The recent news that the Alberta Teachers Association had Frances Widdowson keynote the Greater Edmonton Teachers Convention on February 26th, 2010 brings up concerns over the message the ATA might be sending about their policies regarding the Aboriginal students.
Ms Widdowson is known for her controversial ideas regarding Aboriginal policies regarding education and the “Aboriginal Industry”, that has roused the ire of many. Her session description states:
Progress in aboriginal education is being thwarted by a self-serving “Industry” of non-aboriginal lawyers and consultants.
It is increasingly common to hear that aboriginal deprivation can be addressed by devolving control over education to aboriginal communities. This claim, however, fails to consider that there is no history of literacy, science and mathematics in aboriginal societies, and therefore little expertise exists to improve native educational levels. Pressure for this, in fact, has been orchestrated by a non-aboriginal “industry” that benefits from maintaining the indigenous educational deficit.
The Centre for Race and Culture (formerly NAARR) issued this press release protesting Ms Widdowson’s views about Aboriginal education that has the support of Aboriginal leaders, teachers, students, parents and scholars as well as non-Aboriginal academics and students from the University of Alberta.
While the conclusion that the ATA supports racism in Alberta schools (as the press release might suggest) is unsubstantiated, the John Humphrey Centre would like to point out that respectful education is a human right for all students, regardless of culture or race. Ms Widdowson’s assimilationist policies contradicts that view by implying that Aboriginal students can only succeed if they adopt Western cultural and educational values over their own.
Article 26 (2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
This is an outrageous post that completely distorts my views. It is integration that is being advocated, not assimilation. This means that I am not “implying that Aboriginal students can only succeed if they adopt Western cultural and educational values over their own”. What I am saying is that if you want to make a contribution to archaeology, you will need to have an understanding of the wide array of evidence that supports the theory that human beings evolved out of Africa and migrated to North America (and not just accept your ancestors’ belief that aboriginal people were placed in North America by “the Creator” so as to be custodians of the wilderness). Critical thinking and an evaluation of evidence is not a “Western…value”. It is something that is necessary to become an educated and self-actualizing person.
Who are you to say what “cultural and educational values” that aboriginal people have? Aboriginal people have all sorts of values, and to make these blanket assertions is to stereotype them. It is your view that actually has racist implications because it assumes that aboriginal people, because of their ancestry, are inherently irrational.
It is not clear what the UN declaration means when it states that “tolerance…among…religious groups” should be promoted. Are biologists “intolerant” of fundamentalist Christians when they teach the theory of evolution?
Aboriginal people, like all Canadians, are free to believe what they want. However, the educational system should encourage critical thought and teach an evidence-based curriculum. To deny this to aboriginal students will deprive them of the knowledge that they will need to participate in a full range of occupations. This, of course, will keep them continuously in need of the Aboriginal Industry’s “services”.
Thanks so much for your posting to the blog post Frances – we greatly appreciate that you are open to that public dialogue about issues around indigenous education. It’s interesting to bring the critical reflection into any debate on the realm of education and also where values of different cultures come into this.
I do work in Uganda with the educational system as well with the Ainembabazi Children’s Project and we struggle with the pedagogy and approach to education as it is based on model from colonialism. The students are being educated in skills that prepare them for a future that is centred around a western model of what we would envision as values in education and success for the future but in reality, doesn’t necessarily prepare them for success within their own culture, community and environment.
How do we define what needs to be in the curriculum? In a recent dialogue with a Ugandan PhD student on the values of education in Uganda, she argued quite strongly that the content of the curriculum had to fundamentally change in Uganda to provide an education that fits within their cultural and societal needs to perform well and become active citizens within their context and not within the colonial western concept.
There’s interesting discussion here because finding a blend between that evidence based curriculum which you speak of to prepare students to participate in a ‘globalized’ world is important, but yet, as many indigenous groups around the world are grappling with, where is that fine line of making education relevant and fully embedded within their cultural framework so that individuals in their communities thrive? And thrive within not only their culture but also the globalized world?
This is obviously a heated debate and because it does arouse such emotion, it speaks to the need for public dialogue on this issue.
It was wrong for the ATA to invite Widdowson to speak. She espouses views which are offensive to Aboriginal people and she divides rather than brings people together in a meaningful way. Frances thinks that integration is novel and effective when in fact it is the same old force driving antiquated policies since the 19th century. She offers no useful insights, historical understanding, or real recommendations on how to improve things (see how thin her book is on this).
At least Tom Flanagan is up front about his pro-assimilationist views of Native people – not Frances, who has to hide behind Marxism and her theory of the “Aboriginal Industry” as a smokescreen for her ethnocentric views. Just look at how she contradicts herself in the above comment.