Indigenous Affairs

My Dreams for Indigenous Education in Canada

Jo -Ann Archibald
  1. By: Jo-ann Archibald.

Stó:lō educator Jo-ann Archibald, new Order of Canada recipient, imagines the brightest future for her field.

[Editor’s note: Jo-ann Archibald, University of British Columbia professor emeritus of education and member of the Stó:lō First Nation, is one of 15 people appointed Officer of the Order of Canada for 2019. Archibald, whose Indigenous name is Q’um Q’um Xiiem, spent her 45-year academic career Indigenizing education, from teaching, to teacher education and curriculum development, to university education. Archibald spoke to Tyee reporter Katie Hyslop about where she wants to see Indigenous education in 20 years.]

I’d like to be able to look back in 20 years and say, “Gee, we’ve really made some big steps, instead of the small steps we’ve been making over the years.” For example, ensuring Indigenous ways of knowing are more firmly embedded in all areas of education, moving from the margins to core parts of learning in early learning, Kindergarten to Grade 12, and post-secondary education.

Now we’re at the stage where we have pockets where Indigenous ways of knowing have been introduced, and in some areas we actually have Indigenous programs. We have had success for those who are lucky enough to experience these programs. But those are few.

In 20 years, Indigenous ways of knowing should be more widespread and shared in ways that are meaningful, of good quality and engaging. Teachers who take on this role should feel more confident in introducing the topics, the resources and most importantly work with Indigenous families and community members to supplement what the teachers are doing. Research should be connected to these approaches so that we can learn what’s working, what needs to be improved, and share that widely.

Some teachers will say, “I can’t do anything about the Indigenous kids; they come from poor homes,” and feel hopeless. I would hope this feeling shifts to excitement and confidence in working with Indigenous students and parents, rather than feeling it’s a dismal situation. That point came out in a 2015 auditor general’s report in British Columbia; it is called the racism of low expectations. I hope we wouldn’t have that anymore in 20 years time.

And we need to question our biases and keep examining our own perspectives: “What’s my attitude to Indigenous peoples or the history? What has shaped my attitudes and how I approach these areas in my own practice?” Those questions are so important, and even somebody who feels they are not biased, when they look at their assumptions might think, “Oh, maybe I need to get more informed, get some help from others to deal with some of these questions that I have.” I think it’s really important to question, but you need to act on those questions.

More Indigenous teachers!

We seem to have more Indigenous teachers who act as resource teachers in the public school system, which is important, but at the same time we need to have the Indigenous teachers as classroom teachers, too. That leads up to post-secondary education, where many more Indigenous faculty members are needed for teaching and doing research.

I do see more Indigenous people entering post-secondary education now, and these could be the future teachers and educational leaders at all levels of education. The teachers to me are so central to Indigenous students’ success, which is why I have dedicated much of my educational career to teacher and graduate education.

Including more Indigenous ways of knowing in curriculum

We’ve been working on many areas of Indigenous curriculum, preparation of teachers and educational leaders and increasing the educational involvement of community members. But we really need to ensure that the funding for these approaches continues, and that’s a difficult area, because if educational systems and universities start to have a financial issue the Indigenous programs are often the ones that suffer the most.

Currently, there is a requirement from the B.C. Ministry of Education to include Indigenous topics and resources at every grade level and subject area. Some innovative approaches ensure that students have opportunities to be out in nature to learn about the rivers, the land and the affinity and kinship one can acquire by being on and with the land. They have stories to help them, Elders or knowledge holders doing activities with them out on the land, and the teachers help relate this Indigenous knowledge to science, math, reading, physical activity and more. It can be holistic and integrated, starting with the use of Indigenous traditional stories.

In contrast, it’s not doing a little bit and feeling, “Okay, that’s my Indigenous activity for the year,” which may give students the impression that this learning is not that important. It’s important that teachers, whether they are K-12 or at university, try something, and that could be their first time. But it should not be their last time.

Non-Indigenous students benefiting, too

Non-Indigenous students may develop an awareness that Indigenous people were living on this land going back thousands of years. They managed to survive, to live on and with the land, learned or developed technologies to help them and had their own values and laws.

