I found the reading of this first chapter very intriguing, especially because up until today, I knew nothing of the issues involving the Attawapiskat First Nations community. I am glad that I am now aware of this dilemma, but I'm sure that this is just one drop in the bucket of the many issues that First Nations communities have dealt with and it leaves me wondering how many more issues there are that go unnoticed.
Something that was stated in the text that did not surprise me, was the common belief in our society and many others that "education is essential to ensure a good quality of life and that education holds the key to an individual's success" (2). In my practicum school, there are a significant amount of immigrant families, whom many have moved here to give their children a better education than they would have received elsewhere. The text also states that it is especially true of immigrant parents that they see education as a main factor in determining their standard of living. I have also experienced that many of the immigrant parents are highly involved and pay great attention to their child's education.
Going back to the Attawapiskat First Nations community, it took three declarations of a state of emergency before the government intervened. The first state of emergency was declared because the community's school was contaminated by petroleum fumes because of an oil leak near its school, which occurred in 1979 (4). The school was only shut down in 2000, 21 years later! 21 years went by with who knows how many teachers and students being in a building with harmful toxins, and which nothing was done about it. I find this frustrating and disappointing.
Another bit of information that I found surprising was that on-reserve schools do not have an official curriculum (10). They also do not have external policy-makers, which means that they organize all aspects of their education themselves. According to the text, without external curriculum support, performance improvement and the quality of one's education is very difficult to improve. Stats show that the graduation rates of Aboriginal students are quite low and that socioeconomic status is closely linked to one's educational outcomes. I have witnessed the academic levels of children in my practicum placement classroom that come from families of lower socioeconomic status and it's sad to see that these children are somewhat, not always, behind academically. In some cases, there are not as many learning resources at home for them or their parents did not receive a very high education, so in turn, they do not put as high of a value on education.
Discussion Question: If these statistics are true about Aboriginal students and low socioeconomic status, why are First Nations communities left on their own to develop educational services to their students and why is there no external support going to these on-reserve schools?
Also, how do we as teachers deal/accommodate to children in our own classrooms that come from low socioeconomic homes?
Hi Holly
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree that children who come from low SES homes often struggle in school. I have witnessed a lot of the struggle that teachers go through trying to support these children as my mom has worked at two schools with very low SES populations. It really is a challenge to help students who don't have the learning resources or support at home. When parents don't have the education necessary to help their students it can be frustrating for everyone involved. Think about something as simple as home reading. If there is no one to practice with a student at home because the parents are doing shift work, have other problems going on, or don't know English very well, then it can be terribly difficult for that student to make significant progress in their ability to read. I can agree that it's important for us to have conversations about how to help support our low SES students. I don't think any of us could feel right with just doing nothing.