Education
First Nation regional school boards are a good options, says Fontaine
March 6, 2006 - 8:27pm | by AnonymousTories to create aboriginal school boards: 'There's no school system': Native-run boards to be 'accountable,' Prentice says
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OTTAWA - The Conservative government is set to overhaul aboriginal education in Canada by introducing native-run school boards that would be accountable for the $1.2-billion in federal money spent on the country's 140,000 on-reserve children.
The Liberal government was heavily criticized by the Auditor-General and the Conservatives when they were in opposition for simply handing over the cash to First Nation band councils without any measure of accountability or educational performance standards.
Auditor-General Sheila Fraser said high school completion rates of around 41% would take 28 years to reach national Canadian rates of nearly 70%.
Ms. Fraser said the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs had no idea whether it was spending too much or too little and was equally in the dark about results achieved by children on reserves.
Jim Prentice, the new Indian Affairs Minister, said in an interview yesterday part of the problem has been that his department has acted as a funding agent without setting educational standards.
"What's happened is we've evolved from the old residential school system to a funding arrangement where there is no school system. It's every school for itself, operating according to its own rules and standards," he said. "[But] I don't accept that we simply flow the money through to 615 First Nations with no system, either as to their financial accountability or education outcome accountability."
Mr. Prentice said he intends to bring forward a First Nations Education Act that would prescribe the same rights for aboriginal children as those that are enshrined for other Canadian children in provincial school acts -- the right of a child to get a defined quality of education; curriculum requirements; classroom sizes; teaching certificate requirements, and so on.
He said he has already held discussions with First Nation chiefs in Alberta and has had a good response. In Alberta, aboriginal school boards would be set up along treaty boundary lines, which would result in three boards.
British Columbia would have a different system of aggregation. He said both provincial governments have shown a "high level of interest."
"I hope other provinces see the merit of this and begin to evolve in this direction."
Mr. Prentice said he believed First Nations leaders would be excited about the opportunity to exercise authority over a system that could match provincial standards, while protecting their own cultural and linguistic sensibilities.
Phil Fontaine, the Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, gave the government's plan a cautious welcome.
"Aggregating communities under one school authority is a good option, provided the school authority or board has the resources and capacity to deliver good education programs to kids. If the money isn't there, all these good ideas will fail, and I don't think anyone wants to see that."
The Conservatives, in their election platform, committed to the goals of the Kelowna conference on aboriginal affairs last November, which aimed to close the high school graduation gap by 2016.
"Obviously what this requires is a willingness on the part of aboriginal Canadians to breathe life into the educational commitments from Kelowna," said Mr. Prentice.
"How important is this? After issues of basic things like water service and so on, I think the whole subject of First Nation education is the most important task at hand. Everything else flows from having well-educated children."
Mr. Fontaine said major reforms will be needed if Canada is to hit its Kelowna targets.
"There is no question that there needs to be major changes. But one of those major changes has to be greater control by First Nations."
He said he was "quite encouraged" by his conversations with Mr. Prentice, who, he said, "has not turned his back on Kelowna."
C.D. Howe Institute Study on Aboriginal Policy Reforms in Education and Health
March 1, 2006 - 5:23am | by AnonymousMore "solutions" to the "barriers" that create the problems for Aboriginal people from the CD Howe Institute. Be sure to read a response to this lobbying effort at the bottom.
For Immediate Release, Feb 28, 2006
Aboriginal Policy Reforms Required, Starting with Education and Health Care: C.D. Howe Institute Study
Toronto, Feb. 28 --- Aboriginal policy reforms should focus on improving the quality of education and health care Aboriginals receive, says a study released today by the C.D. Howe Institute. Reforms should also include holding band councils accountable for the billions of dollars they spend, and recognizing the needs of the seven out of 10 Aboriginals who live off-reserve, according to the study.
The policy study, Creating Choices: Rethinking Aboriginal Policy, was written by John Richards, a professor in Simon Fraser University’s Public Policy Program and the Roger Phillips Scholar in Social Policy at the C.D. Howe Institute.
