Learning to see what they can't: Decolonizing perspectives on indigenous education in the racial context of rural Nova Scotia

McGill Journal of Education, Fall 2002 by Joanne Tompkins

ABSTRACT. Frequently members of dominant groups understand problems of inequity as being rooted in the 'oppressed group.' Less often do members of dominant groups understand their own implication in oppression. In this selfstudy involving predominately white teachers in rural Nova Scotia, the author describes the process of her own and these teachers' struggle to more clearly understand their social location and the implications of power and privilege for their work in classrooms. Various lenses of critical theory, antiracism and feminism guide the work.

APPRENDRE A VOIR CE QU'ILS NE PEUVENT VOIR: DECOLONISER LES POINTS DE VUE SUR L'EDUCATION DES AUTOCHTONES DANS LE CONTEXTE RACIAL DE LA NOUVELLE-ECOSSE RURALE

RESUME. Il est frequent que les membres des groupes dominants interpretent les problemes d'iniquite comme etant enracines dans le >. Il est plus rare que les membres des groupes dominants comprennent le propre role qu'ils jouent dans l'oppression. Dans cette auto-analyse qui interesse avant tout les enseignants de race blanche dans la Nouvelle-Ecosse rurale, l'auteur decrit la lutte menee par ces enseignants pour mieux comprendre leur situation sociale et les repercussions du pouvoir et des privileges pour leur travail en classe. Divers objectifs de la theorie critique, de l'antiracisme et du feminisme orientent ces travaux.

Background

A recent task force studying the achievement of Mi'kmaw* students in a provincial school in Nova Scotia showed that they were graduating from high school at a rate of 20% as compared to the 95% graduation rate for non-native peers in the same school (Strait Regional School Board, 2000). As a teacher-educator and researcher working with this particular community that is so poorly served by schooling, I was interested in the way that some of the white educators in the school thought about this disparity in graduation rates.

Most of the teachers say that basically it's a case that the Mi'kmaw parents and the community don't value education. The teachers say that the parents simply don't care about education and so the kids learn not to care about it. The teachers say it's hard to succeed when they've got those kinds of attitudes at home. (Field notes, 2000).

The graduation rate for First Nations students throughout the country has not risen above 50% (Nicholas, 2000) yet it takes a great deal of effort to have white educators see it as a problem that schools should be addressing.

It is our first day into our week long course "Issues in Diversity" and I ask Steven (a course participant) how the Mi'kmaw students are doing in his middle school. "Fine," he states confidently without further thought. By the fourth day of the intensive summer institute he comes back to me and says "I think I would need to rethink how the Mi'kmaw students are doing. I think I'd have to start seeing this place from their perspective." (Field notes, July, 2001)

In the worse case scenario, the white educators in the school do not 'see' that there is any issue of inequity to be addressed. When they are made aware of the situation, they often adopt a `blame the victim' approach which locates the problem of underachievement outside their individual or collective sphere of influence. Interestingly, many white educators use the same limited thinking when they think (if they do) about the underachievement of African Nova Scotians in public schools in the province. The pattern of school failure among African students throughout rural Nova Scotia is, in fact, very similar to that of Mi'kmaw students. (Black Learners Advisory Council, 1994).

I am working with Ralph and we have been having a discussion on racism particularly as it relates the incidents around Cole Harbour High School (a Nova Scotia School which has received national attention for race related incidents). After the discussion he says "I would have to say that the Black students in our school are not having any of the kinds of problems that we are talking about here. There's no problems of racism at our school (located in rural Southwestern Nova Scotia)." (Field notes, 1998)

In my on-going work over the past six years with white educators, in largely rural Nova Scotia settings, I have rarely heard the problem of underachievement of African Nova Scotian and Mi'kmaw students framed as an issue of racism. Most often the problem is denied, as in the case of the second and third examples cited above. When statistical proof shows the problem of underachievement to be, in fact, tied to racial and cultural affiliation it is framed as an individual, family, community or cultural problem. Seldom have I heard the problem framed within the larger context of racism and rarely is the role that the school itself might play in such differential achievement by students examined in any critical fashion.

Locating myself in this work

Before I begin, I must locate myself in this work and think about the position from which I speak. I am a white, middle class, multidegreed, ablebodied, heterosexual female who grew up and completed public school and university in both rural and urban Nova Scotia. My Irish, Acadian and Scottish roots connect me to most of the province's most well-known icons. Bagpipes and Celtic music are familiar on my landscape. During my seventeen years of 'schooling' in Nova Scotia I was taught nothing of the history, language, culture or current events of the Mi'kmaw people, except for the rare paragraph in a Social Studies textbook which described their lives 500 years ago. I had managed never to set foot on any of the thirteen First Nations communities here. My only early images of "Mi'kmaw" were of people who sold 'clothesline props' in our small rural village or people who made pretty baskets for my dolls to sleep in. As was typical of most white Nova Scotians, I was familiar with a world that did not include Mi'kmaw people. Later, I became a teacher and headed to the Northwest Territories to teach, carrying with me a few pedagogical skills and an enormous amount of ignorance about Inuit or any other Aboriginal people, for that matter. I spent the next fifteen years' working in the Eastern Arctic region of what is currently Nunavut, as a teacher, consultant for inclusive education, school principal and teacher educator. My tenure in Nunavut coincided with a period of tremendous energy, struggle and excitement. Learning, Tradition and Change, the findings of the Special Legislative Committee on Education (1982) for the (then) Northwest Territories, had just been published based on consultation with students, parents, teachers and elders. The report called for a major 'rethinking' and overhauling of the education system to make it more responsive to the needs of Dene and Inuit students. The Baffin region embraced Learning, Tradition and Change in probably the most serious fashion of all the Territories.