Reservation Schools

Education has been a topic of controversy for many years now, and will continue to be for years to come. The modern American society is best defined by its education. A good part of the average person’s life is spent at school, going to school, and paying for school. However, even though education is so obviously very important, there are many groups in America that are getting shorted. The Native Americans are a key group that has struggled the most. The largest obstacle they face is lack of proper education. The standard educational practices being used for the instruction of Native American peoples are not effective. There are many pieces to this road-block, and many solutions. This can be rectified by having more culturally

The impact of colonization on First Nations peoples in Canada is unsurpassable, regarding every aspect of Aboriginal life and well-being. Throughout Canadian history, the government has been aiming to assimilate and annihilate Aboriginal people by way of racist policies, ethnocentric institutions, discriminatory laws and destructive capitalist behaviours. Because of this, Aboriginal people have suffered many losses, both physically and culturally. One of the main perpetrators of enacting this loss is the education system. The education system in Canada has and continues to threaten the relationship First Nations peoples have with the land. The connection First Nations peoples have with the land is crucial to their cultures, traditions, ceremonies and beliefs. Colonization and colonialism jeopardize this relationship and that is what this essay will address.

Over the past decades, Aboriginal people (the original people or indigenous occupants of a particular country), have been oppressed by the Canadian society and continue to live under racism resulting in gender/ class oppression. The history of Colonialism, and Capitalism has played a significant role in the construction and impact of how Aborignal people are treated and viewed presently in the Canadian society. The struggles, injustices, prejudice, and discrimination that have plagued Aboriginal peoples for more than three centuries are still grim realities today. The failures of Canada's racist policies toward Aboriginal peoples are reflected in the high levels of unemployment and poor education.

For the last 200 years Indigenous people have been victims of discrimination, prejudice and disadvantage. Poor education, poor living conditions and general poverty are still overwhelming issues for a large percentage of our people and we remain ‘as a group, the most poverty stricken sector of the working class’ in Australia (Cuthoys 1983).

This leads to uneducated people living in close confinement in poverty. The answer for a lot of the young people is crime. The statistics for over representation by first nations people in Manitoba are as follows “12% of Manitoba’s population is Aboriginal, yet over half of the 1600 people incarcerated in Manitoba are of Aboriginal descent.” (Government of Manitoba). The question then becomes, why are there so many offenders from one ethnic group? “The commission explains that Aboriginal people seem to commit more crimes as well as they are discriminated against within the justice system” (Government of Manitoba). This seems to me, to be an extension of the Residential school policies, in which the First Nations people are discriminated against, in this case treated as drunks and criminals, which is not much better than the “savages” they use to be.

The Aboriginal peoples of Canada had gone through many situations to get to where they are today with their education system. Pain, sorrow, doubt, and hope are all feelings brought to mind when thinking about the history and the future of Aboriginal education. By taking a look at the past, anyone can see that the right to education for Aboriginal peoples has been fought about as early as the 1870s. This is still is a pressing issue today. Elder teachings, residential, reserve and post-secondary schools have all been concerning events of the past as well as the present. Though education has improved for the Aboriginal peoples of Canada, there are still many concerns and needs of reconciliation for the past to improve the future.

They are hiding the history of assimilation of Indigenous people in residential schools. By continuing to teach with the western perspective, it is continuing to assimilate Indigenous people. In B.C.’s school system, there are over 60,000 students who self-identify as being of Aboriginal (First Nations, Métis or Inuit) ancestry. (Province of British Columbia, 2017). Those 60,000 self-identifying Aboriginal students are sitting in a school where they may be misrecognized with stereotypes and are forced to learn the western perspective while possibly learning an indigenous perspective at home. The B.C government states that Aboriginal Education seeks to: improve the success of Aboriginal students, support all students learning about Aboriginal peoples and help teachers in their efforts to bring Aboriginal knowledge into their teaching practice. When thinking about this two-eyed seeing, it reminded me of the story “Edwina Left Behind” by Sören Wuerth. Edwina, a Native senior who was trying to pass the state’s High School Graduation Qualifying Exam to receive a diploma had failed because of the cultural ignorance of standardized test. This is the reality of seeing through one eye. She did everything she could to learn the western, standardized test yet she still failed. If the standardized test was tweaked a little and included another perspective aside from the western perspective;