The main reason for poverty among Aboriginals today, Richards argues, is the low level of Aboriginal education. Low education leads to low employment rates and the intergenerational perpetuation of poverty. Moreover, low education levels, low employment rates, and many Aboriginal health problems, such as diabetes, are closely interrelated.
The goal of reforms is to place Aboriginals in a better position to support and maintain their culture wherever they may live: on-reserve, off-reserve in rural communities or, as fully half do, in cities.
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The Study, Creating Choices: Rethinking Aboriginal Policy, is available at www.cdhowe.org.
For further information contact:
John Richards,
Public Policy Program
Simon Fraser University and
Roger Phillips Scholar in Social Policy,
C.D. Howe Institute,
Tel. (604) 291-5250
email: jrichard@sfu.ca
Finn Poschmann,
Associate Director of Research,
C.D. Howe Institute,
Tel. (416) 865-1904 ext:238
email: cdhowe@cdhowe.org
March/April 2004 Issue
As I have had occasion to remark before, “God save me from intellectuals!” especially right-wing Canadian intellectuals, when they take unto themselves the impulse to discourse on Aboriginal policy.
In recent years, these people have perpetrated some real howlers, whose only use has been to indicate how deep the gap remains between the beliefs and posture of Aboriginal people in Canada, and what could at a pinch be described as the thinking of many influential, fuzzy-minded, well- intentioned, ill-informed Canadians of European background.
From Thomas Flanagon to John Richards
A couple of years ago the leader of the right-wing pack was Thomas Flanagan, the intellectual powerhouse of the Reform, aka the Alliance, aka the Conservative, party. Mr. Flanagan wrote a book, highly regarded and widely reviewed in the media, apparently before he had ever set foot in an Aboriginal community. I never read the book, but so far as I remember, it was stern stuff, calling on the Aboriginals to shape up, and espousing the line that the cure to all problems was for them to assimilate in Canadian society. This was welcomed by the press as a bold new policy.
At around the same time Jonathan Kay, the neanderthal right-wing editor of the editorial page of the National Post, (incidentally, he’s a favourite commentator for CBC television), took an active interest in Aboriginal policy, recommending the same bold policy.
And now John Richards, professor at Simon Fraser University, who has turned dramatically right and become an acolyte of the C.D. Howe Institute, has been getting a lot of attention for an article that recently appeared in the magazine Policy Options in which he recommends that Paul Martin must “rethink Aboriginal policy independently of the premises of tribal chiefs and their organizations such as the Assembly of First Nations.”
In other words, Aboriginal policy should ignore what the Indians and their leaders say they want, and instead hand over delivery of most Indian services to the provinces, which are, for the most part, regarded by Aboriginal people as unfriendly to Indians.
What alarms Richards the most, apparently, is the insistence of Aboriginal leaders that their people should be governed by the treaties signed with them as Europeans marched westward to take over their lands. There is a great deal of emphasis in Richards’ article on the $7 billion paid to (or for) Indians every year: but no recognition that this is a bargain price for what Europeans have gained from the exchange. The most recent of these exchanges, for example, that between the Crees of James Bay and the Quebec and Canadian governments, saw the Crees initially paid $139 million for privileges which now allow the governments and their corporate hangers-on to take $5 billion worth of electrical, mineral and forestry production every year from the lands they “bought” from the Indians.
Since many of the provisions of the original agreement were not fulfilled (for example, those covering economic development, under which the Crees were supposed to benefit in training and jobs), the Crees have recently made a new agreement which pays them $70 million a year — still a great bargain for the $5 billion wealth exchange. To get even this, the Crees have had to sell to Hydro-Quebec their central river, the Rupert, which they had spent 25 years defending, and agree that it should become part of the huge James Bay hydro scheme, a humiliation which is leading to increasing anger in the Cree communities, and has sullied the Cree reputation outside Quebec.
Richards also worries that under current policies, which provide free health care to Aboriginals, including dental care, a second tier of health insurance is created in Canada that “invites resentment among non-Aboriginals who pay taxes and yet receive fewer insured health services.”
