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Indigenous education and its merits and limitations
The impact of colonization on indigenous people
The impact of colonization on indigenous people
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Recommended: Indigenous education and its merits and limitations
In the article by Erica Neeganagwedgin she examines aboriginal education from pre contact, through the Residential Schools and concludes with contemporary issues in education, focusing on women in multiple sections. Neegangagwedgin argues how colonial education curriculum in Canadian schools are marginalizing and oppressing aboriginal students by rarely including their history, heritages and cultural antecedents therefore creating a ‘denial of the selfhood of aboriginal students” (p.28). She starts by comparing the pedagogy differences between Aboriginals and Eurocentric students the stem of differing worldviews which have created this problem as Canada denies to recognize the Aboriginal worldview as legitimate. Bringing light to the idea that …show more content…
This was illustrated through lessons about menstruation were it was taught menstruation was a sign of impurity and contamination versus the aboriginal belief that it symbolizes female power (p.19). The Residential Schools were a government program created for assimilation, and well there were good individuals who helped the hurting, the schools foundations were of oppression and no amount of good people could help. As a result, many aboriginals view western education as a tool of oppression to this day (p.20). Through oral interviews done by aboriginal women she backs up the idea of oppression even in contemporary education. Many women felt discounted, singled out, ignored, assumed academically weak or humiliated at some point through their education. Neeganagwedgin references Monture-Angus who had a strong opinion that education is the problem amongst aboriginal youth and issues of identity, not the solution; only when education is decolonized will it be beneficial and important for the native population …show more content…
The first was in the introduction she acknowledged the various terms that can be used for aboriginal people and gave reasoning’s for why she chose the terminology that she did. I thought it really brought the problem that is being discussed into light as she talked about the term ‘First Nations’ being exclusionary and colonially imposed and the barriers that come as a result. I also appreciated how she addressed stereotypes throughout the article. For example she talks about how the textbooks (when not being racist and calling aboriginal savages) generalize aboriginals as hunting buffalo and living in igloos and while that may be true for some first nations groups (although very vague) it is not true for all as they have diverse cultural differences. She also provides a quote from a lady that sheds a new light on what many white Canadians see as aboriginals having a “free university education”. In the interview the woman talks about the degrading process of going through the Indian Agency where they pick the school, your lodging and the disrespect they receiving when picking up allowances (p.22). What I do not think she did a great job on was the residential schools section. I thought she mainly focused on the conditions of the residential school instead of the curriculum which I believe would have made a bigger influence in supporting her argument of
Educational systems are one of the primary foundations in the development of early childhood teachings and beliefs. “It has been argued that there is an essential relationship between students' culture and the way in which they acquire knowledge, manage and articulate information, and synthesize ideas.”(Barnhardt, 1999; Bell 2004; Kanu, 2005). Lessons taught to young school children are first fundamental steps in shaping their future ideas, opinions, thoughts and behaviors and how that influences how they view the world and those around them. One of the simplest ways to properly educate Canadians about the lives, history and accomplishments of Aboriginal people is through introducing Aboriginal history beginning in early childhood education. Children are the future; if they are given the proper education and tools to correctly inform future generations they hold the power to correct the impact that decades of stigmatization, marginalization, inequality, colonialism, and denial of responsibility has had on Aboriginal life and spirituality. In order to properly educate these children, educators too must be informed. Previously in Canada, Indigenous education was not discouraged but was also not a required mandate in the curriculum. Pa...
Jiwani and Young's argument also causes me to consider Audra Simpson's talk, "The Chief's Two Bodies," in which she discusses both how and why the eradication of Aboriginal women was necessary to the development of patriarchal colonialist society. In short, Simpson acknowledges that through the creation "status," an arbitrary blood relationship to one's Aboriginal lineage, marriage, and scrip colonialist were able to remove land "ownership" from Aboriginal women, by essentially making them invisible. In effect, Jiwani and Young reinforce and provide evidence to suggest that ideologically, the concept of Aboriginal women being invisible or contrarily "hypervisable" (899), in that they are the antithesis of the "good" Christian women (the mother, the sister, the wife, the virgin) creates a binary. These apposing ideological women cause a "moral and racialized economy of representation [that] works to privilege dominate societal norms" (Jiwani and Young, 904). What is interesting about these discursive modes is the fact that news reporting itself is a colonialist practice rooted in economic stability. These modes maintains the cycle of violence and marginalization and only counter media rooted in art, such as the "Red Dress Campaign," or the "Walking with Our Sister's Campaign" which, bring awareness to the Aboriginal perspective can act as a retaliation to standard media
According to Keefe (1992:53) “Aboriginality is a complex social reality, only artificially explained by the abstract divisions of resistance and persistence’ and modern history demonstrates the connections between official education policies (or attitudes used by the dominant group) and key events in Aboriginal Australian history.
