Educating Aboriginal Children

"Education can make my life better by helping me succeed in life. Education is very important to me, as it will help me reach my goal of becoming a fighter jet pilot...
My dad has a *Grade 10 education. He started off as a labourer for Hydro and cannot move up because he doesn't have a Grade 12 degree. But my dad has been trapping since he was 12 and was brought up the traditional way. He has skills that cannot be learned in the classroom. He has a different kind of degree.
I'm proud of my dad and I'm learning from him.... We need papers behind our names to live in today's world but we still need these traditional teachings to learn who we are and where we come from." Kenzie Wilson, Grade 7

Either very well coached or a brilliant mind, that girl has. She most certainly does deserve the opportunity to become anything in her future life that she aspires to, as a Canadian child. And it is obvious that she has loving, caring parents, who have taught her well, to appreciate the necessity of obtaining a sound education.

They have endowed her with good, solid values. Those pertaining to making something of herself that will make her proud of herself, and with that goal in mind, pursuing an appropriate educational path. And, as well, themselves teaching her by example the values inherent in tradition and heritage and pride of people.

Her ambition does not reflect the reality of the majority of First Nations children of whom 39% on reserves graduate, as opposed to 87% for non-aboriginals. This harks back to the tradition where academic knowledge was not an imperative; living on the land and acquiring the skills to enable one to do so successfully was. But this is now, not back then.

Back then there were residential schools, meant to prepare aboriginal youth to live in a modern "white man's" world. But that government- and church-inspired method of educating and preparing children to take their place in a changing world gained a bad reputation for tearing children from their parents' arms, and abusing them while in custody.

The aggravation and grief that caused is said to have been monumental. The British upper-class tradition of sending children from the age of 5 up to private ("public") residential schools for their education resulted in many British children being abused in every conceivable way, while receiving their worldly education, but most appear to have survived the ordeal well, becoming leaders of society.

But that unfortunate residential school debacle led to demands from First Nations that they be given their own control of schools for their own. And so, a chastened government agreed. Curriculum, teacher training, accountability were all the responsibility of First Nations, while funding came from Ottawa. There was a proviso that schools should reflect provincial standards.

The federal government was the funding agent, and the end result was that money earmarked for education often did not reach the target, going directly to band chiefs for dispersal. Sometimes the money did support reserve schools, sometimes it did not. Teachers in those schools were paid less than the provincial average, there were no libraries, few books, and schooling was inferior in quality.

And the fact that aboriginal children who attend provincial schools appear no more likely to graduate than those who stay on reserves is another troubling aspect of the aboriginal school situation. Young children like Kenzie Wilson deserve far more than this. Their exposure to learning opportunities should be at least equal of Canadian children elsewhere.

Kenzie Wilson's parents appear to be involved and engaged in her future. How typical they are in that respect is not quite clear, given the prevalence of alcohol, drugs and child neglect on too many reserves. But children like Kenzie should be encouraged and applauded for their desire to learn and to make something of themselves that they will be proud of.

The problem is how to arrive at a meaningful, workable solution?

*The writer of this piece has a Grade 10 education. One's education does not stop at the school door. Poverty caused many children of my generation to drop out of school and begin working to help support their families. It needn't have meant the end of our education, and it did not. One has the means to make our own opportunities. Kenzie's father's options are limited because of where he lives, and that translates also to her lack of equal opportunities. The time for aboriginal peoples to isolate themselves geographically from mainstream Canada is long past.