The other part that students have to know is the history of colonization and to think about the results. If they then hear on the news that Indigenous people are protesting some of the pipelines, logging or the missing and murdered Indigenous women, they will have an understanding about why our society is in this predicament today. Whereas when they don’t learn the history, all they see are the images on the news, and they’re not given an understanding about what are the issues, how they’ve come about, what people want to happen and the racism and how that plays out.

More emphasis on education as a life-long journey

I’d like to see more Indigenous families and community members feeling positive about their engagement with the school, that school is not for them a scary place or a place they don’t belong, which is often a prevalent feeling.

We need to also put the same attention on this lifelong or long-term commitment. It is important for these different systems to work co-operatively: the early childhood education to K-12, then K-12 into post-secondary, then post-secondary to career/business/industry. Right now, it’s not a seamless kind of journey for the learners.

Indigenous learners have often been channelled into some areas that are limited, where they may not take the math or English courses that would get them into a university, for example. That can be problematic when it’s done through bias; we want to make sure if learners decide they want to go into a trades program, they do it knowingly and they feel good about it. At the same time, they should have the option to go to college and university.

Twenty years from now we would have much more flexible educational systems where Indigenous learners feel included, that they belong, that they feel good about who they are as Indigenous people, and that there is this caring and meaningful trajectory for them.

Stronger connections between education systems, community

Where I see a lot of exciting things happening right now is in the Indigenous early childhood programs. Across the country they have been working on ensuring the programs are Indigenous — learning an Indigenous language, Indigenous stories — while they’re also doing child development, learning and communication activities that all children should get at that level.

At the same time, post-secondary Indigenous education in Canada is expanding to include more Indigenous courses, programs and support units for students and faculty. What is needed are ways to connect these various public and Indigenous educational systems so that those students who experience Indigenous learning transition successfully to their next level of learning, where that system is also responsive to Indigenous learners and to Indigenous ways of knowing.

If Indigenous students do need any particular supports, there are ways to find the supports, or draw on the strength that child has or strength from the family and community. That’s where the educational systems could then work with the community.

Or later, for career or job areas, there are partnerships where students can have internships and co-op placements. So that child knows, ‘Hey, somebody cares about me,’ and they are prepared and they are given options. In 20 years, that continuum should be a standard way of thinking about Indigenous students.

That kind of approach is starting to happen. I have been involved with a non-profit society, Dogwood 25, that’s trying to look at this Indigenous learning continuum going from the early years right through into career and work. We are trying to get school districts, post-secondary, business and industry working in partnership so we can develop this kind of continuum planning and program approach.  [Tyee]

Source of the article: https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/01/14/Indigenous-Education-Dreams/

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Canada: How Might BC Schools Tackle Racism?

Noticias

América del Norte/Canada/thetyee.ca/By Katie Hyslop

Resumen: Con el aumento de la retórica racista, The Tyee pregunta a los maestros y abogados cómo ayudar a los estudiantes a luchar. En un artículo publicado en The Tyee la semana pasada, la profesora de educación de la Universidad de Columbia Británica, Michelle Stack, pidió a sus colegas educadores blancos que hablaran con sus estudiantes sobre el racismo: «Tenemos que negarnos a minimizar la opresión a pesar de la tentación de hacerlo. La supremacía blanca es real y hace daño inconmensurable. ¿Qué enseñamos a nuestros hijos? ¿Aprenden sobre la supremacía blanca y el racismo y maneras de luchar contra ella? » El racismo es parte del legado de la Columbia Británica, desde su fundación en tierras de las Primeras Naciones sin terminar hace más de 150 años. Ese legado se enseña en el programa de kindergarten hasta el 12º grado de la provincia, incluyendo las escuelas residenciales y la Scoop de los sesenta , el impuesto sobre la cabeza de China , los campamentos de internamiento japoneses y los cientos de inmigrantes sij a bordo del Komagata Maru. Pero si usted habla con los estudiantes de BC y los maestros, ellos le dirán que el racismo no es sólo en el pasado. Ellos lo oyen en silbidos insultos en los pasillos, ya través de estereotipos planteados en clase. Lo ven en las mesas de almuerzo dividido por raza y cultura.

With the rise in racist rhetoric, The Tyee asks teachers and advocates how to help students fight back.

