Four Short Passages from The Absolutely True Story of A Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie that stand out for me

I love this book!

1. Page 195-196.

 “And then I realized something.

I realized that my team, the Reardon Indians, was Goliath….-

I was suddenly ashamed of my anger, my rage, and my pain.”

This passage really hit home to me.  When, as a support worker, or as a teacher, I have had to deal with some very annoying interactions with my Rez students, I found myself stepping back and letting the Principal deal with the student as they saw fit.  On those occasions, when I was surrendering, I would realize that I wasn’t just surrendering out of frustration but abandoning them and their real powerlessness to the disciplinarians.  At those times, I knew that I was on the side of the powerful and felt like I was betraying my kids but had given in to the fact that I, as powerless as my students but unable to lash out in the anger and aggression that they used to show their frustration, had had to give up because I had other students to worry about.  We are on different reserves, but I knew what they were going home to and I knew that the administration didn’t really understand that.  I also know that, despite my own poverty, I am better off then a lot of kids on my reserve and the nearby ones.  I also am reminded that, in becoming a teacher, I have sided with the oppressor, even when I know that my intentions are to change the system from within.  The kids don't always see that.

2. Page 155.

“Indians can be just as judgmental and hateful as any white person.”

What more needs to be said.  What really hurts is how we are able to turn that hate so effectively on each other and on any perceived difference.  When you are placed in a position of powerlessness, the desire to lash out at the oppressor is strong, but lacking the resources to take on the oppressor, the oppressed will seek out weaker targets for their rage and those weaker targets are often from within the ranks of the powerless, only more vulnerable.  The most hurtful interactions I have had in the world of education and education advocacy have been with other Indigenous people.

3. Page 189.

“’You can do it.’

‘I can do it.’

Do you understand how amazing it is to hear that from an adult?  Do you know how amazing it is to hear that from anybody?  It’s one of the simplest sentences in the world, just four words, but they’re the four hugest words in the world when they’re put together.”

I don’t remember my father ever saying them specifically, but I do remember him saying “Well done.” when I did something he was trying to encourage me on.  That “well done” was the whole world to me.  I remember in army cadets one time, we were on exercise and the troop was given the task of building shelters.  We were handed rope and tarp and other little essentials that we would need to carry out the project.  My Dad, one of our instructors, then came up to me and took everything away.  When I complained, he said "What are the odds you will have everything you will need to survive?" (Now that I think of it, he may have said those four magical words).  No one explicitly said this is how to build a shelter, but as I stood there, my Dad nudged a broken branch with his foot and always sort of stood near the next piece of the puzzle, making me figure it out on my own, although I realize now that I wasn't really on my own.  By the end of it, I had a full audience of cadets and instructors who applauded the completed (but far from perfect) shelter.  The only response that mattered was the soft "Well done" from my Dad.

4. Page 63.

“Well, let’s get something straight.  All of those pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty white girls ignored me.  But that's okay.  Indian girls ignored me, too, so I was used to it.”

Story of my life.

On Becoming Visible- Please Vote...

Just a quick post here, as I realized that there is advanced polls taking place for Canada's general election.  I was interviewed recently for an article on MediaIndigena for the article Should First Nations be part of Canadian elections?50 years after getting the vote, the debate rages on by Martha Troian.  There is an ongoing debate regarding whether First Nations people should participate in the vote, do we surrender a part of our sovereignty in voting in Canadian elections?  Do we weaken our stances and claims of nationhood  by casting a ballot?

Dr. Taiaiake Alfred makes the argument that we do give up a part of ourselves and our independence by participating in general elections.  I do disagree with him, although I do not believe that there is anything wrong with taking this position, which is shared by many First Nations' people across Canada. 

I do, however have to take a different stance on the subject and it is because there is too much going on that affects us as First Nations people to ignore and not have a say in.  We face many critical challenges today.  How are we fighting to protect our water rights and the right to access clean water on our reserves?  How are we ensuring that our missing and murdered women are being properly investigated and resolved?  How are we ensuring that there is no way for people to believe it is okay that these women are disappearing?  How are we ensuring that the needs of our people and our children are being looked after?

By staying away from the voting booth?

In Martha's article, Joseph Quesnel says “just because you don’t take an interest in politics, doesn’t mean politics will take an interest in you. You become part of someone else’s design for political life.”

Do we let others make the decisions on how we live our lives? Yes, that is what a democratic society does, but we are allowed to influence those decisions by voting.  What happens when we choose not to vote on the people who will be deciding our fates?  What is happening to First Nations now?  By choosing not to exercise the right to vote, we become invisible. 

I have talked to my students about resistance.  How do we resist colonialism?  How do we resist assimilation?  How do we resist losing our identity?  Our students are expected to fail, and the ones that fail as an act of resistance are not failing the education system, they are failing themselves and their Bands.  They are reinforcing the belief that we are failures.  I encourage my students to resist by succeeding.