There are a number of wonders about all these learned prescriptions for Indians by Canadian intellectuals. First, I suppose, is the naked assumption that Indians have proven themselves incapable of making decisions about their own lives: what else is to be assumed from Richards’ prescription, that the very bases of Aboriginal policy must be rethought by government without any reference to Indian chiefs or organizations? Second, and perhaps more important, is the blind ignorance of these people, who apparently have never heard that it has been Canadian policy since before the nation was founded to assimilate Indians into “the body politic,” and that pursuit of this policy led to monstrous legislation whose aim was to strip Indians of everything that might mean anything to them ‹- their languages, their beliefs, their religions, their rituals, their economies ‹- you name it, and Canadian policy in the past has tried to abolish or forbid or destroy it.
What are they teaching these professors? (Leaving aside that these guys are themselves actually teaching this stuff to people!)
Casual reference to diseases like diabetes omit to mention that the epidemic of this disease among Canada’s Aboriginals can be directly traced to the Euro success in destroying the Indian economies, leaving the native people bereft and at a loss to know what to do. In hardly any part of the country was a serious effort ever made to build a viable life around the remarkable skills of the native occupants of the land. More likely, they were just swept aside ruthlessly to make way for roads, railways, airports, farms, mines and all the paraphernalia of modern, industrialized life, including even parks and protected areas.
Establishment of Canada’s first National Park at Banff resulted in bands of Indians wandering the countryside in a desperate effort to find enough food to live on. They were unwanted either in the reserves that were set up for them (where they quickly became dependent on government food handouts), or in the countryside where they normally operated, because there they were constantly getting in the way of Western development. Anyone who arrived from Europe with any money-making scheme was given priority in land use over the original occupants of the land. I’m not making this up. That is a fact.
In the most recent such takeover, which I am familiar with, the Crees of James Bay were not even consulted before the Quebec government announced its plan to inundate their hunting territories and build one of the continent’s biggest hydro-electric generating schemes. The ignorance of the proponents of this scheme was so vast that when the natives protested the likely effects on the moose and caribou on which they depended for food, the engineers on the other side of the table said this was of no concern, because the Manitoba port of Churchill was open in the summer, and cattle could be shipped across Hudson’s Bay to the hungry Crees. (Remember, I am not making this up).
If Mr. Richards has any doubt about any of this having happened, he could consult Sarah Carter’s remarkable book, Lost Harvests, in which she proves without a doubt that even when Indians accepted the bases of Euro policy, and tried to become farmers, as they were intended to do, suddenly, in response to pressure from neighbouring white farmers, measures were taken by government to prevent the Indian farmers from selling their produce. In other words, successful Indians were never part of the Euro plan (an assertion supported by the fact that any Indian who attained a university degree was “deemed to be no longer an Indian”.)
Is this relevant to John Richards’ prescriptions for the Aboriginal future? One would think that any intellectual would be able to grasp the fact that the policy of integrating Aboriginals into the Canadian society has been the main determinant of their present desperate conditions. And that, the policy having failed, a more promising policy might rest in the rebuilding of Aboriginal confidence and pride in their heritage, the transfer to them of the resources on which alone they can build a promising economic future, and the establishment of mechanisms by which they can govern themselves, make their own decisions, within the Canadian polity.
What Richards is proposing.
- Government should adopt new policies without bothering about Aboriginal perceptions.
- Aboriginals should not be treated as separate from other Canadians, either in payments for welfare (social assistance), or for health and education benefits.
- Possibly, payments to Aboriginals should be cut in half by the payment of $2,500 a year to every adult Aboriginal, which would then be taxed by their local reserve authorities, putting Aboriginals on a par with other Canadians.
- Aboriginals should be subject, as other Canadians have been, to the modern trend towards making welfare dependent on “more meaningful work or training obligations for those seeking benefits.” This is standard right-wing stuff, designed to cut to the minimum payments to those who have been left behind in this competitive society.
- Aboriginals have apparently failed as administrators of social assistance. “Arguably the rules for government access to social assistance should be equal among all, independent of race.” Social assistance could be integrated with provincial social assistance programs, which “would entail professional social workers, most of them non-Aboriginal, determining eligibility for social assistance.”
- A compromise would be to withdraw from individual bands the authority to distribute welfare and entrust the function and budget to an intertribal social assistance agency for each province.