In an op-ed published on The Tyee last week, University of British Columbia education professor Michelle Stack called on her fellow white educators to talk to their students about racism:

Racism is part of the legacy of British Columbia, from its founding on unceded First Nations land more than 150 years ago. That legacy is taught in the province’s kindergarten to Grade 12 curriculum, including residential schools and the Sixties Scoop, the Chinese head tax, Japanese internment camps, and the hundreds of Sikh migrants aboard the Komagata Maru denied entry to the province.

But if you talk to B.C. students and teachers, they’ll tell you racism isn’t just in the past. They hear it in hissed slurs in the halls, and through stereotypes raised in class. They see it in the lunch tables divided by race and culture.

With the current climate in the U.S. (and Donald Trump in the White House), racist rhetoric has found its way back into the mainstream discourse. BC Teachers’ Federation president Glen Hansman says the way that schools address racism must change to reflect that.

“We also have the responsibility as a union — and the Ministry of Education, working with school boards, too — to make sure that we are equipping teachers properly to be able to have these conversations in schools, and we’re still not there yet,” he said.

‘1980s approach to multiculturalism’

So what supports do B.C. teachers have to provide anti-racism education?

Five years ago, the BC Teachers’ Federation’s Committee for Action on Social Justice released “Show Racism the Red Card,” an anti-racism teaching resource.

Based on a similar program in the United Kingdom, the “lesson aid” includes background information for teachers on anti-racism education, as well as sample lesson plans for kindergarten to Grade 12. The resource is available online for free, though Hansman acknowledges it needs to be updated.

The union also provides its own anti-racism workshops for teachers, including how to teach from an anti-oppression framework; making schools racism-free for Indigenous students; and deconstructing racist myths.

But access to the workshops is limited for teachers who live outside of B.C.’s urban hubs, and cuts to school districts’ professional development budgets means there is little or no support in some districts for anti-racism professional development.

“All teachers have a bit of understanding about how to do anti-racist pedagogy in the classroom based on their own school experience or what they received in teacher education training,” Hansman said. “But we can’t just rest on our laurels about what we encountered 20 years ago.”

Since the mass shooting at a Quebec City mosque earlier this year, the union has received pushback from the public and some teachers who believe the best way to address racism is to be “colour-blind” and not talk about it at all, Hansman said.

That’s a “1980s approach to multiculturalism,” he added. “It negates the very real lived experience of students from marginalized groups, including racialized groups. It also nullifies that differences that people are proud of.”

Using privilege for good

Annie Ohana makes the conscious choice to deconstruct racism in her classes. Ohana, who teaches social science, law and social justice, and is the Aboriginal teacher advisor at L.A. Matheson Secondary in Surrey, B.C., starts every school year with a class discussion about privilege.

“We absolutely start with white privilege, male privilege, etc. But there’s many different forms of privilege: education, citizen, heterosexual — there’s tons,” she said. It’s not about making students feel bad, she said, but exploring how they can use their privileges to help others.

Ohana, who helped organize the counter-protest to the anti-Muslim rally planned for Vancouver this month, exposes her students to voices and perspectives not found in most textbooks. For example, when discussing the First World War she doesn’t just focus on European experience but also that of the one million Indian soldiers who fought alongside the British.

A big part of Ohana’s approach to anti-racist education is disrupting students’ comfort zones, she said. That can be as simple as changing the seating plan so students work with different people. It also means being open to dialogue on students’ viewpoints, even when they disagree with her own.

“Everybody can have an opinion and can have it heard. They need to be ready to be challenged — not in a violent way, but a way that is respectful of other people,” she said.

“If somebody says, ‘I’m against Islam because the Qu’ran advocates for violence,’ for example, if other students would like to counter that and break that down, we’re going to do so in a safe space.”

That doesn’t mean it’s safe to spread hate in Ohana’s class, though. “You’re not allowed to point fingers. You’re not allowed to swear at another person or insult them,” she said. “You are in a school and there are rules to follow.”

Diversity in the classroom

Education isn’t just the domain of teachers, however. The Tyee reached out to anti-racist advocates and community groups for their thoughts on how schools should address racism.

