Sunday, July 17, 2016
Toronto in review
So, I know I have to write a reflection paper on this trip, but I thought I would wind things up a little. On Thursday, we went to Mohawk College, and one thing that I didn't get around to mentioning was the Hoop Dance. Mohawk has built an outdoor classroom in the spirit of indigenous learning styles. It is very new, and they aren't sure how all it will be used, although there are many plans. The folks at Six Nations Polytechnic were pretty excited about this classroom so we saw pictures before we went. It was very special to see it in person, though. Hopefully, that classroom spells hope for the future of indigenous people in Canadian higher education. Everywhere we went, people said, "This program is just starting," and "things have only started getting better very recently." Hopefully these changes are a strong trend that will last far into the future.
Friday, July 15, 2016
Thursday: Six Nations Polytechnic and Mohawk College
Thursday was a busy day for us. We started early and drove to the Indian reserve nearest Toronto and visited the Six Nations Polytechnic. We talked a little about what exactly was a polytechnic and I looked it up online. What I found out is that it is basically a post secondary institution that provides technical training (kind of like a vocational school). When we got there, though, it wasn't anything like what I would consider a vocational school. First, it was a lot smaller than I expected, being all housed in one building. The building also had many indigenous symbols throughout, that our guide, Taylor, would stop and explain to us. He told us that the building had been built to face due north, because of tradition, and the layout was to perpendicular hallways. Where to two hallways met, a turtle was painted on the floor referencing the Six Nations foundation stories.
Secondly, when we met our contact (Tanis Hill), she introduced us to one of the students who was studying at the school, Taylor. He was a graduate who was doing research on indigenous topics that interested him. Ultimately, we met two other scholars, Logan, and Willard. I tried to plug them into my frame of reference, asking them if they were graduate students or doing their research to fulfill a degree. While one man said that he was doing his research as part of an internship, they all seemed mostly to be conducting their research for their own satisfaction. They didn't really expect to publish either, indicating that their research would be stored in the Polytechnic library.
During our conversation, these three scholars told us about their education experience. I was somewhat surprised to realize that they were taught in their native language at school--some of them. But those who were, while closer to their community roots, had a more difficult time going on to post secondary education because of their struggle with using English. Taylor really gave us the most information. He described his primary and secondary teachers as excellent, and mentioned a 50-50 program that helped him to really get a good grasp on how to write in English. He said that when he went to university, he had a very steep learning curve because the way that people taught and thought in the mainstream institutions was so completely different from the way his people thought. I found that very interesting because I have found that to be true in my one teaching experience. The differences between the way people think and operate in different cultures goes much deeper than just facts about the culture, but education often treats that and the limit of culture. Learning to think a different way is not something we are very good at teaching. Students from other cultures, when they join a western style institution, often have to pick up that skill as they can.
They also talked about their new bachelors programs that they were beginning in the fall: two bachelors in indigenous language studies. There were some other plans to add teaching degrees later, but those plans were still far in the future. They talked about the difficulty of funding, stating that they could never be sure how much funding they would get from year to year, which made planning difficult. This was a very similar observation to what Lee Maracle made.
We stayed for lunch (they hosted us in their dining room). After lunch, we joined a teachers' continuing education course about incorporating indigenous learning methods in the classroom. During that class, we basically sat around in a circle and talked about our backgrounds. I enjoyed that part because in all our travels, I had been surprised to realize how many people identified as indigenous, and so found it difficult to relate to new people I met because I wasn't sure of their relationship to the discussion we were having (was this new person talking about their own history as a member of the first nations or were they a Canadian speaking as a learner from the outside?). I found that knowing this information really did affect the way I related to that person. We had to leave that class early to get to our appointment at Mohawk College.
We still ended up meeting with our contact at Mohawk College a little late because we miscommunicated on where to meet. When we finally met Amanda Collina, she told us immediately her own relationship to the aboriginal community (she was indigenous on one side of her family but had generally grown up outside the community). She was the first person we had met who did that so automatically and without any prompting on our part. She then told us much of the same information about the student success center at Mohawk as we had learned at the University of Guelph.