In this proposal our team seeks to explore the injustices within the Indian Act. To achieve this our proposed research will examine the target population being the aboriginal woman. The paper will further explore the oppressions faced by the aboriginal women within the Indian Act. In conclusion, this proposal will sum up the negative impact that the Indian Act had on aboriginal women and how it continues to oppress this population within the Canadian National discourse.
How can you write about a culture whose history is passed on by oral traditions? Better yet, how can you comprehend a culture’s past which a dominant society desired to assimilate? These two questions outline the difficulty in understanding the historiography of Canada’s Aboriginal peoples. In 2003, Paige Raibmon published her article, “Living on Display: Colonial Visions of Aboriginal Domestic Spaces.” Her work, although focused on Canada’s colonial “notions of domesticity,” presents the role of Aboriginals as performers to European notions of indigenous culture and identity. Early social historians believe that Aboriginals’ place in history is in their interactions with European Jesuits. A decade later, historians argue Aboriginals exemplify a subordinate culture fighting against assimilating and hegemonic forces. More recently, social historical perspective shows Aboriginals as performers of the white-man’s constructed “authentic-Indian.” Obviously, there is disparity between historians’ viewpoints but each decade’s published histories concur with James Opp and John Walsh’s concept of local resistance. Using Raibmon’s paper as a starting point, a chronological examination of select histories reveals an evolving social historiography surrounding historians’ perceptions of Aboriginals’ local resistance attempts.
First, the restrictions on fishing and hunting limited Aboriginal access to their conventional food sources generating problems of malnutrition and hunger, mainly because "officials were less interested in ensuring that the First Nations had sufficient land to provide for their needs" (p. 27). In addition, the increasing number of European settlements had been further encroaching reserves of Aboriginal people, the author therefore comes to argue that "reserves were insufficient to sustain the food production" (p. 27) and "restricted access to the land meant that the people could no longer rely on the abundance of variety to see them through tough times" (p. 28). These limitation inevitably led to starvation and even death of habitants who lived inside reserves. Residential schooling is another controversial issue that arose during this period of time. Rather than protected Aboriginal children from exposure to disease, underfeeding and other forms of abuses, instead residential schooling was notorious for its mismanagement based on the fact that "at least one-quarter of students died while on school rolls, or shortly thereafter, from diseases, predominantly tuberculosis, which they contacted while in the institutions" (p. 64) according to Dr. Peter Henderson Bryce,
Despite the wide scope of approaches taken by the Canadian government to assist in the healing process as a result of the residential schools, further evaluation and view of correspondence with Aboriginals proves that these measures may not have been as effective as they seem. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s apology on June 11, 2008 symbolized a major step in acknowledging a national sense of shame for the terrible things inflicted upon Aboriginal youth in residential schools. However, the nature of the agreement was intended to be holistic and address numerous levels of trauma and loss, but in reality these efforts have fallen short. In particular, upon discovering how Aboriginal survivors engaged in the process have responded leaves the effects on Aboriginal identity and wellbeing up for debate. Previously established in 2007 to assist in healing with the Aboriginal schools was the Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (RSSA). This agreement allowed for residential school survivors to apply for the Common Experience Payment (CEP), the Independent Assessment Process and other healing measures. Also as a part of this Agreement was the instatement of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which began in 2008. Identity and wellbeing are determined in this paper by how well the compensation methods contributed to or impacted a survivor’s overall satisfaction, self-esteem, health, happiness or prosperity (Reimer et al. 2010: xi). The CEP was intended to provide monetary compensation for those who were abused and experienced trauma in the residential schools, and the TRC was intended as a more holistic compensation approach to supplement monetary payments as seen in the CEP.
The inequality in Australian education can be attributed to a history of low expectations and discrimination placed on Indigenous people by the government and society. Aboriginal children were denied the right to education until the 1970s due to the discrimitory views of the government and society. The Indigenous population were the sub-standard race of humanity with little to no chance of succeeding in life and these attitudes affected the educational choices offered to them (Ray & Poonwassie, 1992). As the superior race, the Anglo-Celtic Australians, considered themselves both intellectually and socio-culturally more advanced than their inferior Aboriginal neighbours (Foley, 2013). As a consequence of these racially and culturally motivated preconceptions, children of Aboriginal descent were considered unskilled outside of their own and were deemed incapable of excelling in ‘civilised’ white society (Foley, 2013). As a result, the Australian Government, in an effort to civilise and nurture politeness within the Aboriginal people, constructed “structured” (p 139) education training institutions in 1814. However, these problems only provided sufficient schooling for menial work: Aboriginal male children were prepared for agricultural employment, while girls were trained for domesticated services (Foley, 2013). Thus, as a direct consequence of low expectation for life success, Aboriginal children were offered minimal schooling ‘consistent with the perception about the limitations inherent in their race and their expected station in life at the lowest rung of white society’ (Beresford & Partington, 2003, p43). According to Foley (2013) this combination of low expectations and poor academic grounding meant that Indigenous children we...