One of those advocates is Jessie Kaur Lehail, co-founder of the Kaur Project, which takes its name and focus from the stories of Sikh women in B.C. who have adopted Kaur as a middle or last name.

Lehail shows students in the classes she’s visited the differences and similarities between the women featured in the Kaur Project, and the students’ own lives.

“It really doesn’t matter what background these women are, they just showcase that we’re all humans and we all have trials and tribulations. They’re just socially and culturally different on some levels,” she said. “And it’s an opportunity for understanding, to learn something new, and also to have empathy for other people.”

Lehail, who spoke at last month’s counter-protest and has visited Ohana’s classes, says it’s important for teachers and schools to address racist incidents. But they could be proactive, too, and tackle these issues before anything happens.

“Ensure that non-Caucasian voices, ideas, authors and thoughts are included [in your lessons]. It’s important to have Indigenous voices, women’s voices, people of colour, to show that there is diversity,” she said, adding this shouldn’t be limited to books but include people from the community, bringing them into the classroom.

Wendy Addo of Black Lives Matter-Vancouver agrees, advocating for schools to develop ongoing relationships with B.C.’s black and Indigenous communities.

But the first step towards creating an anti-racist school environment, she says, is schools and districts asking themselves what they’re doing to make their schools safe for students of colour, where their voices and viewpoints are respected.

“Is there an accessible and swift path to recourse for students who have been the victims of racism within the school and/or the school community? Is the school fostering a culture of accessibility and accommodation for [English Language Learning] students and a culture of accommodating and respecting non-white cultural practices in the school and community?” Addo wrote in a Facebook message to The Tyee.

Addo wants the curriculum to include lessons about white privilege, supremacy, and fragility, as well as the historic and current impacts of colonialism on people of colour.

“[Students] need to learn a critical perspective on the police, the military and contemporary and historic land occupation,” she wrote. “They need to learn often erased and neglected parts of our history such as the histories of genocide, forced eviction and slavery in Canada, and the histories of Indigenous and African-Canadian communities — their struggles and their resistance.”

Learning from the past

Addo isn’t advocating for a total erasure of the old, Eurocentric curriculum. Instead, she says that teachers should use it as a critical thinking lesson on how historical narratives can cover up other people’s histories in favour of a white supremacist narrative.

Edward Liu, an anti-racism advocate from Richmond who helped organize a protest against the anti-Chinese flyers that appeared in his city last November, echoed Addo’s assessment of the white-centric provincial history that was taught to many British Columbians.

“The history of B.C. gives the impression that it was the European colonists who built the province single-handedly. People from other ethnic groups were just some sort of supporting actors that helped the white colonists,” Liu wrote in an email to The Tyee.

“For instance, the Chinese were more than railroad workers who just appeared in the early 1880s; they were one of the major contributors to many of the interior communities in southern B.C. area, even before B.C. joined Canada.”

The multicultural social service organization S.U.C.C.E.S.S. is no stranger to community discussions on racism. After those anti-Chinese flyers appeared in Richmond mailboxes last fall, the organization held a community forum to discuss racism against newcomers.

While recognizing some school districts may already be doing this work, Winnie Tam, director of strategic communications and marketing at S.U.C.C.E.S.S., suggested that districts develop comprehensive policies on inclusion and anti-racism, including how teachers, students and parents can report and followup on racist incidents at school.

Tam also echoed Hansman’s recommendation that teachers, as well as school administrators, receive anti-racism and inclusion training, while providing age appropriate programming for students, and settlement support for newcomer families and kids.

The Tyee reached out to the First Nations Education Steering Committee and the Urban Native Youth Association for their thoughts on what schools should do to battle racism, but did not hear back by press time.

However, an early 2000s FNESC document provides suggestions from the BC Aboriginal Education Partners Committee — a working group made up of FNESC, teachers, provincial government representatives and school administrators — on tackling racism against Indigenous students.

Suggestions included educating and hiring more Indigenous teachers; building support and awareness for Indigenous-focused courses like First Peoples 12; educating teachers on Indigenous issues; and including students in the development of anti-racism programs.

More than a decade later progress has been made, but work still needs to be done.