I am also encouraging those that are old enough to, to vote.  Resist assimilation by ensuring that your voice is heard.  If Aboriginal people were to go out and vote, we would be heard and listened to.  Resist by ensuring that we don't become invisible.

Please vote on May 2nd.  I don't care for whom you vote, listen to the candidates and make your choice, but, please, make the choice.

Vancouver's Aboriginal Focus School Forum Report Released!

The Vancouver School Board has released a report titled Reporting on the Vancouver School District, January 2011 Aboriginal Education Forums.  Compiling and synthesizing the comments and opinions of the forums, the report was written by Dr. Jo-ann Archibald and research assistants Allyson Raynor & Ramona Big Head of the University of British Columbia.  Find the Report here.
The essence is supportive of the Choice school, although I note that they are now using the better term Aboriginal Focus school.

At any rate, I am still very intrigued at the idea.

Below, I have cut and pasted the essentials of the Executive summary:

participants indicated: (1) support for

establishing a new school with an Aboriginal

focus; (2) support for a larger school model

that addresses K-12; (3) that the new

school be one of choice; and (4) that the

new school be open to all interested

students in the Vancouver School District

and that Aboriginal students be given

priority. The goals of the school that the

Forum participants articulated were that the

school should:

a. strive for excellence in which students

are confident, respectful, critical thinkers

and engaged learners;

b. focus on quality education through

Aboriginal worldviews, knowledge,

culture, and values;

c. maintain high expectations for student

learning and success;

d. value cultural diversity;

e. develop a welcoming, culturally safe, and

inclusive school environment; and

f. engage parents and community groups in

school planning and decision-making.

The framework for the Aboriginal focused

school is discussed using a wholistic lens,

which addresses the spiritual, emotional,

physical and intellectual components/needs

of the students, teachers, school, and

community. Forum participants, for

example, wanted: the school to include

Aboriginal ceremonies, the teachers to

develop meaningful and supportive learning

relationships with the students, the

community to be engaged in the

development of the school structure and

policies, and the students to experience

learning shaped by Aboriginal content and

ways of knowing.

The one component of the new school that

was repeatedly underscored by Forum

participants was the need to hire excellent,

effective, innovative and caring teachers.

Specifically these ideal teachers:

• develop effective learning

relationships with students,

recognize students’ talents and

strengths;

• demonstrate care and patience

toward students, listen intently;

• have high expectations of students

and challenge them to do their best;

• have knowledge, experience, and

commitment for using Aboriginal

Knowledge in pedagogy and

curriculum, understand the impact

of colonization on Aboriginal

people, and use strategies to

decolonize education;

• are experts in subject areas and use

varied pedagogy; and

• are aware and knowledgeable of

urban Aboriginal contexts.

In the development of this school, however,

the VSB needs to be knowledgeable and

respectful of the concerns that the Forum

participants voiced during the consultation

process.

Four of the more prominent

concerns centered on the following issues:

1) the fear of segregation and racism; 2) the

worry that this school would not encourage

academic excellence; 3) the concern that

the grade range of the school will be too

narrow; and 4) the apprehension that the

systemic barriers within the VSB will not

allow the new school to have the flexibility

to meet the students’ needs in the best way

possible.

Despite these concerns however, the time

is right to be bold and take action to start a

new school with an Aboriginal focus. In

following Aboriginal oral tradition, we

would tell others that the January 2011

Aboriginal Education Forums resembled a

feast where we were fed extremely well

with ideas and reminders (see Figure 1) of

what is important for educational and

school success; how Aboriginal Knowledge,

values, and culture can effectively shape

learning and teaching; and how parents and

Aboriginal community members can work

in partnership with the Vancouver School

Board to offer education that is meaningful,

inclusive, and excellent.

Let me tell you a story...

Stories are everywhere.  Thomas King wrote a wonderful book “The Truth About Stories” based on his 2003 Massey Lectures, which told the Indigenous story after Contact through Coyote stories, federal legislation and personal stories.  On Friday, April 15, 2011, Darrell Dennis presented the keynote address at the BCTF Social Justice Conference, telling the story of the Native Canadian experience in schooling through the personal experiences of his growing up, relating back through the history and connecting to the now. 

I was fortunate enough to have the honour of introducing him, and it was only after, that I realized what I had done in the introduction (I was up there longer than I needed to be to read a short bio and say “Here he is!”): I told a story.  I talked about getting the text from a colleague informing me that I would be introducing Dennis, followed up by the curt, texted command “Be Funny”.   I talked about my crazy week and how hard it was to be funny on command.  How I sat up, in an admittedly uncomfortable bed, and struggled with the idea of being funny when I’m not, by nature a funny fellow, especially when I was bringing up a noted entertainer and comedian like Darrell onto the stage.