Secondly, when we met our contact (Tanis Hill), she introduced us to one of the students who was studying at the school, Taylor. He was a graduate who was doing research on indigenous topics that interested him. Ultimately, we met two other scholars, Logan, and Willard. I tried to plug them into my frame of reference, asking them if they were graduate students or doing their research to fulfill a degree. While one man said that he was doing his research as part of an internship, they all seemed mostly to be conducting their research for their own satisfaction. They didn't really expect to publish either, indicating that their research would be stored in the Polytechnic library.
During our conversation, these three scholars told us about their education experience. I was somewhat surprised to realize that they were taught in their native language at school--some of them. But those who were, while closer to their community roots, had a more difficult time going on to post secondary education because of their struggle with using English. Taylor really gave us the most information. He described his primary and secondary teachers as excellent, and mentioned a 50-50 program that helped him to really get a good grasp on how to write in English. He said that when he went to university, he had a very steep learning curve because the way that people taught and thought in the mainstream institutions was so completely different from the way his people thought. I found that very interesting because I have found that to be true in my one teaching experience. The differences between the way people think and operate in different cultures goes much deeper than just facts about the culture, but education often treats that and the limit of culture. Learning to think a different way is not something we are very good at teaching. Students from other cultures, when they join a western style institution, often have to pick up that skill as they can.
They also talked about their new bachelors programs that they were beginning in the fall: two bachelors in indigenous language studies. There were some other plans to add teaching degrees later, but those plans were still far in the future. They talked about the difficulty of funding, stating that they could never be sure how much funding they would get from year to year, which made planning difficult. This was a very similar observation to what Lee Maracle made.
We stayed for lunch (they hosted us in their dining room). After lunch, we joined a teachers' continuing education course about incorporating indigenous learning methods in the classroom. During that class, we basically sat around in a circle and talked about our backgrounds. I enjoyed that part because in all our travels, I had been surprised to realize how many people identified as indigenous, and so found it difficult to relate to new people I met because I wasn't sure of their relationship to the discussion we were having (was this new person talking about their own history as a member of the first nations or were they a Canadian speaking as a learner from the outside?). I found that knowing this information really did affect the way I related to that person. We had to leave that class early to get to our appointment at Mohawk College.
We still ended up meeting with our contact at Mohawk College a little late because we miscommunicated on where to meet. When we finally met Amanda Collina, she told us immediately her own relationship to the aboriginal community (she was indigenous on one side of her family but had generally grown up outside the community). She was the first person we had met who did that so automatically and without any prompting on our part. She then told us much of the same information about the student success center at Mohawk as we had learned at the University of Guelph.
Thursday, July 14, 2016
Wednesday: University of Guelph
Our Wednesday itinerary was a little less demanding than the days before. We only visited the Aboriginal Resource Centre at the University of Guelph. It was an interesting contrast on a similar office at Ryerson. Guelph is a more rural suburb of Toronto, with lots of open spaces. The staff was expecting us and our contact there, Natasha Smith, sat and talked to us for more than an hour. Their office primarily focuses on student services and she had less to say than Diane about the curriculum that was offered in aboriginal topics. Instead she described how the office was formed (student motivated, about 15 years ago) and the different services and events that the program offered.
Of particular interest to me was her discussion of challenges students face in attending a university. As I have gleaned, Canada has three tiers of post-secondary education: university, college, and polytechnic. Students who grow up on reservations go to schools that are controlled by the federal government, whereas all other schools are controlled by the provincial government. This means that until high school, students on the reservation receive a very different education. When they graduate from middle school, they must move into the city and live at a boarding school in order to attend high school. Many students choose not to go to high school, and many who do choose to go, do not do well, simply because the educational system is so different and getting caught up with their classmates on different material and different cultural norms can be a very steep learning curve for indigenous students. Natasha as described a tendency of high school councilors to steer students towards more vocational career paths (at colleges and polytechnics), so that often they do not take the courses required to enter a university program. I was surprised that students were still required to move away from their families in order to join mainstream education--if they wanted to progress in a career. That fact strongly reminded me of the residential schools. No doubt that abuse is not so prevalent, but indigenous young people are still being removed from their families and trained to assimilate into the mainstream culture.