“Certainly the auditor general’s report on the experience of Aboriginal youth in schools should have been a wake-up call for the entire sector,” said Hansman, referring to a 2015 report — released more than a decade after FNESC’s anti-racism suggestions — highlighting the “racism of low-expectations” that brings down the Indigenous youth graduation rate.

“One of the solutions to that has to be making space for students’ voices to come to the fore,” said Hansman. “Actually listening to what they’re saying and not minimizing their experiences.”

*Correction, Aug. 28. A caption accompanying the cover photo for this story today previously misidentified the subjects.  [Tyee]

Fuente: https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/08/28/BC-Schools-Tackle-Racism/

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En Canada: Jo-Ann Archibald, Indigenous Education Leader, on ‘Indigenizing the Academy’

Entrevistas

América del Norte/Canada/thetyee.ca

Resumen: Jo-Ann Archibald se convirtió en uno de los pocos graduados indígenas del programa de educación para maestros de la Universidad de Columbia Británica. A partir de allí dedicó su carrera docente en escuela pública, y eventualmente en el sector universitario, desde donde trabajó para incluir en los planes de estudios del sistema educativo,  la cultura, la lengua y las maneras indígenas de saber . De igual manera ayudó a cambiar la forma en que la universidad más grande de la provincia involucró a las comunidades indígenas, apoyó a sus estudiantes y dio prioridad al contenido indígena en cada área temática. De igual manera ayudó a establecer una nueva metodología para la educación indígena y a crear cursos de educación para maestros y estudiantes de doctorado, por lo que elaboró una propuesta para nuevos maestros en conocimiento indígena, y un programa de doctorado en educación indígena. Sobre los cambios que considera que todavía son necesarios, señala que se necesita hacer mucho más en la preparación de los maestros de educación básica  para que estén mejor formados en cuanto  el impacto de la colonización, para entender cómo eso ha impactado a generaciones de indígenas y para pensar cómo podrían empezar a trabajar con las familias y comunidades indígenas, incluyendo más conocimiento indígena en su práctica. Por otra parte señala que si bien en los post-secundarios se han asumido realmente la Indigenización de la academia, y han asumido una gran parte de la formación para la reconciliación, necesitamos tener muchos más profesores indígenas.

Jo-Ann Archibald remembers her experience as a Sto:lo First Nations member in Chilliwack public schools in the 1950s to late 1960s as one that required straddling two completely different worlds. But the world of school rarely acknowledged Indigenous people or culture.

“When I got to high school, there was a little bit about ‘Indian people,’ but it was always negative,” said Archibald, who retired last month as an education professor from the University of British Columbia after 35 years.

“It was the ‘Indian problem,’ or it was history and it was the ‘fierce Indian people’ fighting the British or the French. So there was nothing ever to be proud of.”

Yet Archibald went on to become one of the few Indigenous graduates from the University of British Columbia’s teacher education program. She dedicated her teaching career in the public school system, and eventually at UBC, to including Indigenous culture, language and ways of knowing into the curriculum.

On developing Indigenous-led school courses:

My first job was in the North Vancouver School District, and they were interested in developing some curriculum [in 1972] that was related to Squamish people. So I was on the committee to start that. At that time it was a rather innovative approach, because there wasn’t that much happening [with Indigenous curriculum] in the public schools.

In 1976 [while teaching in Chilliwack], the Coqualeetza Cultural Centre started documenting a lot of their [Sto:lo] culture and language, because it had been oral up to this time. And that work became part of the [public and band] elementary school curriculum that was used in Chilliwack, and I would say in the province that was among the first [Indigenous-created curriculum] to really start as a comprehensive curriculum in the elementary grades. There were units in each grade level from Grades 1 to 7.

On her graduate studies experience:

There was nothing in the [Masters of Education] program that was Indigenous. It was all western, mainstream stuff. But I would always try and look at it from an Indigenous perspective, and always did my assignments on Indigenous topics.

It was about 1989-90 when I went into my PhD. I found ways to make my own learning meaningful. I chose to go into these programs knowing they wouldn’t have much Indigenous [content]. But I figured if I wanted to stay working at UBC, I needed to have the doctoral degree.

