Tansi. Welcome to our second topic of the course,
the history of Indigenous education.
In topic two, I will address the history of Indigenous education,
speaking specifically to the Canadian context.
So while I'll speak of Canada's history of Aboriginal education,
this history is very similar to those of Native American peoples
in the United States, Aboriginal and Torres Island Strait
history of education in Australia.
And some of the features I will discuss within certain phases of education
are certainly familiar within traditional approaches
to Maori education.
This topic is intended to provide a historical backdrop
important to understanding what Indigenous peoples want and value
in education, as well as an introduction to the colonial history of schooling
relevant to the processes of reconciliation
that we want to achieve in this course.
The content of this topic focuses on the significant colonial experiences
of residential schools in Canada.
These institutions were a dominating force of assimilation.
And, as some argue, the goal of these schools
were to really eliminate Indigenous peoples from emerging settler societies
in North America and certainly Australia.
A further goal of the topic is to introduce you
to a set of strategies and resources for teaching
this history in the curriculum of schools
and to contextualize for educators Indigenous peoples'
participation in education today.
Now, history is usually presented to us in a linear form, where there's
a starting point and an endpoint for situating events.
That is, we begin somewhere, and then perhaps moving to where we are now,
and significant events and themes in our history are sequenced chronologically.
For example, many of us have learned through history and social studies
that the history of Indigenous peoples really
only began at the point of contact with newcomers to their lands.
Historical timeline would take us from a point of where,
"In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue,"
a poem some of you might be familiar with,
to where we are now today dealing with treaties, self-determination,
and reconciliation.
I want to take an Indigenous approach to viewing history,
which draws on a circular framework for viewing events and themes
and where the past not only informs the present,
but where we can return to histories over and over again.
This circular approach of history is reiterative,
and it allows for us to see patterns in history
as it moves in cycles, spiralling.
For Indigenous peoples, this is how we make sense of our past.
Unlike linear notions of time, an Indigenous circular framework
does not have to assume a starting point, other than perhapsour creation stories.
But, even then, these stories are not fully concerned about origins.
These stories reflect our understanding of the world
and connect us to place and land.
So in this circular framework of history,
I want to suggest that events and themes are fluid and interconnected.
I'm going to use the concept of the circle
to talk about the history of Indigenous education with specific reference
to the Canadian experience.
It is my hope that you can then make connections
to features that characterize Indigenous education that have spiralled
and continue to spiral, in your own locations.
There's a circular framework in Cree/Plains
tradition known as the Medicine Wheel.
While it may only be specific to certain Aboriginal groups and their traditions,
given the diversity of Aboriginal people in Canada,
I'd like to use it as an organizing framework.
This is a framework that has certainly been used in curriculum development and research contexts,
and it gives us a holistic view of Indigenous education,
allowing us to see connections between historical moments.
I'll map out four phases of Indigenous education.
I choose four because of its significance for Indigenous people,
certainly here in North America.
The world can be observed in patterns of four, the four directions
the four elements, the four seasons.
And I also want to point out themes of resistance and agency
within the phases I'm going to describe-- agency referring
to strategic and deliberate choices Indigenous peoples make
about education and resistance, whereby even within colonial paradigms
Indigenous peoples resisted events or experiences that
were imposed upon them.
I will ask you to envision a circle in four quadrants.
And as we enter the circle, I describe features of traditional approaches
to learning.
These were ways of living that ensured the survival of our families
and communities.
So language, story, and experiences, these were primary modes for learning.
Ancestral languages transmitted a particular worldview.
Stories were-- they were not just about entertainment,
but stories tell us who we are and how to be in the world
by communicating values or our values to us.
They explain things for us and help us make sense of the world.
Learning was experiential, promoting looking,
listening, and learning by doing.
Learning connected us to our ancestral, natural, and material worlds.
Land, family, and stories are sources of knowledge.
Our Elders, our families, extended families, knowledge keepers,
and community members all share in the responsibility
for helping young children to live in a good way.
Leading Mi'kmaq scholar Dr. Marie Battiste describes the nature of this
knowledge and these ways of knowing as a complete knowledge system.
She tells us that Indigenous knowledge reveals the wealth and richness
in our languages, worldviews, teachings, pedagogies, and experiences,
which have been systematically excluded from educational institutions
and from Eurocentric knowledge systems.
With newcomers to our lands, traditional forms of learning began to change.
And this is where we begin to shift about the circle.
It was missionaries who introduced formalized schooling approaches that
included day schools or mission schools.
Their emphasis was on conversion of Indigenous peoples to newcomer ways,
but that also included spiritual and religious conversion.