- Government should work to improve conditions for off-reserve Indians, which in turn would improve education.
- Finally, Paul Martin should insist that Aboriginal problems cannot be solved by “an exaggerated stress of otherness.” Concentration on treaties “is no substitute for better social policy.” These Indians! They can’t govern themselves! They are savages! Everything they touch, they create a mess! And they are, these days, demanding too much! This seems to be the thinking lying behind the prescriptions of this professor, which, so the media says, are now being treated with the greatest respect by thinkers in the government.
One gets a feeling that Mr. Richards is not familiar with reserves or Aboriginal communities. If he had spent 25 years, as I have, wandering the country from one Aboriginal community to the next, he would have gathered a sense of the really impressive effort that Aboriginal people are making all across the country to pull themselves out of their desperate situation by their boot-straps.
Everywhere, they are trying to build a viable economy (although hampered in that by the miserable resources left to them); trying to overcome the many pathologies with which their communities have been saddled after their 200 years of history as whipping boys for Euro arrogance; trying to re-establish the importance of their own languages, beliefs, and rituals, their profound understanding of the relationship between people and the Earth.
In my view, the future of Aboriginals in Canada depends on generous recognition by both government and public opinion of Aboriginal rights and title as the bedrock of relationship between our two peoples. And we not only need to recognize these rights, but to fulfil the deals we have made with them.
Surely our intellectuals can come up with something better, as a prescription for the future, than this melancholy right-wing stuff.
Boyce Richardson is a former journalist and filmmaker and a Member of the Order of Canada. This article and many others of interest may be found on BR’s website at www.boycespaper.com.
New Statistics Canada study links Literacy and the use of Digital Technologies
January 9, 2006 - 6:39am | by AnonymousA December 2005 paper entitled Literacy and Digital Technologies: Linkages and Outcomes published by Industry Canada and Stats Canada highlights the links between literacy and computer usage. For example ... "adults who have average or higher literacy skills and who are intensive computer users have about three to six times the odds of being in the top quartile of personal income, compared to respondents with below average literacy skills and less intensive computer use."
The authors describe the paper as an investigation of "relationships between adult literacy skills and use of information and communications technologies (ICTs)."
Click here to read the entire 34-page paper found on the Keewaytinook Okimakanak Research Institute web site (http://research.knet.ca)
Under Findings ... "Results also confirmed an association between literacy skills and ICT use. While controlling for other factors, adults’ perceived usefulness and attitude toward computers, use of the Internet, and use of computers for task-oriented purposes increased as literacy skill levels increased. This was true for all four literacy domains examined. In most countries, for example, respondents with medium to high prose literacy skills had between two to three times the odds of being a high-intensity computer user compared to those with below average literacy skills.
Those without access to ICTs also tended to have lower literacy levels than the rest of the population. In addition, only a minority of non-users of computers expressed an interest in starting to use a computer. This has implications for all nations if those individuals who perhaps stand to benefit most from ICTs (by obtaining health, employment and government information, for example) are not in a position to access and use them."
Native Leadership Scholarship for women who are grassroots leaders, organizers, activists
December 30, 2005 - 6:10am | by AnonymousToronto Star reports on success stories and unsung heros in NAN First Nation schools
December 28, 2005 - 10:20pm | by AnonymousWed. Dec. 28, 2005.
Tales of hope from northern schools - Teachers getting parents involved - Success stories despite daunting odds
LOUISE BROWN - EDUCATION REPORTER
It's not your typical school field trip, even up in Ontario's Far North.
The annual Grade 9 moose hunt in the remote reserve of Fort Hope — complete with "firearms protocol" and tips on how to produce the quickest kill — is part of a broad move to boost Ojibwa children's sense of identity and help them feel ready to learn.
In a year filled with reports of despair from across Canada's First Nations, teachers and principals from Ontario's most isolated reserves flew "south" to Thunder Bay recently to share some moving tales of hope.
This quiet little conference on "best practices" north of 50 may offer an early peek at the sorts of programs Ottawa could choose to support with the $1.8 billion it promised native schools last month at the historic First Ministers' Aboriginal Summit in Kelowna, B.C.