And while Darrell was making everyone laugh and opening their eyes to the history of schooling of Aboriginal people, I sort of tuned him out.  Not intentionally, mind you, I was struck at how similar our stories were, but because I was thinking.  My comments had turned serious while I introduced Darrell and I was dwelling on the implications, and reflecting on their meaning.  What had I done when I spoke at the Bargaining Conference?  I told a story about the impact the current system had on me, on that Aboriginal doctor and on Guu’jaw.  What had I ever done in BC First Nations Studies 12 or Social Studies 11, when I introduced a new concept or discussed a bit of legislation?  I told a story about its impact on me or someone I knew, exploring the history while firmly planting it in the now.  I taught about the residential school system by sharing how it affected me, my mother and my grandparents.  I shared that I cried when I heard the apology, because it came after my Grandpa had passed away.  I shared the meaninglessness of the apology because it changed nothing for anybody because the words, while having some power, did not change anything for anybody.  Words have power and meaning, as I have written here before, but they can also have power in their meaninglessness.

Stories are who we are.  They are our truths, even when they aren’t explicitly about us, as in King’s Coyote stories, or any of the Trickster tales that are out there.  They are how we come to understand our past, where we have been.  They tell us who we are and they tell us who we can be.

There has been a lamenting the loss of the story in many Aboriginal cultures, but I am not convinced it is lost.  Stories, like culture, like history, are not static.  They evolve and grow and change, just like the storyteller who tells the story.  Today, he or she is finding new ways to tell stories, using film, using music, using art, writing, the list is endless.  I’ve told you about my students who write their own music telling the story of their lives and sharing their truths.  Darrell is an entertainer, he wrote plays, films, tv and Revision Quest on CBC Radio.  My brother makes movies.  I am bragging here, I have a tv show (with my brother and sister) that tells the story of youth reconnecting to the land and understanding who they are.  I teach.  My friend Starleigh teaches.  She writes.  She also shares her world through her blog.  Joseph Boyden’s novels are trickster tales set in the modern or near-modern world, without a visible trickster necessarily.

Don’t let that creative need to tell a story be stymied by the fact that you don’t recognize the story as a traditional story, or something telling you how we used to be.  Our stories, in whatever form they take, are the stories of who we are.  A reminder to you and ourselves, that we exist and that we are still worthy of a story.

And yes, because I know you are wondering, of course I was funny.  There were Native women in the room and when there is another Native male in the room, you have to be funnier than him.  It’s hardwired in our DNA to get these women to laugh. 

What? I heard it in a story once.

An Incomplete Thought Continues- A further consideration in working towards a definition of Aboriginal Education

In working towards a definition of Aboriginal Education we must consider the issue of the target audience.  Forgetting for the moment the issues of integration of Indigenous content and pedagogy into the mainstream classroom, and the education of the mainstream population on Indigenous peoples, history and culture, we need to take into account the contentious issue of whom we are targeting among the Aboriginal population.  In this regard, we need to account for what makes up the Aboriginal population in Canada.  There is a tendency to apply a “pan-Indian” definition of what constitutes the Aboriginal student demographic and that is something that is detrimental to the improvement of educational practice for Aboriginal students.  This often results in a one size fits all implementation of “fixes” that fail for the most part to improve anything.

There are different categories that we could place people and students in, all of them with their own subcategories and subsets, ad infinitum.  To say the least, we can say that the Indigenous population in Canada includes First Nations, Métis and Inuit.  Within those categories we can further sub-categorize: FN, status and non-status; status can be further sub-categorized as section 6(1) and 6(2), as well as on-reserve and off-reserve, urban and rural.  We can add to this the awkward characterizations of Treatied and non-Treatied here in British Columbia if we wanted to, but I am unsure of the ramifications of being members of a Band or Nation with a Treaty at this point in time.  The recent McIvor decision by the Supreme Court of Canada, and the subsequent legislation to meet the ruling’s requirements, also changes the definitions of who gets to be considered Status versus non-Status Indians and I do not know how that will change the delivery of services to Aboriginal students.  Métis can have similar categorizations, complicated by the ongoing fight between the Métis and the Federal Government over who gets to legally define what constitutes a Métis person.

Having unnecessarily complicated the issue, I prefer to keep it simple.  Self-identification is key for determining services to students.  Where we need to make considerations above and beyond that is in determining strategies for rural and urban students.

The needs of an Urban Aboriginal student, by definition will be different from the needs of a Rural Aboriginal student, both in the design of the services required and in the delivery of said services.  How we incorporate culture and language will be different for the two regions, as they represent different divergent types of students with different accesses to language and culture in their environment.