Natasha also described in some detail the difficulties indigenous people have with their status. In Canada, indigenous people are given tax-exempt status if they can prove their indigenous ancestry. Natasha noted, however, that the rules governing this exempt status were inconsistent and skewed by historical moral choices. Women used to lose their status if the married a non-indigenous man while men did not. Alternatively, non-indigenous women who married an indigenous man, would gain status. The law changed in 1985, but the law had already affected thousands of families, and those families are still trying to figure out what there status is according to the new laws that have been put in place--laws that Natasha argued have many loopholes and inconsistencies.
Of particular interest to me was her discussion of challenges students face in attending a university. As I have gleaned, Canada has three tiers of post-secondary education: university, college, and polytechnic. Students who grow up on reservations go to schools that are controlled by the federal government, whereas all other schools are controlled by the provincial government. This means that until high school, students on the reservation receive a very different education. When they graduate from middle school, they must move into the city and live at a boarding school in order to attend high school. Many students choose not to go to high school, and many who do choose to go, do not do well, simply because the educational system is so different and getting caught up with their classmates on different material and different cultural norms can be a very steep learning curve for indigenous students. Natasha as described a tendency of high school councilors to steer students towards more vocational career paths (at colleges and polytechnics), so that often they do not take the courses required to enter a university program. I was surprised that students were still required to move away from their families in order to join mainstream education--if they wanted to progress in a career. That fact strongly reminded me of the residential schools. No doubt that abuse is not so prevalent, but indigenous young people are still being removed from their families and trained to assimilate into the mainstream culture.
Natasha also described in some detail the difficulties indigenous people have with their status. In Canada, indigenous people are given tax-exempt status if they can prove their indigenous ancestry. Natasha noted, however, that the rules governing this exempt status were inconsistent and skewed by historical moral choices. Women used to lose their status if the married a non-indigenous man while men did not. Alternatively, non-indigenous women who married an indigenous man, would gain status. The law changed in 1985, but the law had already affected thousands of families, and those families are still trying to figure out what there status is according to the new laws that have been put in place--laws that Natasha argued have many loopholes and inconsistencies.
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Tuesday: Lee Maracle and the Ryerson Aboriginal Student Services
So yesterday, Diep and I went and visited with Lee Maracle at the University of Toronto. Here is a link to some information about her on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Maracle . We did a little reading about her and thought of some questions before we went. I have to admit, I was a little nervous about talking to her, just because of my identity as a white person, because she does seem so extremely anti-establishment and I wondered how that would affect our relationship. Our conversation was both difficult and very rewarding.
I told Diep before we went that I am the type of person who loves unusual opinions. I collect them the way some people might collect unusual artifacts. Lee did not disappoint in this matter. She shared such unique opinions (at least in my experience) and I thought that by in large, they were very well thought out and insightful. I only wish I had recorded the conversation so that I could remember exactly how she put things. We asked her about the aboriginal influences and role in higher education and she said that higher education is entirely of the white, Canadian (or British) dominant culture, and that aboriginal people haven't even had the chance to decide what advanced education looks like for them. She says that there are people now who are getting Ph.D.s in the western system just trying to understand what education would mean for the aboriginal people if they had the luxury of defining it for themselves. She pointed out, though, that in many cases, they aren't allowed to study it in a way that is meaningful for them. Just because of Western ideas about what counts as rigorous scholarly topics, they are forced to study their own traditions in comparison to western traditions, and that defeats the purpose of studying their own traditions--it derails their purpose and causes them to have to define their culture by the dominant culture.
