Native Curriculum Makes Learning Relevant (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Native Curriculum Makes Learning Relevant

By rob mcmahon
Publish Date: 19-Aug-2004
http://www.straight.com/content.cfm?id=4486

[photo inset - Erin Bolton, a grade 9 student in Cameron Hill's class,
writes down notes about her chosen plant, skunk cabbage, in her field
notebook. Photo: Simone Westgarth]

The Gitga'at community of Hartley Bay is located 145 kilometres
southeast of Prince Rupert. The school there houses just 55 students
from kindergarten to Grade 12. Tiny and remote, with a close
relationship with the local Tsimshian band council, Hartley Bay is
perfectly suited for an experiment in a new style of teaching.

Instead of taking notes from a chalkboard, First Nations students at
Hartley Bay learn from their elders by visiting members of the
community to learn the traditional names and uses of plants. By
interviewing local authorities, the students discover how
blueberries--or smmaay, as they are known in the Tsimshian language,
Sm'algyax--can be eaten during feasts or used to dye clothes or treat
diabetes. Each fact is carefully recorded in a field notebook, which is
then used to create a summary of the plant that incorporates both
scientific and aboriginal-based knowledge.

"One year I went out with the kids as they interviewed elders," said
Judy Thompson, a First Nations instructor and curriculum developer
working at Hartley Bay school. "Some were scared and didn't feel like
it. Some found out their aunties and uncles and the elders knew a lot."

Thompson, who is Tahltan, created a series of six lesson plans on
traditional plant knowledge for students at Hartley Bay. In it, she
outlined a series of exercises that teach the youth to become
researchers. Each student was assigned a culturally important plant,
and then went into the community to learn about it. Along with the
traditional, botanical, and common names of each plant, they recorded
whether it was used for food, medicinal, material, or ceremonial
purposes, eventually creating a Gitga'at plant booklet. Results have
been encouraging. Thompson remembered one student who returned after
interviewing the chief's wife.

"It was first thing in the morning, and her eyes were so bright,"
Thompson said. "She said, 'I didn't know yew wood was so important.' "

Hartley Bay principal Ernie Hill, who is also a hereditary chief,
stressed the importance of such knowledge. "As First Nations people, we
have to know ourselves," Hill said. "If you do that, you can have a
better chance of success."

Although multicultural education in the past has attempted to do this,
some researchers are coming to the conclusion that it has not gone far
enough.

Statistics from B.C.'s Ministry of Education state that in the 2001-02
school year, more than four times as many nonaboriginal students passed
the mathematics 12 provincial exam compared with aboriginal students.

First Nations curriculum developer Veronica Ignas said that this is
partly because aboriginal and nonaboriginal students see the world
differently. Classes like mathematics and science, as they are usually
taught, focus on abstract concepts that are divorced from daily
experience. This approach can be difficult for aboriginal people, who
often have a world-view that is more connected to concrete
manifestations of nature.

"Students are motivated and do best if the information they're taught is
relevant," Ignas said.

Rather than look at this difference in perception, Ignas said,
multicultural education typically focuses on the "four Ds": diet,
dress, dance, and dialect. What is needed, she argued, is a more
fundamental acceptance of alternative ways of knowing.

"Research says that meaningful differences go beyond just infusing
content [with the four D's]," she said. "We need to say there's a
different way of thinking about the land and the people's relationship
with it."

Now, a handful of schools in rural towns like Hartley Bay and Gitxaa_a
are working with researchers from UVic and UBC to integrate traditional
ecological knowledge (TEK) into their curriculum.

UBC anthropologist Charles Menzies has been working four-and-a-half
years with Ignas, Thompson, and other academics and First Nations
representatives on Forests for the Future, a project that collects TEK
for use in both resource management and education. Menzies's project
stems from recent attempts by researchers to give something back to the
communities they study.

Traditionally, anthropologists visited a community, extracted the
information they needed, and left. This expropriation of knowledge is
now recognized by some as being just as problematic as the removal of
gold and other physical resources during the colonial era.

Now, researchers such as Menzies are trying to change this process by
returning the information they collect in the form of educational
resources such as those developed by Ignas and Thompson.

"People are trying to be more responsive to the community they work
with," Ignas said. "[They also] want to make sure the information
collected doesn't sit in a static filing cabinet somewhere, but [as]
curriculum goes back into the community."

Menzies is supervising the creation of seven unit plans by Ignas,
Thompson, and others to be used as learning resources for teachers.

