This essay will examine how education is a necessary relationship to community development and economic development of Aboriginals. Education has always been the objective of Aboriginals to build community development through economic development ventures. Education, in my view, is the basis of a strong community that leads people to help themselves through employment or business enterprises that leads to economic development. The examples provided illustrate why education is a requirement that produces employment and capacity building. Education therefore becomes a prerequisite for Aboriginals to bring themselves out of social crisis, dependency, and welfare state mentality and will lead to good work ethics and desire to change their situations to employment. Education must include life skills and personal development to provide a strong basis for education and training leading to employment.
Education builds capacity, and a healthy, capable Aboriginal population is in the best interest of Canada. Economically, it will cost less to educate Aboriginal people now rather than pay out social services in the long run. “According to a Census done in 2001, Winnipeg has the largest Aboriginal population in Canada and in ten years, one in five, upwards to one in three people entering the work force will be Aboriginal. These numbers indicate that Aboriginal education is crucial to the future of Winnipeg”[1]. Aboriginal students do not complete high school at the same rate as non-aboriginals. These numbers are higher rurally than in urban centre’s. Reasons go back to the thinking that creating the residential school system, to assimilate First Nations people, the current school system still works to assimilate them because First Nations contributions to Canada are not taught enough in the current school system (Silver, 2008). Speaking for myself, I did not learn anything about treaties in high school. Before I went to Red River College, I did not have a good understanding of our history and what brought us to this point that we are at now. I would estimate 90% of Aboriginals do not know their own history.
Some of the problems with high school education today that Aboriginal people are facing are that they feel excluded by a system that does not consider or respect their values, perspectives, worldview, and different culture (Silver, 2008), but rather focuses on the dominant European/American global cultural influence.“The regular school system has not yet made the changes needed to reflect aboriginal cultural needs”[2]. History is written from non-aboriginal writers, and Aboriginal teachers and curricula are scarce. Due to many overwhelming social ills, Aboriginal students are not graduating at the same rate as other Canadians.
In Winnipeg there are two high schools that educate youth about culture and support them when faced with problems. For urban youth, Children of the Earth (COTE) high school is unique by incorporating Aboriginal cultural components and values while sticking to the Manitoba curriculum. According to their website they have teachings about seasonal feasts, women’s and full moon teaching, and also pipe and sweat lodge ceremonies. The school also strives to preserve the language with Cree or Ojibwa courses as graduation requirements. COTE school was also named one of Canada’s top ten high schools by MacLean’s magazine. South East Collegiate, which serves students from the remote areas along the east side of Lake Winnipeg, has a program called, “Mino Bimaadiziwin,” or the “Good Life.” It encourages and supports students to live a drug and alcohol free life in order to achieve true happiness and success, which is not possible while carrying the burdens of an addiction (COTE, SE Collegiate Website, 2011).
Adult Learning Centers have been very successful at providing a second chance to Aboriginals moving many from social assistance to employment. The Aboriginal Learning Centre (ALC) is part of Louis Riel Institute (LRI), and instructor Stephanie Miller says that teaching the individual is instead of the classroom is why the ALC is such a success. “We try to accommodate the students as much as possible, there’s a lot of flexibility in our program. There are no set schedules or classes, each student is taught in a different way to meet their needs. We work at the students pace.[3]” ALC work because many students are more mature with children, jobs and other responsibilities.
According to the Aboriginal Organizations in Manitoba, there are 38 education outlets for Aboriginals looking to improve their situation (Aboriginal Organizations in Manitoba website, 2011)."This is a very spatially segregated city," Eleanor Thompson said. "Those tracks are a big barrier, and people in the North End are not as mobile as you think.[4]" Urban Circle has made great steps in bridging the education gap, partnering with Red River College, the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba to name a few programs, despite the success and turnover of graduates, there is constantly a struggle to receive and maintain funding. Jim Silver, head of the U of W's urban and inner-city studies program said “We've proven that it works, that it can turn lives around. Despite that, there isn't enough money.[5]" By the Adult Learning Centre’s Act, programs are required to function as a non-profit (Silver, 2008).
Further reasons why adult learning centers have been working well for Aboriginal students are the support students get from instructors who go beyond what is required. This includes picking up students who do not have a ride to acting as a counselor. Instructors realize that the problems students face are just as complex as the academic problems. Aboriginal people want to learn but not give up their culture and identity. Students want to learn about whom they are (Silver, 2008), “they have a right to learn about their cultures and attempts to eliminate them, and to come to terms with who they are as people and how they came to be where they are today[6].” This addresses the identity crisis amongst students and helps to locate their personal situation in the context of colonization by developing critical reflection (Silver 2008). Education is a decolonization process and, through education, “capacity building occurs. The result is transformative, at both the personal and collective levels. This is community development at its best[7]”.
This essay has provided evidence that education is necessary to empower the people and to develop the work ethics for employment. Community development is the ability to help people to help themselves. It is important that people are willing, capable, able, and have a strong desire to change their situations. Without people’s willingness, participation, and a sense of ownership to education leading to employment, there will be no positive community development. The true sense of community development is restoring the people’s ability to help them self. Education provides positive relationships to community development and economic development.
References
2. Silver, J. In Their Own Voices: Building Urban Aboriginal Communities. 2008. Fernwood Publishing, Halifax.
3. Rajotte, P.(2011, June 14th) Adult Learning Centre’s flexible schedule gets positive results. Grassroots News, p34.
5. Winnipeg Free Press, Putting folks on the right track, Learning Centres Offer a Future, Dan Lett. June 13/2011.
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