She said that her people have a distinctly different way of looking at science, and that the western way of looking at science fits into the aboriginal way of looking at science. She told a story to illustrate. At one point, her people noticed that crabs that usually never come out of the water were crawling across the sand in the bay area (I'm not sure what bay). They went and asked their elder about it, and she said that the only time these crabs had left the water in the past was during the great flood that happened when volcanoes erupted all along the western coast, so there must be some disturbance in the water. The people asked western scientists to test the water, and the scientists found very high levels of cadmium. The aboriginal elder told the people to plant a special kind of grass around the sound. The western scientists thought that this was a strange solution, but when the people did it, the grass soaked up all the cadmium, and the crabs returned to the see, with many other kinds of wildlife. Lee pointed out that while western science is good at studying small pieces of the puzzle, an aboriginal knowledge base focuses on the big picture and draws on centuries of knowledge about a place.
She made similar observations about western and aboriginal medicine, stating that they are about equal in their effectiveness at treating illness, although in her opinion western medicine is better at diagnosing illnesses. She said that some illnesses have very similar symptoms (tuberculosis, pneumonia, and influenza) but they need to be treated differently. She said that the aboriginal methods for diagnosing illness depend a lot on intuition, and that if the person who is diagnosing you isn't very intuitive, than you won't get a very correct diagnosis, so she tends to go to western doctors to get the diagnosis, but then has the illness treated with aboriginal medicine because it is more honoring of the body and of the environment (no chemicals or heavy metals).
At one point, Diep mentioned mainstream education, and Lee corrected her saying there is no "mainstream." There is a "white male stream" that everyone in the education system has to refer to--one that is not actually controlled by the majority. She also shared her opinions about the fact that she does not believe Canada belongs to the English immigrants at all. That they are squatting on aboriginal land to this day.
I really enjoyed Lee's revolutionary opinions. I really agree with her that the white male perspective shapes all of education and that adding classes regarding aboriginal topics that are taught from a white male perspective is not really making aboriginal people part of the education system. Lee shared many other things with us, but I can't remember them all.
The reason that the conversation was a little challenging was because Lee shut me down pretty hard at the beginning. She talked about teaching her students how to think, and said that they needed to learn not to make "proclamations." They should only speak the truth. I'm not quite sure how she defines proclamations, but apparently almost all of my opinions are proclamations and therefore I did not have the right to express them. It didn't appear to me that her opinions were ever proclamations, though. They were all the truth. After having my ideas jumped on and twisted beyond my recognition a few times, I decided that the best approach to talking to Lee was to just encourage her to expand on her opinions. I really enjoyed listening to her, but I found that I had to be very careful about what I said. It was probably good for me. Diep and I discussed later whether this style of communication was cultural (where elders speak and learners stay silent). It did not fit with Lee's account of aboriginal teaching methods, which are the only truly collaborative student-led learning methods. We decided that we really couldn't know whether that was an individual trait or a reflection of her culture without talking to many other people from her community. It's very important not to make conclusions like that from one conversation.
After we finished talking with Lee, we went to Ryerson University and found the Aboriginal Student Services. It was just kind of a drop in visit, but the woman we met there, Diane Simone, was quite gracious to stop and talk to us a little about their program. She herself was not the director, but a writing teacher for the program. She shared with us some of the services that the center had to offer and invited us back later to attend an informational session that she was hosting for students and interested community members. About halfway through the conversation, I realized that she identified as aboriginal. I mentioned it to Diep later, and she hadn't noticed it at all. That is a somewhat jarring aspect to this trip is that so many people who seem "white" actually end up being of aboriginal descent. Also, we both observed that at first she seemed a little stiff and defensive about our questions, but that she warmed up more towards the end. That just caused me to reflect that these conversations can be difficult to engage in because some many people approach them with ignorance and set prejudices.
We did go back later to the informational meeting and we heard one young woman talk about her experience getting a certificate in the program that was offered. This young woman also didn't look aboriginal to me. She said that she had studied English as an undergraduate, but that in all the classes she had taken, she could never find herself. No one taught her about how her culture and background fit into the what she was learning. She said that when people learned that she was aboriginal, they would ask her to educate them on her background, and she always though, "Where do I start? I'm not paid to teach this. I'm here to learn." She really appreciated the program with its cluster of classes taught by aboriginal teachers. The program was a continuing education certificate program that could be added to a degree. Some of the classes could also be applied toward a degree in social work.
