimension of personal development: spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental, “through which learning is experienced holistically.” According to the website “lifelong learning for First Nations peoples is grounded in experiences that embrace both indigenous and Western knowledge traditions, as depicted in the tree’s root system, Sources and Domains of Knowledge. Just as the tree draws nourishment through its roots, the First Nations person learns from and through the natural world, language, traditions and ceremonies, and the world of people (self, family, ancestors, clan, community, nation and other nations). Any uneven root growth can destabilize the learning system. The root system also depicts the intertwining presence of indigenous and Western knowledge, which forms the tree trunk’s core, where learning develops” (“Describing the Model”, para. 2).