The Toronto Star reported earlier this year about the daunting social odds faced by children in schools on federally funded northern reserves in the series Ontario's Forgotten Children.
Yet despite the odds, a growing number of northern schools brought good news to the conference organized by the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, which represents 49 northwestern Ontario reserves.
Here are some of the more dramatic success stories:
- Fort Hope (also known as Eabametoong): The four-day moose hunt for 15 top students is the highlight of an unusual study unit that uses this traditional native skill to teach physics (by calculating the force packed by various bullets); biology (by observing how to "dress"' and quarter a carcass); literacy (keeping a daily journal); outdoor education (reading maps to keep within assigned hunting grounds) and history (practising the way people cooked and built shelters before contact with Europeans).
To principal Steve Bentley, boosting children's pride in their heritage is as important as the literacy drive the school has introduced. It now has weekly drumming groups and weekend reading circles. Students spend two weeks each year on the land in an outdoor education program that includes cultural lessons in trapping and teepee from teachers, parent volunteers and community elders. Every other Friday afternoon students learn traditional beadwork, dancing and drumming.
Gradually, Bentley says he is beginning to see better behaviour, improved reading and less teacher turnover.
"It's important to build children's self-esteem and cultural respect, because when kids feel better about themselves, they're going to learn."
- Lansdowne House (also known as Neskantaga): Fed up with children having to move away to attend high school in other towns — and failing — this community started its own Grade 9 program last year. The program lasts a year and a half to give students extra time to complete credits they may find challenging, said principal Julia Johnston.
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`I was asked to raise educational standards — and we're doing that.' - Julia Johnston, principal, Lansdowne House (Neskantaga)
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"Before, when students went away, it was a disaster, but we're about to graduate our first 15 Grade 9 students in January, ready to ship out to Grade 10," said Johnston, who has launched a string of new programs across all grades. The school avoids the term "special education" where possible because families find it too negative, but has bolstered support for struggling students so much that some remedial students saw their skills jump by two grade levels last year.
"We hired a special education teacher with 20 years experience. We now engage parents by putting them in charge of their child's special education plan whenever possible," said Johnston. Parents are asked to sign notes to confirm their children have done their homework. The school runs a free homework help night each Wednesday from 6 p.m. to 7.15 p.m. which draws up to 80 per cent of the student body.
The school is one of three across northern Ontario, along with Weagamow and Summer Beaver (Nibinamik) that now has been assigned a literacy specialist from Frontier College offering help to both children and parents.
"I was asked to raise educational standards," said Johnston, "and we're doing that."
- Sandy Lake: The school has begun to assess children for special needs in kindergarten, rather than wait until Grade 1.
The parents of children with attention-deficit disorder are asked to help out for an hour each day in their child's class.
"They're coming around slowly. Some parents have started coming in to the Grade 3 and 4 classroom," said Yesno. "They know it will help their child succeed."
If a student is suspended for vandalism or fighting, the school may lift the suspension if the parent is able to come to school and monitor the child in class.
The school also started a weekly Ojibwa culture class for parents in singing, drumming and the syllabic symbols of written Ojibwa, in part to make them more comfortable in a school setting, and in part to enrich their sense of heritage.
"We had (aboriginal) actress Tina Keeper come and talk to the community as a role model. These are all small things, but we believe they can add up in the future and make a difference."
Meanwhile, while the Fort Hope students learned much from their moose hunt, they did not actually shoot a moose, confides principal Steve Bentley.
"I wouldn't say anything to the kids, but I imagine a group of 13-year-olds having fun would have a hard time surprising any animal at all."
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Honouring unsung heroes of the north - Living conditions among the challenges
April tour of reserves reveals rare educators
Dec. 27, 2005
LOUISE BROWN - EDUCATION REPORTER
Running late because he had been busy moose hunting, David Kakegamic was a different breed of education director than I'm used to interviewing.
But then, the fly-in community of Sandy Lake, Ont., is a different kind of community than the kind I generally cover.
It's wrapped in woodlands, hours by bush plane from the nearest library, coffee shop or hospital — and the children here face a different level of challenge than I've ever seen.
Ever.