While we were at Ryerson, Diep and I did a little observation. Ryerson is a public university in the heart of downtown Toronto. The layout of the campus is compact and perhaps the most notable landmark (at least from our approach) was the Ryerson Student Learning Centre (see a picture: https://abitmoredetail.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/photo-ryerson-universitys-student-learning-centre/). By contrast, the aboriginal student services office was tucked back on the third floor of a physical education building. There were very few signs and it was difficult to find because of the layout of the building. Diep asked how many aboriginal students attend Ryerson, and Diane said that it was impossible to know because not everyone identifies. She referenced the Residential Schools and the residual shame and distrust that those have left in the hearts of aboriginal people. Yet even the architecture and the choice of location for the aboriginal student services offices suggest that aboriginal issues are still very peripheral to the priorities of the university.
I told Diep before we went that I am the type of person who loves unusual opinions. I collect them the way some people might collect unusual artifacts. Lee did not disappoint in this matter. She shared such unique opinions (at least in my experience) and I thought that by in large, they were very well thought out and insightful. I only wish I had recorded the conversation so that I could remember exactly how she put things. We asked her about the aboriginal influences and role in higher education and she said that higher education is entirely of the white, Canadian (or British) dominant culture, and that aboriginal people haven't even had the chance to decide what advanced education looks like for them. She says that there are people now who are getting Ph.D.s in the western system just trying to understand what education would mean for the aboriginal people if they had the luxury of defining it for themselves. She pointed out, though, that in many cases, they aren't allowed to study it in a way that is meaningful for them. Just because of Western ideas about what counts as rigorous scholarly topics, they are forced to study their own traditions in comparison to western traditions, and that defeats the purpose of studying their own traditions--it derails their purpose and causes them to have to define their culture by the dominant culture.
She said that her people have a distinctly different way of looking at science, and that the western way of looking at science fits into the aboriginal way of looking at science. She told a story to illustrate. At one point, her people noticed that crabs that usually never come out of the water were crawling across the sand in the bay area (I'm not sure what bay). They went and asked their elder about it, and she said that the only time these crabs had left the water in the past was during the great flood that happened when volcanoes erupted all along the western coast, so there must be some disturbance in the water. The people asked western scientists to test the water, and the scientists found very high levels of cadmium. The aboriginal elder told the people to plant a special kind of grass around the sound. The western scientists thought that this was a strange solution, but when the people did it, the grass soaked up all the cadmium, and the crabs returned to the see, with many other kinds of wildlife. Lee pointed out that while western science is good at studying small pieces of the puzzle, an aboriginal knowledge base focuses on the big picture and draws on centuries of knowledge about a place.
She made similar observations about western and aboriginal medicine, stating that they are about equal in their effectiveness at treating illness, although in her opinion western medicine is better at diagnosing illnesses. She said that some illnesses have very similar symptoms (tuberculosis, pneumonia, and influenza) but they need to be treated differently. She said that the aboriginal methods for diagnosing illness depend a lot on intuition, and that if the person who is diagnosing you isn't very intuitive, than you won't get a very correct diagnosis, so she tends to go to western doctors to get the diagnosis, but then has the illness treated with aboriginal medicine because it is more honoring of the body and of the environment (no chemicals or heavy metals).
At one point, Diep mentioned mainstream education, and Lee corrected her saying there is no "mainstream." There is a "white male stream" that everyone in the education system has to refer to--one that is not actually controlled by the majority. She also shared her opinions about the fact that she does not believe Canada belongs to the English immigrants at all. That they are squatting on aboriginal land to this day.
I really enjoyed Lee's revolutionary opinions. I really agree with her that the white male perspective shapes all of education and that adding classes regarding aboriginal topics that are taught from a white male perspective is not really making aboriginal people part of the education system. Lee shared many other things with us, but I can't remember them all.
