Education: The Future Path

Page 5

In the 1970s, First Nations people launched a campaign that was framed by the slogan "Indian control of Indian education." It was very clear that this campaign reflected the hopes of First Nations communities for the education of their children. However, this campaign really was not new. If you understand the treaty making process in the prairie provinces, access to education was an important topic for the people even way back then.

What they dreamed about education for their children 120 years ago is not what they got from the system of day schools and residential schools. It is clear that we are still surviving the consequences of that legacy.

The "Indian control of Indian education" campaign did realize some significant gains for Indian children. Residential schools became a thing of the past. Millions of dollars were devoted to building educational facilities in First Nations communities. Students began accessing post-secondary education. There is a challenging question that remains unanswered. How much has this change really changed the experience of Aboriginal people in the education situation?

I look to the experiences of my family to help me reflect upon this important question. My wife is an educator and we have five children currently attending grade school. When we first moved back to the reserve our children attended the public school in the "border town" nearest the reserve. I thought they would get a better education and better skills at this school. This is not what they got. Particularly my oldest son Brandon had a difficult time at this school. Brandon took offense to much of what he was learning. For example, when the children studied the settlement of the west, no mention of Indian people was made at all. They had done a week of "Indians" before the week on settlement. This is an inaccurate reflection of how the west was settled.

After some months, and with his mother's assistance, my son chose to file a human rights complaint against this school. After some two years of waiting (which is a horribly long time for a teenage boy now in Grade 9), this past June the investigation stage of Brandon's human rights case was completed. The Commission found both individual and systemic discrimination. They, however, did not recommend any positive remedy. The school board responsible has developed an equity policy and created some further initiatives. The school board is more conscious of issues of "race" in the school. The saddest part of this story is that the leaders in our community did not stand with our son. We remain so proud of our young man whose reason for proceeding with the human rights complaint was "for the other kids who are scared to speak up."

Our kids now go to school on the reserve. My wife says at least the kids are getting an education that, for the most part, promotes a positive identity of who they are as children of Cree and Mohawk parents.

With this positive identity, they can learn anything.

If children are raised to believe in who they are and feel good about who they are, they can do anything. The dominant education system has for too long taught our children that they are problems and not solutions. Well, in my opinion, we have enough problems in Indian communities, we don't need any education system that sends more problems home to us.

When I look at the "border town" school, I realize that more Indian people have left that school than have graduated. This is a dismal statistic and I don't know why the educators at this school have not done more about it. Despite the human rights complaint, Indian children are still leaving or being removed from this school. This is not our ancestors' dreams for the education of our children. It is not my dream.

My wife teaches at a mainstream university, at least for now. I have watched her suffer and struggle for more than four years now in this institution. She has dreams and visions of creating Aboriginal education possibilities that reflct the dreams of her people. She has been frustrated in almost every attempt to plant this vision in her place of work (and I should mention she works in a Native Studies Department). I am not sure how much longer she can hang on. One of her Aboriginal students came to her just before the holidays and said, "You know, this place isn't much different from the residential schools. We still aren't learning good things that mean something to us. The only difference is that we now send our young people here willing."

Education - meaningful education for our young people - still remains elusive. As Indian people we must stand together and understand that "control" of our education systems is not enough.

We must be able to dream and encourage. Our young people are our hope for the future. We must stand together and not be divided when we insist that we deserve and have a fundamental right to educational institutions that respect who we are as First Peoples.