In the isolated northern reserves where photographer René Johnston and I went to report on schools last April, we saw living conditions that were shocking to find in Ontario. But we also met a most inspiring and motley crew of educators working to help these children learn.
High in the northern bush, out of sight and mind from the rest of Canada, an eclectic army of visionaries — some native, some non-native and a whole rowdy bunch from Newfoundland — are devoting years of their lives to helping Ontario's forgotten children. I didn't get to write about them in our series, but they are the unsung heroes of the north:
Grizzled Hungarian refugee Joseph Farsang, a veteran teacher with white stubble and soft heart, walked the gravel roads of the poverty-stricken North Spirit Lake First Nation, night after night, to visit his more needy students and encourage their parents to send them to school.
Genteel teacher Laura Marchand, a retired principal from Vancouver Island, would slip food to hungry students and scold parents and staff she suspected of using crack.
Teacher Lynda Brown of Sandy Lake set up a weekend reading program for children in the school library and discreetly laundered the clothes of students whose families have no washing machine.
Ponytailed teacher Chris Williams returned to his hometown of Weagamow Lake with a native teaching diploma and now uses a gentle manner and firm rules to deal with a Grade 5 class that includes a student with fetal alcohol syndrome disorder, another with a speech disability and several with behavioural problems.
Soft-spoken artist Saul Williams' passion for children outweighs his Grade 8 education to make him not only the beloved education director in his hometown of Weagamow Lake, but a powerful advocate for children in the 24 reserves across the Sioux Lookout District.
He can remember being flown off to residential school as a boy, and dropping out.
He is fighting to ensure that his own son has a better future.
It was an honour to meet them.
Chiefs of Ontario office hosting Early Childhood Development Conferences
December 23, 2005 - 4:31am | by Anonymous
PROVIDING OUR CHILDREN WITH THE TOOLS FOR LIFE
2006 First Nations Early Childhood Development Conference
Why Attend?
Participants of the conference will deepen their understanding of the expanding early childhood knowledge base, develop skills that improve professional preparation and practice, and sharpen their ability to use effective, active learning approaches for families. The conference will include workshops and plenary sessions that give participants time to reflect, network and dialogue with one another about practical applications of these ideas. Innovative strategies will be presented to address the cognitive, social, emotional and physical needs of young children. Participants will have opportunity to expand their professional networks with other early childhood educators and exhibitors representing early childhood organizations and associations. The conference will benefit those seeking to gain ideas about what has been effective in the development of early childhood programs in various First Nations communities. Ultimately, participants will return to their organizations with an action plan, resources, other practical tools, and supportive professional relationships.
What to Expect?
The conference theme is “Providing Our Children with the Tools for Life.” Early childhood educators recognize the critical importance of children’s early years and share a common goal to prepare children to start school ready to learn, and to grow to live healthy and fulfilling lives. Although a wide range of topics will be presented, workshop presentations will relate to cooperation in the community and elements of success in programming. Areas of particular interest in the conference include the following:
- Status of Early Childhood Development Programs in Ontario First Nations
- Showcasing Cooperation (Models of Successful Program Integration)
- Case Management and Child Welfare and Reporting (Confidentiality and Liability)
- Staff Development (Communication, Presentation, and Team Building
- Program Planning and Proposal Writing (Fundraising)
- Traditional Aboriginal Child-rearing Practices (Role of the Child in the Family; Behaviour Modification; Role of Grandparents)
- Elements of Successful Early Childhood Development Programming (Parental and Family Support; Special Needs; Elders; Teen Parenting; Pregnancy Prevention)
- Early Years Screening and Identification (Speech and Language Pathology; Hearing and Sight; Autism; Grief and Loss; Exceptional Children; Mental Health; Attention Deficit and Hyperactive Disorder; Physically Disabled Children)
- Integration of Special Needs in Programming (Program Modification and Management)
- Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
- Language and Cultural Programming
- Child Physical Health (Diabetes, Obesity, Recreation, Communicable Diseases)
- Parenting
- Models of Community Planning (Outreach, External Resource Development)
- Healing Through Laughter
- Behavioural Management (Difficult Children)
- First Nations Culture within ECD Curriculum
- School Readiness (Math, Discipline)
- Parental and Community Involvement
- Nutrition (Requirements, Deficiencies, and Menu Planning)
- Building Community Partnerships
Who Should Attend?