The reason that the conversation was a little challenging was because Lee shut me down pretty hard at the beginning. She talked about teaching her students how to think, and said that they needed to learn not to make "proclamations." They should only speak the truth. I'm not quite sure how she defines proclamations, but apparently almost all of my opinions are proclamations and therefore I did not have the right to express them. It didn't appear to me that her opinions were ever proclamations, though. They were all the truth. After having my ideas jumped on and twisted beyond my recognition a few times, I decided that the best approach to talking to Lee was to just encourage her to expand on her opinions. I really enjoyed listening to her, but I found that I had to be very careful about what I said. It was probably good for me. Diep and I discussed later whether this style of communication was cultural (where elders speak and learners stay silent). It did not fit with Lee's account of aboriginal teaching methods, which are the only truly collaborative student-led learning methods. We decided that we really couldn't know whether that was an individual trait or a reflection of her culture without talking to many other people from her community. It's very important not to make conclusions like that from one conversation.
After we finished talking with Lee, we went to Ryerson University and found the Aboriginal Student Services. It was just kind of a drop in visit, but the woman we met there, Diane Simone, was quite gracious to stop and talk to us a little about their program. She herself was not the director, but a writing teacher for the program. She shared with us some of the services that the center had to offer and invited us back later to attend an informational session that she was hosting for students and interested community members. About halfway through the conversation, I realized that she identified as aboriginal. I mentioned it to Diep later, and she hadn't noticed it at all. That is a somewhat jarring aspect to this trip is that so many people who seem "white" actually end up being of aboriginal descent. Also, we both observed that at first she seemed a little stiff and defensive about our questions, but that she warmed up more towards the end. That just caused me to reflect that these conversations can be difficult to engage in because some many people approach them with ignorance and set prejudices.
We did go back later to the informational meeting and we heard one young woman talk about her experience getting a certificate in the program that was offered. This young woman also didn't look aboriginal to me. She said that she had studied English as an undergraduate, but that in all the classes she had taken, she could never find herself. No one taught her about how her culture and background fit into the what she was learning. She said that when people learned that she was aboriginal, they would ask her to educate them on her background, and she always though, "Where do I start? I'm not paid to teach this. I'm here to learn." She really appreciated the program with its cluster of classes taught by aboriginal teachers. The program was a continuing education certificate program that could be added to a degree. Some of the classes could also be applied toward a degree in social work.
While we were at Ryerson, Diep and I did a little observation. Ryerson is a public university in the heart of downtown Toronto. The layout of the campus is compact and perhaps the most notable landmark (at least from our approach) was the Ryerson Student Learning Centre (see a picture: https://abitmoredetail.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/photo-ryerson-universitys-student-learning-centre/). By contrast, the aboriginal student services office was tucked back on the third floor of a physical education building. There were very few signs and it was difficult to find because of the layout of the building. Diep asked how many aboriginal students attend Ryerson, and Diane said that it was impossible to know because not everyone identifies. She referenced the Residential Schools and the residual shame and distrust that those have left in the hearts of aboriginal people. Yet even the architecture and the choice of location for the aboriginal student services offices suggest that aboriginal issues are still very peripheral to the priorities of the university.
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
Monday: Woodlawn Cultural Center
So yesterday, Diep and I visited the Woodlawn Cultural Center in Brantford. We learned a lot about the residential schools and just the history of the relationship between the indigenous people and the white immigrants who settled in Ontario.
Because of some technical difficulties getting to the center, we ended up taking the tour of the residential school before we toured the museum. In some ways, I felt like this was fortuitous. Our guide was someone from an indigenous background, and she spoke of the residential schools as a quite horrific place, naming those who had attended the school and left it "survivors." At first I had a little difficulty accepting the degree of severity involved in the abuse and deprivation that went on in the schools. It sounded pretty bad, but nothing worse than what Oliver Twist experienced in an orphanage in the Dickens novel. As she continued to tell stories, though, I began to get a clearer idea of what she was talking about. She spoke from firsthand accounts of people who had attended the schools, and that was very convincing to me.
