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Aboriginal Education in Quesnel Now, Cultural Genocide in Canada Then

Dan Lukiv
University of Northern British Columbia

Aboriginal Education in Quesnel Now
Cultural Genocide in Canada Then    
Conclusion
Endnotes
References

Aboriginal Education in Quesnel Now

The Aboriginal Education Center in Quesnel

    The Quesnel School District has an Aboriginal education center. Its mandate is "to ensure that students of Aboriginal ancestry are provided with the opportunity to gain an education and work experience that meets individual needs and that honors their culture and heritage as Aboriginal people" (Tressierra L. et al. ¹, 1996, p. 1).  Many districts throughout British Columbia, Canada, have addressed the need for Aboriginal students to experience dignity and success in their public education. [paragraph 1]

    Direction that addresses dignity and success comes from many sources:

It is important for teachers to be aware of the personal and cultural knowledge of students when designing the curriculum for today’s multicultural schools. Teachers can use student personal cultural knowledge as a vehicle to motivate students and as a foundation for teaching. (Banks, 1996, p. 12)

Maina (1997) argues that research on the education of First Nations students has shown the correlation between dignity and success:  "schools which respect and support a child’s culture demonstrate significantly better outcomes in educating those students" (p. 294). [paragraph 2]

    The Aboriginal Education Center's mandate is noble in view of the cultural genocide and poor academic schooling Canada ensured for many aboriginals through its residential school system.²  This article will discuss how such a genocide and poor schooling took place, but it will first describe what the school district in Quesnel is doing to "enable an improved working relationship between [itself] and the Aboriginal communities that it serves" (Tressierra et al., 1996, p. 1). [paragraph 3]

Aboriginal Communities and the Staff that Works with Them

    A council was formed with members of aboriginal communities, including Red Bluff, Kluskus, Nazko, Alexandria Bands, and of the North Cariboo Metis Association and Quesnel's Native Friendship Centre.  The council ensures "that students of Aboriginal ancestry receive full benefit of the funding received by the School District for culture, language, and support programs" (Tressierra et al., p. 2).

The Aboriginal Education Centre, guided by the direction from the council, oversees the work of seven First Nations student support workers, one First Nations youth care worker, one culture/resource teacher, one Aboriginal language teacher, and one early intervention teacher. A full-time secretary handles necessary paperwork. [paragraph 4]

    The First Nations student support workers promote cultural growth in First Nations students, which will contribute to "their academic success within the school setting and ... their remaining in school" (BC Aboriginal Education, 1997, p. 19). They also provide intervention through individual or small group sessions. However, the First Nations youth care worker does not encourage academic success in isolation; rather, he or she maintains "open communication with First Nations students, parents/guardians, the band, First Nations Education staff, and school personnel to meet students' needs" (Ibid.), which reminds me of the wisdom of Proverbs 15:22: "In the multitude of counselors there is accomplishment" (New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, 1984). This communication enables the First Nations youth care worker to "assist instructional staff in incorporating Native content and cultural identity into the existing curriculum for Native students" (BC Aboriginal Education, 1997, p. 19). Likewise, student support workers help First Nations students maintain strong links with the First Nations community (Quesnel Student Support Services Manual, 1990).  In addition to academic support these workers "assist First Nations students with their social/emotional development" (Ibid.). [paragraph 5]

Efforts to Work with Aboriginal Students

    First Nations youth care workers organize ongoing workshops, retreats, and mini-courses for students which incorporate traditions, spirituality, crafts, sports, food, wood carving, art, and other mainstays of traditional aboriginal existence. They also address personal and family issues. Students have opportunities to enjoy the powwow, potlatch, sweats, smear, and peace pipe. Many of the Aboriginal students attending McNaughton Centre in Quesnel have been invited to participate in Aboriginal events. One of the students proclaimed, "It's important not to forget [the past]." [paragraph 6]

    In working with Aboriginal students one should respect their cultural identity. Educators unfamiliar with teaching Aboriginals should be aware that  "it is...essential that the education of First Nations students be built around the rich cultural heritage they bring with them to the classroom in order to develop the sense of pride that is critical to personal and cultural identity and academic success" (Maina, 1997, p. 300). Aboriginal identity should be respected with regard to spirituality that is interwoven "in daily living, in the relationship with one another, in humility, in sharing, in cooperating, in relationship to nature, the land, the animals, in recognition of the Unseen and the Eternal..." (Seton, quoted in Maina, 1997, p. 300). [paragraph 7]