Now, in these phases, missionaries valued alliances
with Indigenous peoples, and this is because their conversion practices
required them to learn First Peoples languages.
There were competing religious factions, and missionaries really
needed to recruit to their specific group or religion.
And here, Indigenous peoples exercised some choice in these instances,
choosing to align themselves with specific missionary groups knowing
that missionaries could be conduits to government officials.
As well, the practices of the Bible gave access to print forms of literacy
so that learning the Bible meant learning to read and write.
Indigenous peoples knew the ways of the world were changing with the newcomers,
and they could accommodate this change.
Not that they wanted to adapt or convert,
but that they could be effective agents in the creation
of their own world at this particular time.
But these relationships would change dramatically when Indigenous peoples
were no longer needed as allies and really became simply
threats to settler expansion that required land and resources.
Indigenous peoples became a problem, or the Indian problem,
as it has been referred to in Canadian history.
This necessitated a set of policies and practices
that could control Indigenous peoples.
One such example is the Indian Act established in 1876
and continues to exert probably the greatest control on Canada's First Nations people.
Not only does it legally set out categories of Indigenous identity
in Canada, it regulates every aspect of their lives.
While it's undergone changes over time, it
is still applied to First Nations people.
And this is a legislation based on the values of a dominant society
and reflects their worldview.
It is described as both paternalistic and racist here in Canada today.
As part of this larger colonial agenda of eliminating the Indian problem,
a system of schooling known as residential schools
were established by the federal government
and run by various religious denominations.
This system of education operated across Canada spanning over 100 years,
approximately 1850s to the 1950s, with the last one closing in 1996.
These schools were pervasive, systematic,
and totalizing in their control over Indigenous peoples.
This form of schooling was characterized by very destructive features that
included the denigrating of belief systems, traditions, languages
for students who attended these schools and, as a result,
generations of Aboriginal people.
These schools forced separation of children
from their lands, families, and traditions, the very links
to their cultural identity.
It was an education that emphasized vocational skills
and religious training.
And this was seen in the half-day curriculum of the schools, whereby
children were forced to work part of the school day within the schools
to sustain their operations, as they were-these schools were seriously underfunded.
But what cannot go untold about these schools is the spiritual, emotional,
physical, and sexual abuse that children suffered at the hands
of their caregivers: religious staff, and the many unprepared teachers who
couldn't get jobs in public schools.
I know some people have described some of the positive contributions
that these schools possibly made to the lives of Aboriginal people,
and there's certainly some of those stories.
But as I said, this is a system that was totalizing, pervasive, and systematic,
and the impacts are so large-scale on Aboriginal people.
These effects have been described as intergenerational.
There were generations of children who attended these schools
over a 100-year period, and the effects of this schooling
are seen in the erosion of our family systems.
We learn to parent by being parented, by being nurtured,
and these are children who, for generations, simply
did not have these kinds of models.
And secondly, the loss of culture, languages, our ways of knowing
had very serious consequences for identity and self-worth.
So many of the conditions endemic in our families and communities
today have their roots in this history.
And yet there were students who resisted and survived
this brutalizing form of schooling.
Students ran away from schools.
They continued to speak in their language groups
and continued to practice cultural ceremonies.
There were even families that were able to hide their children when
the Indian agent came to take-to take children away.
Now, it would be impossible to give-do justice
to this history in the limited time that we have in this topic
and certainly within the course.
So I encourage you to follow up with some
of the very important writing on the significant shared colonial history of schooling.
Two comprehensive works in Canada include
J.R. Miller's "Shingwauk's Vision" and John Milloy's "A National Crime".
They give a comprehensive history of this schooling.
There's also a growing body of literature
that documents the experience of residential school survivors.
I think about Isabelle Knockwood's "Out of the Depths", Basil Johnston's "Indian School Days",
and the book "Kamloops Indian Residential School",
which is a set of narratives compiled by the Secwepemc Cultural Society,
as well as recent publications by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
such as "Speaking My Truth".
These are only a few.
But for educators, we are seeing residential school accounts
narrated in young adolescent and children's literature.
And I think this is very important for thinking
about this history in schooling.
So, "My Name Is Seepeetza" by Nlaka'pamux author Dr. Shirley Sterling,
and there are certainly accompanying curriculum documents with this
particular text that are available online.
"Fatty Legs", which is co-constructed by Margaret Pokiak-Fenton
and her daughter-in-law, Christy Jordan Fenton,
and then a version for younger children of this story called "When I Was Eight".
And of course, the beautiful books written by
Stó:lo author Nicola Campbell.