From what she told us, I would say that there were several forces that created the plight of the children in these residential schools. Part of it was just the Anglican/Catholic tradition of strict, even inhumane charity schools (which those of European descent are somewhat familiar with this tradition from other contexts). However, layered on top of that tradition was a clear racism. The schools were designed to strip students of their indigenous identities. They were not allowed to use their native language or even to have much contact with their families. The purpose of the schools was to assimilate the children into mainstream society, but the conditions of the school were so bad that the people who grew up in them were not equipped in any way to join society--they were only deprived of their own cultural heritage, instilled with all kinds of traumatic baggage, and returned to a family they no longer knew.
As I reflected on this situation, I tried to see if from both sides. I could imagine the establishment of the schools being well-intentioned. I have met a lot of people who just assume that their view of the world is the correct one and that education consists of bringing other people to embrace their worldview. Interestingly, I have met this attitude in very conservative circles and also among social justice and diversity advocates. In light of that fact, it's hardly surprising that at one point, the Ontario government believed that assimilation through education was in the best interest of indigenous peoples. In fact, even in their more recent policy statements, focus is placed on making indigenous people in Ontario productive members of society, although collaboration with indigenous populations on what education should be has become more of a consideration.
Perhaps the most destructive aspect of these schools was the power difference between two cultures, two ways of life. According to our guide, Indian Agents had the power to take children away from their parents without the parents consent and put them in these schools. She even gave us an example of a boy who was abducted off the streets. This would seem more shocking to me if it didn't remind me to some extent of social workers in the U.S. We justify this kind of power by labeling the parents as "unfit." It doesn't take too much of a stretch of my imagination to believe that these Indian Agents also thought they were removing children from the families of "unfit" parents--perhaps because of real dysfunction at times (like alcoholism and poverty), but with a little prejudice and racism thrown in, probably many more families could be labeled "unfit." Governments have this kind of power and it is vulnerable to abuse.
Further, teachers and administrators did not have any accountability. Perhaps because of their Christian background (the school we toured was Anglican) and the high regard "missionaries" were usually held in, these people did not seem to get supervised at all. When children came forward about abuse, it was the word of a small "savage" against the word of an august, spiritual member of society. In these cases, the word of the teacher was taken over the word of the child. Again, as someone who has lived where two cultural/racial groups abut each other, I know how natural it is to place confidence in one's own racial/cultural group and distrust, on principal, the perspective of the other. This kind of cultural estrangement mixed with the power distance (the children had no power whatsoever, not even through their parents) created space for extreme abuse and deprivation.
As an educator and potential policymaker, the most important lesson that I took away from this experience was how close the potential for this kind of abuse is to all of us. It came out of good intentions and ignorance. People with a lot of power chose to operate from their limited understanding instead of engaging deeply with people who were different from them. Further, these people did not create transparent, accountable processes. Finally, power inequity between racial groups is never a good thing, and as a policymaker and educator, it is our responsibility to find ways to lessen those power distances and give the less powerful group their voice as often as we can.
Our guide mentioned that now the Ontario government has set aside money as restitution for those who experienced abuse in these schools, but even in the process of dolling that money out, the government agents are re-inflicting this abuse on those former students by making them recount their experiences and they deciding whether those traumatic experiences were really abuse and whether they really deserve money for what they experienced. Her example was making people tell how many times they had been raped and setting a price tag on those experiences (kind of like retroactive prostitution!). This state of affairs along with the initial missionary purpose of these schools just makes me want to weep. How can we set out to do a good thing and go so wrong? It is a very complex and difficult problem--and it reflects a weakness in our way of looking at life when we only see things in terms of justice and the bottom line and forget that justice must be mixed with mercy and that people are more valuable than the bottom line.
Because of some technical difficulties getting to the center, we ended up taking the tour of the residential school before we toured the museum. In some ways, I felt like this was fortuitous. Our guide was someone from an indigenous background, and she spoke of the residential schools as a quite horrific place, naming those who had attended the school and left it "survivors." At first I had a little difficulty accepting the degree of severity involved in the abuse and deprivation that went on in the schools. It sounded pretty bad, but nothing worse than what Oliver Twist experienced in an orphanage in the Dickens novel. As she continued to tell stories, though, I began to get a clearer idea of what she was talking about. She spoke from firsthand accounts of people who had attended the schools, and that was very convincing to me.
