Group 4

Group Members

Hilde Romme

Kayla Nobes

Karl Sanden

Sabastian Andrade

Amber Van Den Biggelaar

Article summary and discussion points: "Aboriginal Education in Canada: A Retrospective and a Prospective"

Summary:

This author's intention was to provide a discussion of the retrospective and prospective of Aboriginal Education. This was accomplished by providing a summary of two papers previously written “Indian Education: Past, Present and Future" written in 1985 and the other written in 1998, “Our Peoples’ Education: Cut the Shackles, Cut the Crap and Cut the Mustard." A review of these two papers allows the reader to learn about the earliest experiences in education and then take this into today in an attempt to prevent mistakes made historically from perpetuating in Education.

Group Discussion Points:

Questions posed by the Author for creating change in Aboriginal Education:

Where are we now?

- Aboriginal Education is seen as interjecting Aboriginal culture into curriculum instead of making culture as the basis of Education – for holism.

How did we get to where we are?

- Historical context, having an understanding of historical events, including education of Aboriginal peoples. Exploring your own history in education and in society; understand you own positionality.

Where do we want to go?

- Framing Education in a new holistic context, where culture is the basis of education.

How will we get to where we want to go?

- “The greatest challenge is to be radical, to ask the right questions within the community, and to ask the families what they want for their children. Only then will we be practicing what we set out to do in 1972, which was to have the parents set the agenda for education in our communities and then getting on with the plan.” (Kirkness, 15)

Getting parents and Elders involved in education:

1. What is it that will engage Aboriginal peoples in Aboriginal education?

2. How can we build relationships?

3. Is it through increasing awareness historically so that people are more empathetic and understanding of the individual, community and system contexts?

4. Is this enough, or do we need to challenge systems actively?

- Positive emphasis on resiliency; the door is still open to rebuild what has been broken down.

How will we know when we get there?

...