Forms of Education of Indigenous Children as Crimes Against Humanity? – Advanced, unedited version

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Presented to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples in 2008, this expert paper, Forms of Education of Indigenous Children as Crimes Against Humanity, addresses the question of whether forms of education of Indigenous children can be crimes against humanity from the perspective of Saami lawyer Lars-Anders Baer.

Notable elements of the paper include definitions, explanations, and applications of terms such as “genocide,’ and numerous examples including some from Canada.

The paper is structured as follows:

I Introduction

II The nature and effects of dominant language-medium education – sociological and
educational insights

– A The importance of language

– B Force as means in indigenous education: “sticks”, “carrots” and ideas

– C Educational, social, physical and psychological consequences of submersion education

III Genocide

IV Crimes Against Humanity

V Conclusions

 

Towards a New Beginning: A Foundational Report for a Strategy to Revitalize First Nation, Inuit and Métis Languages and Cultures

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Towards a New Beginning: A Foundational Report for a Strategy to Revitalize First Nation, Inuit and Métis Languages and Cultures is a 2005 report to the Minister of Canadian Heritage by the Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures.

Members of the task force were appointed by the Canadian government with the consensus of Task Force partners the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, and the Métis National Council. The Task Force listened to the voices of communities and individuals across Canada in order to create a strategic vision for language revitalization in Canada.

The report contains eight parts:

I – Introduction

II – The Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures

III – Our Languages and Cultures: Cornerstones for Our Philosophies

IV – First Nations, Inuit, and Metis Languages: Where We Are Now

V- Calls for Action

VI – What We Heard in the Consultations

VII – Protecting and Promoting Our Languages

VIII – A National Language Organization

Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples – Education

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A note on navigation: when navigating the RCAP site there are two menus. The main menu features all of the elements of the RCAP report. The secondary menus feature the detailed contents of each item in the different parts of the report. If you are on a page and want to get back to the menu outlining the table of contents for the education section of the report, select “secondary menu.”

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) was a public inquiry into the relationship between Aboriginal people and Canada. It was initiated in 1991 and completed in 1996. The final report is over 4000 pages long.

The section on education presents a framework for lifelong, holistic learning which presents valuable concepts about the relationships involved in learning and the nature of learning from Indigenous perspectives.

RCAP was intended to be a twenty year roadmap for addressing a number of ongoing injustices between Aboriginal people and Canada, however, as this 1999 update explains implementation of the report’s recommendations was only partial even in the early stages. The Assembly of First Nations produced a report card in 2001 echos the concern that while solutions have been formulated through community consultation, implementing them has not been a priority for governments.

Indian Control of Indian Education

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In 1972, in response to the White Paper, the National Indian Brotherhood released Indian Control of Indian Education.

It is a policy paper that outlines how education could be changed in order to allow parents to have input into their children’s education and in order to allow for local control of education. The paper begins with an Indian philosophy of education followed by specific policy recommendations.