I think that helped motivate me as I continued working with UBC, to make institutional change. That’s been probably my consistent theme of what I do: try and change the university or the kindergarten to Grade 12 system to make the systems more responsive, respectful of Indigeneity.

On her involvement with NITEP — then the Native Indian Teacher Education Program, now known as UBC’s Indigenous Teacher Education Program, for Indigenous students who want culturally relevant teacher training:

The opportunity arose to work with NITEP students [in 1981]. I really enjoyed my interactions with NITEP. I always wished that I had gone through that kind of teacher ed program, because it was Indigenous and there were Indigenous people, and you could be in your home community.

I became the director of NITEP [In 1985]. My goal was to keep on strengthening the Indigenous component, through the coursework, through expanding the field centres [satellite campuses near or in Indigenous communities], to just making sure that we could have community-based centres. That was the principle: whenever a new field centre was started, we always worked with the Indigenous communities [and elders] of the area.

I always felt that NITEP students — the majority were women with children — were very committed to improving their lives and their communities, and doing that as a teacher. So I always was amazed by what they were able to persist in, because they experienced what I did, but even more intense because many came from rural communities.

On the available supports for UBC Indigenous students in the 1980s & 1990s:

In 1987, Verna Kirkness started what was called the First Nations House of Learning. Eventually the First Nations House of Learning provided more student services, especially when the First Nations Longhouse was opened in 1993. But until that time, it was only NITEP [and UBC Faculty of Law’s Indigenous program].

In 1993 I became the director of the First Nations House of Learning. I still did a little with NITEP, but my energies were focused on the wider university at that time, and providing the student services in the longhouse.

On changes she helped introduce at UBC, first as director of First Nations House of Learning:

The grade point average for entry into faculties was very high, and when you looked at what happened to Indigenous students in high school, the graduation rates probably would have been in the 50 per cent range.

And some are older learners and they have work experience. We convened a committee of Indigenous faculty and the university admissions, and we set about establishing an Aboriginal admissions policy.

Another important aspect was work with the other deans, associate deans within the faculties on: ‘How can we increase not only the [Indigenous] students, but [Indigenous] courses or programs?’

Then as associate dean of Indigenous Education:

[In the mid 2000s], the faculty of education was in the process of revising its total teacher ed program. [A mandatory Indigenous] course was always talked about. There was interest among more faculty members to ensure we had the Indigenous course.

Also at the time, the BC Teachers’ College, the teacher accreditation body, were recommending a three-credit or equivalent Aboriginal ed course in each teacher ed program. That also helped reinforce why we needed Aboriginal ed, but I know we started the program at least a year before that accreditation change happened.

I was able to work [along with other faculty] to establish a peer support program for graduate students we called SAGE [Supporting Aboriginal Graduate Enhancement]: a province-wide network for any graduate student doing Indigenous research.

Then we started an annual Indigenous grad student conference, and that’s been going on for 15 years.

I helped to establish some new Indigenous methodology and education courses for masters and doctoral students, and put together a proposal for a new masters in Indigenous knowledge, and [a] doctoral program in Indigenous education, which I hope is still working its way through being approved.

I’ve helped contribute to increasing the number of Indigenous faculty members. Because that’s another area that I think has been lacking — very few Indigenous tenure-track faculty members. In education, we started out at four [Indigenous faculty members], and got to 10.

On what changes are still needed:

We need to do a lot more in K-12 with teachers to get them better prepared to know more about the impact of colonization, to understand how that has impacted generations of Indigenous people. And to think about how might they start to work with Indigenous families and communities, how might they include more Indigenous knowledge in their practice.

We have now 11 per cent of the K-12 population that are Indigenous, and it will increase. We need to do better as far as the graduation rate.

I believe the post-secondaries have really taken on Indigenizing the academy, and have taken up a lot of the reconciliation, wanting to talk more about how to address the [Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s] Calls to Action. We need to have many more Indigenous faculty members. We need to go through the whole system: K-12, undergraduate and graduate in order to have more faculty members.

At the same time, we have to keep educating non-Indigenous faculty members, so that they can be more responsive in how they teach. And they can do it knowing they have no Indigenous students in their courses: it’s for everybody. It’s part of who we are as Canadians.

Fuente: https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/08/02/Indigenizing-Academy/

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