Aboriginal Learning Styles

    Aboriginal cultural identity should be respected in terms of Natives’ learning styles. For example, competition in the classroom may actually destroy a sense of community so important to many Native people. Kohn (1996) singled out competition as the most effective way of destroying a community:

Don’t be surprised if participants nominate competition as the number one community destroyer--not only awards assemblies but spelling bees, charts that rank students against each other, grading on a curve, and other things that teach each person to regard everyone else as obstacles to his or her own success. (p. 106) 

Maina (1997) directs our attention to the emphasis of First Nations communities on cooperation rather than competition, which is well reflected in students' preferred learning style of cooperation :

Solidarity and loyalty to the group is likely to be contradicted by learning practices which encourage competition rather than cooperation. Any demonstration of individual superiority is avoided because it is seen as demonstrating the inferiority of others. A competitive classroom atmosphere therefore produces conflict in First Nations students who are disposed to learn cooperatively in groups rather than competitively as individuals. ( p. 304) [paragraph 8]

Cultural Genocide in Canada Then

    The very principles that dignify First Nations students in school--meeting individual needs and honoring Aboriginal culture and heritage--were not honored by the federal government of Canada through the residential school system.  [paragraph 9]

    It is unfortunate that the federal government used residential schools to extract Aboriginal culture from so many Aboriginal students. By omitting such cultural heritages, Osajima laments that they have "missed something" very significant (1992, p. 92). [paragraph 10]

The Residential School System

    The federal government of Canada did not appreciate the wealth of Aboriginal culture, and consequently "missed [more than] something"; it missed the boat of multiculturalism and instead it sailed the boat of racism. Stanley (1995) states, "[racist] Imperialism and its ethos permeated British Columbia textbooks between 1885 and 1925" (p. 45). The textbooks depicted that the "savage" Indians of the province were in the process of transformation. [paragraph 11]

    Under the provisions of the British North America Act of 1867 these "savages" became "wards" of the federal government. This guardianship lumped all Aboriginals into one collective Indian category. The BNA act "made no attempt to distinguish Aboriginal peoples in all their diversity and individuality" (Barman, 1995a, p. 58). The federal government’s Imperialistic paternalism used the "deployment of law to produce social or cultural homogeneity…in the establishment of…the Indian residential school system" (McLaren, 1995, p. 147). [paragraph 12]

    The federal government used the Indian residential school system to promote Indians "to learn White people’s ways" (Clare, quoted in Barman, 1995b, p. 339). That meant removing first languages, and consequently identity, from Aboriginal mouths:

Children were often harshly punished for any use of cultural practices or their languages.…Haig-Brown documents the following horrendous experience of an interviewee: "My father who attended Alberni Indian residential school in the [1920s] was physically tortured by his teachers for speaking Tseshat; they pushed sewing needles through his tongue, a routine punishment for language offenders" .... During the time they were at the residential schools, the children were required to speak English and were taught a curriculum that contained virtually nothing which recognized even the existence of them as people. (Maina, 1997, p. 297) [paragraph 13]

    Residential schools went even further in the negative direction. They created a terrible inferiority complex in many Aboriginals.  They received the constant message "that because you are Native you are part of a weak, defective race, unworthy of a distinguished place in society" (Sellers, quoted in Barman, 1995a, p. 74). Lois Guss spoke of this self-destructive training:

A lot of us left residential school as mixed-up human beings, not able to cope with family or life. Many of us came out with a huge inferiority complex realizing something was missing, but not knowing what it was. Many searched for love and support in the wrong way. Girls became promiscuous, thinking this was the only way they could feel close to another person. Never having learned to cope with the outside world, many turned to drinking and became alcoholics. (Barman, 1995a, p. 74) [paragraph 14]

Cultural Genocide

    Separating Aboriginal children from siblings, parents, and other family members to attend residential schools did more than create inferiority complexes in individuals.  It resulted in cultural genocide.  Barman (1995a) reported interviews with three former residential students about the familial separation and its detrimental effect on their sense of community:

I never did get to know my brothers. We were kept away from each other for too long. To this day I don't know much about [them]. I just know that they are my brothers.  After a year spent learning to see and hear only what the priests and brothers wanted you to see and hear, even the people we loved came to look ugly. Children were removed from their communities and placed in an alien environment that almost destroyed their culture and their language; we call it cultural genocide ( p. 73). [paragraph 15]

    Where was the dignity of Aboriginals in that? What about the quality of schooling for these students in residential schools? Barman (1995b) reported poor education that Aboriginal students received in residential schools:

Aboriginal children were allotted less time in the classroom than were their non-Aboriginal counterparts.… Aboriginal schooling was carried on with few exceptions by Christian missionaries primarily concerned with saving souls, only secondarily with literacy education [and]…funding of schools for Aboriginal children quickly fell below provincial funding levels for public schools. (p. 58) [paragraph 16]

Lost Possibilities

    This era of darkness is marked with many lost possibilities.  The federal government had not provided students of Aboriginal ancestry with the opportunity to gain an education and work experience that met individual needs and honored their cultural heritage as Aboriginal people. Mainstream communities and Aboriginal communities did not have the opportunity to develop good working relationships. Teachers did not promote cultural growth, which could have helped First Nations students succeed academically and remain in schools. First Nations students were not assisted with their social and emotional development as well as academic growth. These lost possibilities have a long-lasting effect to this day. [paragraph 17]

Conclusion

    I have compared the principles of aboriginal education in Quesnel now to the principles of aboriginal education during the residential school era. On one side stands nurturing and positive efforts to provide quality education, on the other cultural genocide and poor education. One side represents dignity; the other side is marked by an inferiority complex. Unfortunately, the faculty of church-run residential schools of the past joined the federal government, perpetuating the unjust policy instead of paying attention to the Biblical teaching, "God is not partial" (Acts 10:34). Certainly  McNaughton Centre, a secondary alternative school in Quesnel, is one of many school districts in British Columbia that are trying to undo the mistakes of the past by providing positive educational experiences to Aboriginal students. [paragraph 18]

Endnotes

¹The names of the many others who were involved have been omitted on all official or related documents on file.

²"Beginning in the late 1800s, the federal government [of Canada] began removing Indian children from their families and placing them in church-run residential schools. There were 14 such schools in British Columbia. The last one closed in the mid 1980s" (Bell, 1997, June 27, p. A3).

References

Banks, J. (1996). The canon debate, knowledge construction, and multicultural education. In Multicultural education, transformative knowledge, & action: Historical and contemporary perspectives (pp. 3-29). New York: Teachers College Press.

Barman, J. (1995a). Schooled for inequality: The education of British Columbia Aboriginal children. In J. Barman, N. Sutherland, & J. D. Wilson (Eds.), Children, teachers, & schools: In the history of British Columbia (pp. 57-75). Calgary, Alberta, Canada: Detselig Enterprises.

Barman, J. (1995b). Separate and unequal: Indian and White girls at All Hallows School, 1884-1920. In J. Barman, N. Sutherland, & J. D. Wilson (Eds.), Children, teachers, & schools: In the history of British Columbia (pp. 337-357). Calgary, Alberta, Canada: Detselig Enterprises.

Bell, S. (1997, June 27). Ottawa vows action on Native school abuse. The Vancouver Sun, p. A3.

BC Aboriginal Education (1997). Aboriginal support workers handbook (p. 18-19). Victoria, British Columbia, Canada: BC Ministry of Education.

Kohn, A. (1996). Beyond discipline: From compliance to community. Alexandria, Virginia, USA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Maina, F. (1997). Culturally relevant pedagogy: First Nations education in Canada. The Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 17(2), 293-314.

McLaren, J. P. S. (1995). "New Canadians" or "slaves of Satan"? The law and the education of Doukhobor children, 1911-1935. In J. Barman, N. Sutherland, & J.D. Wilson (Eds.), Children, teachers, & schools: In the history of British Columbia (pp. 147-160). Calgary, Alberta, Canada: Detselig Enterprises.

New world translation of the Holy scriptures. (1984). Brooklyn, New York, USA: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York.

Osajima, K. (1992). Speaking of silence. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 9 (4), 89-96.

Quesnel Student Support Services Manual (1990). Section 4.3.2. Quesnel, British Columbia, Canada: Quesnel School District.

Stanley, T. J. (1995). White supremacy and the rhetoric of educational indoctrination: A Canadian case study. In J. Barman, N. Sutherland, & J. D. Wilson (Eds.), Children, teachers, & schools: In the history of British Columbia (p. 39-56). Calgary, Alberta, Canada: Detselig Enterprises.

Tressierra, L. et al. (1996, May 16). First Nations education council of the Quesnel School District, terms of reference: Final draft. Quesnel, British Columbia, Canada: Aboriginal Education Centre.

Dan Lukiv is a part-time graduate student in the education department at the University of Northern British Columbia.  He is also a poet, novelist, short story writer, secondary alternate teacher, and editor.

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