As a conclusion summary to the ideas that were represented in this essay, the aboriginals in Canada were and are still are to certain degree victims of a predigest government.
Genocide, assimilation, and segregation-- these are all forms of cultural and ethnic cleansing that we as Canadians do not necessarily associate with what it means to be a Canadian, rather they are terms that we associate with occurrences in distant, dangerous and abysmal places (Fleras, 2012; p. 10). However, these terms are evidently applicable to the treatment of Aboriginals during the time of European colonization of Canada. Genocide is considered to “be the most serious of punishable crimes under international law…” (Fleras, 2010; p. 11); unfortunately, genocide has been inflicted upon Aboriginals in numerous forms as they suffered a loss of cultural identity through European-colonization. Assimilation has also affected Aboriginals as through the use of residential schools, Aboriginal children were taken from their families and forced to learn the dominant white way of life and abandon their culture (Fleras, 2010; p.13). Segregation of Aboriginals has also occurred, as reserves are restricted purely for individuals with Indian citizenship, hence keeping Aboriginals separate from the dominant culture (Fleras, 2010; p. 15). There is a lack of awareness on the horrendous and disgusting treatment of the original Canadian settlers, Aboriginals, which can be partially attributed to a narrative that has helped create the image of what it means to be a Canadian, a narrative that has provided the belief that white Europeans were the first to settle on Canadian land and has painted a picture of white settlers struggling to survive on their discovered Canadian land. This narrative has been termed the ‘frontier narrative’, and it truly has shaped Aboriginals lives in Canada. This paper will provide first and foremost a clear definition o...
UFCW Canada stands in solidarity with Aboriginal communities throughout the country who have been greatly affected by the impact of Indian Residential Schools (IRS). Hidden under the veil of furthering educational attainment for Aboriginal communities, these schools brought with them great harm to society for more than a century. These injustices led to systemic racism, discrimination and annihilation of the traditions and culture of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada. Fittingly, The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada have termed the cycle of injustice in Canada’s Aboriginal populations to amount to genocidal proportions.
Before reading this chapter, I moderately thought colonization was something of the past. However, I learned quite quickly this is our reality. I am sure some agree with me when I say why it has to even exist. If colonization did not exist, colonizers would have no process that would help them maintain their social, political and economic power. Governor General Michaelle Jean once said, “When the present does not recognize the wrongs of the past, the future takes revenge, for that reason, we must never turn away from the opportunity of confronting history together the opportunity to right a historical wrong”. I find this quote to be quite powerful. I agree with Hart when he reflects that through education that Canadians can help heal Indigenous youth and children to find their way back to their roots and traditions. Education can implement the future by providing success not only for the individuals involved but also for the society in which they belong to.
The narrator, an indigenous woman, embodies the impact and legacy of colonization in Canada. She declares herself to be “damaged” and says that “I make it a policy not to talk to people unless absolutely necessary,” indicating she has experienced past trauma. What caused this trauma is not specified by the narrator, however it would be safe to assume that the trauma could be related to colonization. Trauma has found to be transgenerational, particularly in indigenous communities and for those affected by residential schools and the sixties scoop. Those who survived abuses at residential schools often inadvertently passed on trauma to their children. Due to unresolved issues, survivors fell into habits of destructive behaviour, such as drug
Aboriginal women are currently facing many challenges and working towards reclaiming their lives, rights and roles lost. Historically, Aboriginal women played a large role in their communities including caregivers, producers of food and protectors of land as well they held many leadership roles (Shepard, O’Neill and Guenette, 2006, p. 228). The affects of colonization and residential schools have torn some of these roles from Aboriginal women, as a patriarchy system was pushed on them (Shepard et al., 2006, p. 230). Presently, women all over the world are fighting for gender equality. However, although we share a common goal it cannot be over looked that each woman is facing different challenges on the road to gender equality. Gerber (2014) argues that to this day Aboriginal women “are disadvantaged first as Aboriginals (race), second as Indians (ethnicity and third as women (gender)” (p.122). Therefore, Aboriginal women are facing their own unique set of challenges.
Three readings from this week, combined with the readings from last week of overarching themes, got me think about how I have been considering indigenous student experiences myself. In fact, I have not given too much thought into the issue. I have not personally encountered any indigenous students during my studies and, thus, I have not had a chance to recognize their challenges until quite recently. I encountered the issue from a course I took last term, LHA 3810, as one of the last topics in the course, which led me to decide on enrolling in this course. Everything from the readings are quite new to me, and I find this opportunity to be a good learning experience as each reading material presents me new insights on the issue.