The conference is designed for early childhood educators and community workers who mentor early childhood professionals and parents of young children, including:
- Teacher educators
- Program directors and administrators
- Principals
- Researchers
- Policymakers
- Curriculum and instructional coordinators
- Teacher mentors and coaches
- Resource and referral specialists
- Educational consultants and trainers
- Early childhood specialists in Ontario First Nations
How to Register?
Check the website http://chiefs-of-ontario.org/ regularly for updates as registration information will be posted shortly. For more information please call Cara at 519-750-1016 or email cara@coo.org
Heritage Canada hosts "Racism. Stop It! National Video Competition" for youth
December 20, 2005 - 11:55am | by AnonymousFrom the Heritage Canada web site at
http://www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/march-21-mars/hands-mains/index_e.cfm
Entry Deadline - January 16, 2006
2006 marks the 10th anniversary of the Racism. Stop It! National Video Competition. The Competition involves thousands of young Canadians in every province and territory. It requires little or no acting experience but requires one to have fun. It also allows individuals to move beyond the recognition of the problem and take action to Stop It!
All members who enter the Racism. Stop It! National Video Competition receive participation certificates. The 10 winning videos are selected by a tiered process in which entries are judged for originality, audio/visual quality and, most important, the effectiveness of the Racism. Stop It! message. The winners are invited to an award ceremony to commemorate March 21, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
In 1966, the United Nations declared March 21 the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and, in 1989, Canada began the March 21 Campaign to promote racial harmony. The Racism. Stop It! National Video Competition is part of our country’s Campaign against racial discrimination and every year we encourage youth to participate.
How To Enter
If you are between 12 and 18 years of age inclusive (must be under 19 as of March 21), you are eligible to enter the Racism. Stop It! National Video Competition. Produce a 60 to 90 second video that represents your team's thoughts on eliminating racial discrimination. Use your personal filmmaking style: experimental, narrative, animated, high-tech, or documentary. Whatever helps get your message across. You can feature as many people as you like in your video - include your whole school or members of your community if they have something to say about eliminating racial discrimination. However, your production team can consist of only five people! You and your team can get help, but it must be your own creative efforts.
You can enter the Racism. Stop It! National Video Competition by filling out the Entry form and sending it to the Racism. Stop It! National Video Competition Co-ordinator, c/o The Students Commission, 23 Isabella St., Toronto, ON M4Y 1M7, as indicated on the entry form.
Deadline
The entry deadline for the Racism. Stop It! National Video Competition is January 16, 2006. Videos must be postmarked by that date. For further information please call 1-888-77MULTI/1-888-776-8584.
2nd Annual Canadian Aboriginal Youth Writing Challenge
December 1, 2005 - 12:16pm | by AnonymousGreetings Educators and Community Leaders!
The Canadian Aboriginal Youth Writing Challenge is happening again for the 2005-2006 school year (visit http://www.our-story.ca).
Inspired by the launch of the publication Our Story in 2004, last year the Dominion Institute and Enbridge Inc. challenged young Aboriginal high school students to sharpen their pencils and contribute a short story (800-1400 words) that explored a great moment in Aboriginal history - and the results were phenomenal!
Submissions included topics such as residential schools, the signing of the numbered treaties, the extinction of the Beothuk and passing on traditions between generations. With her story First Contact, Nicole Nicholas of Victoria, BC, was chosen as the 2005 winner by a panel of judges that included Tantoo Cardinal, Tomson Highway, Dwight Dorey and Jose Kusugak.
The first-prize winner will receive a $500 Prize, the opportunity to be profiled in a Canadian Learning Television and Book Television production, to be published in The Beaver Magazine: Canada's History Magazine and to travel to Ottawa to read an excerpt from his/her story at a special celebration event. Students with a story in the top ten will receive a $200 prize. All winning essays will be published online and all participants will receive a letter of recognition for their participation.
The deadline for submissions is May 6, 2006.
There will be special prizes for classes that participate as a group.