Residential schools in Canada were present for over 100 years and were created by the government to eliminate the Indigenous culture. These schools successfully separated families while creating huge cultural barriers between children and their Native culture (COHA, 2011). These children were forcibly removed from their families and taken to residential schools because Canadians saw Indigenous peoples as “backwards” or “savage” (COHA, 2011). They also believed that they were inferior to Natives and that these schools would help “civilize” aboriginals by replacing their Native traits with Western values (COHA, 2011).

In the Indigenous community, when the community is faced with a trauma, it takes seven generations for the community to heal (Trimble, 2015). People may underestimate how oppressed and how much suffering the Indigenous communities had to struggle with, and continue to struggle with these issues today. We may underestimate how severe the situation is because many of us were not taught much about the impact of colonization on the Indigenous communities in school. There are many myths people may have concerning Indigenous life experiences, particularly schooling. To address these myths, I would begin by giving a brief history of residential schools. I would then analyze how residential schools have impacted the indigenous community and how they continue to affect them today. I would also mention the current issues children on reserves are facing today regarding school. Lastly, I would mention some of the progress that has been made. I will use the work of Sefa Dei to demonstrate the importance of community in education regarding the Indigenous people.

Aboriginal people in Canada are the native peoples in North America within the boundaries of present-day Canada. In the 1880’s there was a start of residential schools which took Aboriginal kids from their family to schools to learn the Roman Catholics way of culture and not their own. In residential schools Aboriginal languages were forbidden in most operations of the school, Aboriginal ways were abolished and the Euro-Canadian manner was held out as superior. Aboriginal’s residential schools are careless, there were mental and physical abuse, Aboriginals losing their culture and the after effects of residential schools.

When I saw the first graph about the education gaps between aboriginals and normal Canadians, I was shocked. Though aboriginals have more trade certificates and the difference between college diploma ownership is not too vast, the differences between the rates of secondary education completion and university diploma’s obtainment are far too great to be considered an incapability, but instead a lack of good education and a lack of services to the First Nations people. On the chart it has shown the fact that less than half of aboriginals than normal Canadians graduate from high school. The First Nations People also have almost six times the high school incompletion, and university degree rates

This is a problem because it means that First Nation students are not getting the same quality of education as the students who go to provincial schools. A quotation from an article published by the National Post states, “At provincial schools in Canada, the graduation rate is above 75%. For students who live on reserves, the rate is below 40%.” (Clarke). This shows a considerably large difference in graduation rates.

Before starting a discussion about aboriginal education in Canada, it is important to figure out who the aboriginal people in Canada are. According to a document, Aboriginal Peoples in Canada: First Nations People, Métis and Inuit (National Household Survey, 2011), there are 3 ethnic groups of the aboriginal people in Canada. In 2011, “First Nations people 851,560 people identified as a First Nations person, representing 60.8% of the total Aboriginal population and 2.6% of the total Canadian population.” The second group is Métis and in the same year, “451,795 people identified as Métis. They represented 32.3% of the total Aboriginal population and 1.4% of the total Canadian population.” The last group is Inuit. “59,445 people identified as Inuit. They represented 4.2% of the total Aboriginal population and 0.2% of the total Canadian population.”

Moreover, lack of recourses can be other reason for high school dropouts in Indigenous students. For instance, most of the students who study in reserve schools are experiencing difficulties to get access to clean water, fully equipped science lab, computers,

Education within Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq communities has been heralded as a model in education self-governance for other First Nations. Yet, in 2013 the Nova Scotia Ministry on Mi’kmaq Education openly criticized the Provincial government for failing to mandate a sufficient amount of Mi’kmaq content throughout the Nova Scotia Kindergarten to grade twelve mainstream curriculums. In response the province stated that an increase in Mi’kmaq content from the two high school classes already in existence was unwarranted given the low proportion of First Nations students who attend provincial schools. Is First Nation content in education solely for the purpose of being inclusive of First Nations learners?