Randi Brooks

Blog 1 (Chapter 1)

After reading the first chapter of “Sociology of Education in Canada” by Karen Robson, I’m excited to continue on with this course and the readings and discuss topics that I feel sometimes become overlooked. In the very beginning of the chapter Robson states, “…education is essential to ensure a good quality of life and that education holds the key to an individuals success” (2). This statement really stuck out for me because I truly believe that education is one of the most important qualities a person can obtain. In order to get any sort of career to be able to become a successful independent person, you require a form of education even if it’s just a high school diploma.

Having taken a Cross-Cultural Education course, I already had an insight on the inequality that is immersed upon the Aboriginal communities. That being said, I was still pretty shocked about the crises that occurred within the Attawapiskat First Nation reserve in Northern Ontario. To read about what those children in that reserve had to endure was heartbreaking. To begin with, Robson states, “The community had been waiting to have a new school built after the old one (built in 1976) was closed in 2000 due to site contamination” (4). Those poor children (and teachers) had to go to school every single day while inhaling oil fumes for so many years, while they knew in 1982 that there was evidence of oil within the school foundation. How is a child to learn anything effectively when they are consistently inhaling fumes that are dangerous for their systems? Next, after their school was finally permanently closed, they were not built a new school. The children were to attend school in “temporary portable classrooms beside the contaminated site” (4). The description of these portable classrooms by Linda Goyette makes me cringe. Thinking back to my own early/middle years, I feel as though my school was highly privileged for having simple things such as a library and a play structure outside the school.

Reflecting on Shannen Koostashin and the impact that she has made in her short 15 years is amazing. I find it a little sad that it took a 13-year-old girl who wanted to receive an education within an actual school with culturally based education for First Nation students and campaigned against the government to finally get what the Attawapiskat First Nation people deserve. Robson mentions that part of Shannen’s Dream was that she wanted “the curriculum of on-reserve students would be culturally relevant and reflect the beliefs and practices of First Nations people” (10). “…critics argue that Aboriginal “ways of knowing” and cultural practices should be incorporated into the curriculum of on-reserve schools and off-reserve schools with substantial Aboriginal students” (10).

This brings me to my discussion question: How can we as teachers incorporate Aboriginal education into the curriculum for both on and off reserve schools?