The Funding On First Nations Reserves

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

“There’s a distinction between an education and school. Education is what Native people have been doing for their children since the beginning of time. School has been what has been imposed on people from outside” (Garland). This thought from Garland’s article “In remote Alaskan villages, teachers struggle to make school meaningful,” eloquently lays out how many Alaska natives regard the operation of collecting knowledge. Remarkably, Garland’s notion also offers great insight as to why the U.S. education system seems to fail Alaska natives altogether. It is this “distinction” (Garland), between education and school that seems to actively disconnect the ancestral cultural values of Alaska natives from the mainstream education system in this country. An impression of this broken connection appears in Kleinfeld’s The Teacher who Came to Rivertown. Here, Bob Perthall and his family move to Rivertown, Alaska, a remote village of 75 people. Accepting the position of teacher/principal, Perthall’s good intentions collide with subsistence, alcoholism, hardship, long-held customs and personal crisis. At schools end, the people of Rivertown finds no surprise in Perthall’s ending defeat. However, what really concerns us about the “teaching case,” is Perthall’s lack of preparedness for the students and culture of Rivertown, ultimately continuing the cycle of an ineffective school.

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.

Since the colonization of Canada First Nations people have been discriminated against and assimilated into the new culture of Canada through policies created by the government. Policies created had the intentions of improving the Aboriginal people’s standard of living and increasing their opportunities. Mainly in the past hundred years in Canadian Society, policies and government implemented actions such as; Residential schools, the Indian Act, and reserve systems have resulted in extinguishing native culture, teachings, and pride. Policies towards the treatment of Aboriginal Canadians has decreased their opportunities and standard of living because of policies specified previously (Residential schools, the Indian Act, and reservation systems).

In 2000, the only school for 400 Attawapiskat children closed after a fuel leak contaminated the property. Students were relocated to moldy portable classrooms, with limited heat and electricity. Despite promises of a new school, the federal government neglected the Attawapiskat community until the ground became so contaminated, children were passing out from the benzene fumes (Angus, 2012). Although federal officials were well aware of the poor conditions in Attawapiskat, no efforts were made to rectify the situation. Frankly put, Attawapiskat is not unique - in reserves across Canada, underfunded classrooms and condemned schools are common. Refusing to accept the government’s inaction, Aboriginal student Shannen Koostachin and

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.

Terry Goodtrack, President and CEO of AFOA Canada, and Darren McKee, Executive Director of the Saskatchewan School Boards Association, presented on the potential creation of a First Nation Directors of Education Association. The discussion allowed participants to hear the benefits and challenges of having such an organization,

As an Indigenous Education Advisor, I’ve witnessed a shift in the commitment to educate non-Indigenous students about First Nation, Métis and Inuit people in post-secondary institutions. My experience in developing an Indigenous Awareness Week and conducting assessments to measure the learning outcomes of non-Indigenous students has led me to want to do research in this area. I would like to further look at long-term effects of Indigenous programming for non-Indigenous students to determine how to develop effective and valuable Indigenous programming in higher education. What attracts me to the Department of Integrated Studies in Education are the positive experiences and interactions I’ve had with students and professors from the department. Both Dr. Claudia Mitchell’s and Dr. Naomi Nichols’s research appeals to me and I believe can give a unique perspective to my work.

It’s important to me that Native American cultures are taught, especially when the schools’ population is over half Native American. Not only, is it educational but it teaches other valuable life lessons like tolerance. As disappointed as I was over not having more Ojibwa classes while I was younger, I’m glad a new generation of students can learn. Maybe one day, one of those children could teach Ojibwa to students. Even in college, Native American topics are taught more. New majors are being created as a response to this change.

The Future of First Nation Control of First Nation Education theme was discussed by several keynote presenters, panelists, and workshop leaders over the course of the Forum. This theme entailed discussions surrounding community involvement in decision-making, First Nation priorities being observed and met, the inherent right of First Nations to control their education systems, teacher certification and education program accreditation.

Bat and Fasoli describe the adoption of a complex “both ways “approach to training early childhood educators, by means of incorporating action and research to educational framework. The article refers to the “Learning at workbook project” (LaWB), a system which is designed to strengthen indigenous cultural identity and self-determination whilst providing indigenous early childhood educators with mainstream qualifications. The success of the trial training program relies heavily on support from legislators, funding and direct community involvement. The authors highlight the necessity of a work based program due to the geographical and cultural isolation of Northern Territory indigenous communities. The article reports that there is an urgency

Yes, this article is based on qualitative studies from varying geographic locations in California and Minnesota. As the Coordinator of the Arts in Education Program at the University of Minnesota, Dr. James Bequette makes a valid point that relationships between teachers and culturally diverse student populations are achieved through culturally responsive arts education. His experience started in northern California in proximity to the largest American Indian reservations in the state. Bequette noticed that around the fourth and fifth grades, children lacked interest in their academic work and instruction. To overcome the common reaction as perceiving the children from a deficit model, Bequette realized how important it was to include the heritage of the Native students. After assessing the situation, Bequette joined

The whole concept of teaching in the residential schools was countering the traditional native lifestyle. Native children had always learned through interacting with, emulating, and observing their parents and elders. There was no structured educational system as there was in the schools. Parents thought that you "...don't [want to] explain too much or you'll take away the opportunity to learn."(Goulet, 1998)

88) On a less devastating level, this mentality is still there. “Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous ways of knowing” (Overmars, 2010, p. 88) are still ignored in favour the supposedly better “western” way of educating which attempts to socialize Indigenous students into assimilating. This is more subtle than the efforts of the colonial era, but it is still there. Indigenous students are finding their values, their philogies, their ways of know and licin, missing from curriculum. This shows Indigenous students that their ways not welcome in education and teaches that they are lesser. Their past is glossed over as if it was not a major and devastating part of their own history and of Canada’s history. They told then, that if it is not important enough to be included, it must not matter, and Indigenous people ought to get over it. Add this to the negative narrative (Toulouse, 2013, p. 5) of Indigenous peoples in the media that forces a definition of “victims and aggressors” (Toulouse, 2013, p. 5) upon Indigenous peoples and we can see that as Abloson

At the First Nations University of Canada, First Nations students can learn in the context of their own traditions, languages and values. Rooted in their own traditions, our students will walk proudly and wisely today. The university, through extension programming, reaches out and welcomes First Nations peoples to use its resources for the enrichment of their communities.