If you are interested in encouraging a student or an entire class to participate in the Canadian Aboriginal Youth Writing Challenge please call 1-866-701-1867 or visit http://www.our-story.ca.
Published by Doubleday Canada, Our Story is on sale in bookstores across Canada. Our Story brings together nine leading Aboriginal authors from across the country to explore great moments in history and to consider the significance of these events for Canada's Aboriginal Peoples.
__________________________
Annie Lindsay
Programme Coordinator
The Dominion Institute
416.368.9627 or 866.701.1867
fax 416.368.2111
annie@dominion.ca
First Nation schools in Quebec share their ICT success stories online
November 20, 2005 - 11:01am | by AnonymousSix First Nation schools across Quebec are featured in a new "SchoolNet Success Stories" publication being distributed by the First Nations Education Council (FNEC). Click here to read this 19 page report (PDF, 870Kb)
Everyone is invited to download and share this publication with others. The stories show how these schools are working with FNEC and Industry Canada's First Nations SchoolNet program to deliver effective education programs and services using ICTs in the First Nations across Quebec.
The FNEC is Industry Canada's First Nation SchoolNet's Quebec Regional Management Organization.They are located in Wendake First Nation, near Quebec City.
Similar stories exist in the five other Regional Management Organizations (RMO) serving all the First Nation schools across Canada. Visit the RMO web sites for the latest information about how First Nation schools and their communities are getting connected to broadband services and applications. Click on the regions listed below to visit the RMO web site and learn about this important work that is happening in the First Nation schools.
Improving Aboriginal Access to Post-Secondary Education in Canada
October 29, 2005 - 5:52am | by AnonymousChanging Course: Improving Aboriginal Access to Post-Secondary Education in Canada - a paper describing what the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation is doing to address this issue. Click here for the full paper (PDF - 8 pages)
The Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation is a private, independent organization created by an act of Parliament in 1998. The Foundation works to improve access to post-secondary education for Canadians from all backgrounds; it encourages a high level of achievement and engagement in Canadian society; and it brings people and organizations together to understand barriers and improve access to post-secondary education in Canada. Each year, the Foundation distributes $340 million in bursaries and scholarships to students across Canada.
The Research Program
The Millennium Research Program furthers the work of the Foundation by undertaking research and pilot projects aimed at understanding and reducing barriers to post-secondary education. It ensures that policymaking and public discussion about opportunities in higher education in Canada can be informed by the best available evidence.
Some findings from this paper ...
First Nations people do not feel welcome on university and college campuses. Only 20% agreed that jobs in First Nations communities do not require post-secondary education.
Among First Nations youth not planning to go on to college or university, financial barriers are most frequently cited as holding them back: 59% say they have to work to support their family while 40% say they do not have enough money.
When asked about why they are not planning on attending post-secondary education, only 27% say it is because they do not want to leave their communities; 25% because their grades are not good enough; 20% because they do not think they need post-secondary education; and 18% because they simply do not like school.
When those youth who are planning to go to post-secondary education are asked if anything might change their plans, 48% say it would be a lack of money, 43% say they may need to work to support their family and 42% say it would be because their grades are not good enough.
Three pilot projects that the foundation is sponsoring to develop strategies to address these issues include:
- “Making Education Work,” a comprehensive program of academic preparation and student and family support for students at selected Aboriginal high schools in Manitoba, to help ensure that these students are ready to make the step to post-secondary education should they choose to;
- The Millennium Aboriginal Access Bursary for first-year Aboriginal students in Saskatchewan, to help lower the costs of their first step into post-secondary education; and,
- “Le,nonet,” a program offering financial, academic and cultural support to Aboriginal students at the University of Victoria in British Columbia to ensure that those who do get to university have the best chance of succeeding.
A second paper ... Embracing Differences: Post-Secondary Education among Aboriginal Students, Students with Children and Students with Disabilities, prepared By: David Holmes in Ottawa for the The Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation is also available on-line (Click here to see this 93 page PDF document).
This report presents an overview of the state of Canadian post-secondary education for Aboriginal Peoples, people with disabilities and students with children. The report analyzes results from two 2002 surveys — the Canadian Undergraduate Student Survey and the Canadian College Student Survey — and places these data in social and historical context.