She's produced two excellent children's books,
"Shi-shi-etko" as well as "Shin-chi's Canoe".
And these are very important contributions
that can introduce young children to the significant experience
of residential schools.
Now, for some of you, you may be learning
about this very dark part of Canadian history for the first time,
and for others it contributes to your ongoing journey
in Indigenous education.
But this is a history that we cannot deny, erase, or even forget about.
This is a history that is not over.
Our families and communities still carry the effects of this schooling,
even if they themselves did not attend these schools.
Our circular framework allows us to return to this history,
not that we would ever return to this form of schooling,
but return to this history to remember, to heal, and to help us, all of us,
understand the intergenerational legacy.
As Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators,
we are responsible for this history, whether we were present at the time or not.
It's a history that belongs to all of us,
and we are all inheritors of this history and, as such,
need to redress this past.
I now turn to the fourth phase of education and the final turn
to complete our circle.
The fourth phase represents contemporary forms
of schooling for Aboriginal learners.
Before I describe some of the features of Indigenous education in this phase,
I want to acknowledge the landmark policy
of Indian Control of Indian Education, which was really
a catalyst for educational change for our people.
It was a policy that emerged in 1972 as part of a larger shift in policy
directed at Indigenous peoples.
And it's important because it entrenched Indigenous peoples'
right to make decisions about their children's education.
It acknowledged Indigenous culture, language, and traditions
as foundations for learning.
And finally, it intended to ensure parental involvement.
While significant as this policy has been
to ensure Indigenous peoples' control over educational processes
that impact on their children, Indigenous children
have still not achieved academic parity as compared to their non-Indigenous peers.
More recently, a second legislation was proposed,
Bill C-33, the First Nations Control of First Nations Education Act.
Now, this legislation was intended to provide First Nations students
with education standards, supports, and opportunities
that would lead to equitable education for Indigenous students.
It emphasized a core curriculum that would be taught in First Nations schools
so that students could transfer between schools on- and off-reserve,
as well as improving school attendance and the quality of teaching.
Now, the legislation has been rejected by First Nations governments and their leaders
as the legislation really does not give control to First Nations.
Rather the federal government would maintain governing structures
and continue to regulate standards.
In addition, it does not address the challenges facing First Nations
education that relate to the lack of adequate funding.
These are only a few of the limitations of this bill that
may offer potential change in the curriculum of schooling
serving First Nations students, certainly in on-reserve communities,
and address issues of accountability.
But the bill itself continues to undermine First Nations
control of First Nations education.
Again, the development of Indian Control of Indian Education
as a response to larger policy directed at Aboriginal people in Canada
and the rejection of this newly-proposed legislation
are demonstrations of Indigenous peoples' agency and resistance.
I'd like to turn now to the features that
characterize this phase of contemporary education.
In this phase, we see the emergence of First Nations community
control of schools and supporting structures for these schools.
I use the example of the First Nations Education Steering Committee
here in British Columbia, which is doing excellent work to advance
educational priorities not only for First Nations schools,
but to provincial education programming.
And I'm referring here to current curriculum resources that
include English First Peoples 11, English First Peoples 12,
and First Peoples Math.
And these are resources that are available online,
and they validate the ways that Indigenous content
can be linked to provincial curriculum.
There is also a greater range of schooling options
for Indigenous learners in the Canadian education landscape.
So, for example, Aboriginal Focus Schools have
been developed within provincial school boards.
And I'm thinking here about the Joe Duquette secondary school,
Now known as Oskayak.
The Vancouver School Board has an Aboriginal Focus School, as well as
one in Prince George, both in British Columbia, Canada.
While not specific to K to 12 schooling,
I want to introduce you to an early childhood intervention program,
the Aboriginal Head Start program.
This is a national program in Canada
operating in urban, rural, and First Nations communities.
And it's very different from the Head Start model in the US,
as this program was developed based on national consultation
with Canada's Aboriginal people.
And it operates on foundational principles
that include culture and language, family involvement,
social support for Aboriginal children, but also school readiness.
This program contributes to a holistic view of Indigenous education
as it links early childhood to elementary schools.
Now, what these contemporary examples demonstrate for us
are the very values and practices within traditional approaches to learning
that I described earlier or at the beginning phase of the circle.
These examples, among numerous others,
centre Indigenous ways of knowing in the learning processes.
Learning is holistic.
It engages families and communities in education,
draws on Indigenous pedagogies.
So that the sources of knowledge, the processes of learning,
and even the functions that learning serves -We return to these-
or we return to traditional forms with these examples.
So as we come full circle, this view of history
ensures that we do not move forward without looking back and engaging
and engaging with a shared past.
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