From what she told us, I would say that there were several forces that created the plight of the children in these residential schools. Part of it was just the Anglican/Catholic tradition of strict, even inhumane charity schools (which those of European descent are somewhat familiar with this tradition from other contexts). However, layered on top of that tradition was a clear racism. The schools were designed to strip students of their indigenous identities. They were not allowed to use their native language or even to have much contact with their families. The purpose of the schools was to assimilate the children into mainstream society, but the conditions of the school were so bad that the people who grew up in them were not equipped in any way to join society--they were only deprived of their own cultural heritage, instilled with all kinds of traumatic baggage, and returned to a family they no longer knew.
As I reflected on this situation, I tried to see if from both sides. I could imagine the establishment of the schools being well-intentioned. I have met a lot of people who just assume that their view of the world is the correct one and that education consists of bringing other people to embrace their worldview. Interestingly, I have met this attitude in very conservative circles and also among social justice and diversity advocates. In light of that fact, it's hardly surprising that at one point, the Ontario government believed that assimilation through education was in the best interest of indigenous peoples. In fact, even in their more recent policy statements, focus is placed on making indigenous people in Ontario productive members of society, although collaboration with indigenous populations on what education should be has become more of a consideration.
Perhaps the most destructive aspect of these schools was the power difference between two cultures, two ways of life. According to our guide, Indian Agents had the power to take children away from their parents without the parents consent and put them in these schools. She even gave us an example of a boy who was abducted off the streets. This would seem more shocking to me if it didn't remind me to some extent of social workers in the U.S. We justify this kind of power by labeling the parents as "unfit." It doesn't take too much of a stretch of my imagination to believe that these Indian Agents also thought they were removing children from the families of "unfit" parents--perhaps because of real dysfunction at times (like alcoholism and poverty), but with a little prejudice and racism thrown in, probably many more families could be labeled "unfit." Governments have this kind of power and it is vulnerable to abuse.
Further, teachers and administrators did not have any accountability. Perhaps because of their Christian background (the school we toured was Anglican) and the high regard "missionaries" were usually held in, these people did not seem to get supervised at all. When children came forward about abuse, it was the word of a small "savage" against the word of an august, spiritual member of society. In these cases, the word of the teacher was taken over the word of the child. Again, as someone who has lived where two cultural/racial groups abut each other, I know how natural it is to place confidence in one's own racial/cultural group and distrust, on principal, the perspective of the other. This kind of cultural estrangement mixed with the power distance (the children had no power whatsoever, not even through their parents) created space for extreme abuse and deprivation.
As an educator and potential policymaker, the most important lesson that I took away from this experience was how close the potential for this kind of abuse is to all of us. It came out of good intentions and ignorance. People with a lot of power chose to operate from their limited understanding instead of engaging deeply with people who were different from them. Further, these people did not create transparent, accountable processes. Finally, power inequity between racial groups is never a good thing, and as a policymaker and educator, it is our responsibility to find ways to lessen those power distances and give the less powerful group their voice as often as we can.
Our guide mentioned that now the Ontario government has set aside money as restitution for those who experienced abuse in these schools, but even in the process of dolling that money out, the government agents are re-inflicting this abuse on those former students by making them recount their experiences and they deciding whether those traumatic experiences were really abuse and whether they really deserve money for what they experienced. Her example was making people tell how many times they had been raped and setting a price tag on those experiences (kind of like retroactive prostitution!). This state of affairs along with the initial missionary purpose of these schools just makes me want to weep. How can we set out to do a good thing and go so wrong? It is a very complex and difficult problem--and it reflects a weakness in our way of looking at life when we only see things in terms of justice and the bottom line and forget that justice must be mixed with mercy and that people are more valuable than the bottom line.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)