Simply put, traditional ecological knowledge is an ever-evolving body of
knowledge about the environment and its relationship with human beings
that is passed down through generations.

In a typical class, community elders teach the children about the ways
of living that have been passed down in the community for centuries.
Within the Tsimshian world, humans have social relationships with
plants and animals.

"It's a different way of making sense of the natural world," Ignas said.
"You need to cross the bridge between abstract understanding and their
more 'hands-on' learning."

For example, in math class students learn the different Tsimshian ways
of counting (people, long objects, people inside a canoe, size of
animal catches, and general). As well as learning their Latin names and
scientific characteristics, students discover traditional names and
medical and ritual uses of plants.

Some critics argue about the validity of TEK, because it is inherently
different than western science. Being based on oral testimony and
holistic in nature, it has also faced opposition from scientists.

Today, TEK is becoming more widespread in fields such as
natural-resource management. Starting in the 1980s, it began to be used
in fisheries management as a complementary source of knowledge to that
gathered by western-trained biologists.

Part of this process is due to a realization that science does not have
all the answers, at least with respect to managing natural resources.

"Past practices have proven that science is not the be all and end all,"
said John Lewis, chief treaty negotiator for the Gitxaa_a First Nation.
Lewis has been trying to incorporate TEK within local resource
management since 2001. "At the end of the day, you have to look at what
science-based management has done to our resources since [European]
contact."

For example, in B.C. federal fisheries management makes predictions of
how many salmon will arrive every year, forecasts that are based on
empirical evidence collected by biologists. However, the actual returns
often don't match these predictions.

In the 1980s and '90s, that system started to change.

"Fisheries began listening to what local-level fishermen were saying
[and finding] it was as good as or better than what the managers were
saying," Menzies said.

When applying TEK, a fisherman would watch a particular fishing spot for
years, observing when the salmon arrive and then acting on his
observations. By accumulating this observational evidence over decades,
and sometimes generations, a body of traditional ecological knowledge
is formed and can be used to predict the levels and activities of fish
in a given area. Variables such as shifting weather patterns or other
environmental changes are observed by the fisherman and noted with
regards to their effect on the fish population. By using such
long-range data, the TEK can sometimes be more effective in predicting
salmon stocks than biological data, which is often collected during
intermittent field research trips over a short period of time.

Even though scientists were skeptical of the storytelling format of TEK,
when collected and distilled into a form of data that can be
manipulated in the same way scientific field data is, it became easier
for them to use.

"When you incorporate and mesh science-based managerial systems with
local and traditional knowledge...it gives you more tools to manage the
resources," Lewis said.

TEK has also gained popularity due to an increased desire on the part of
government to include First Nations groups in the decision-making
processes that affect their lives.

"[First Nations people] see TEK as a validation of what they know,"
Menzies said. "But it's also something they can take to the table in
negotiations...TEK demonstrates their ability to manage their own
resources."

Now that some scientists are validating the claims made by TEK, it is
being used more commonly and has found its way into schools like
Hartley Bay.

All of the TEK-based curriculum is designed to fit into the mainstream
school system. In order to do this, each lesson plan is designed to fit
with the province's "prescribed learning outcomes".

For example, Ignas's unit Two Ways of Knowing: Traditional Ecological
Knowledge and Scientific Knowledge fits the province's prescribed
learning outcome "describe how scientific principles are applied in
technology." To assist teachers, each lesson plan includes a list of
its corresponding learning outcomes.

However, even with relatively simple integration within the provincial
system, it is up to the judgment of individual teachers to actually use
the material. The Ministry of Education currently allows educational
professionals to select their own learning resources, as long as the
material passes a formal evaluation process at the provincial or the
district level and fits within the learning outcomes set by the
province. This system, which has been in place since 1989, is designed
to allow schools more autonomy to choose resources that meet their
individual needs.

Since there are relatively few First Nations teachers, the more
nonaboriginal teachers who attempt to integrate the curriculum, the
better.

Yet it can be hard for western-trained teachers to impart indigenous
knowledge, both politically and conceptually. They must be taught to
look at the world in a new way, which can be difficult, so alternative
learning sources often sit on the shelves, unused.

Peter Freeman is a nonaboriginal teacher who integrated TEK curriculum
in his science classes at Charles Hays secondary school in Prince
Rupert. Although he felt the material was more applicable to
communities such as Hartley Bay that have more direct access to the
environment, he said it was still useful. Freeman's classes held
discussions on the pros and cons of traditional knowledge, and students
were generally interested in the material.

"Some of the students may know and understand a lot more than I do, and
they enlighten all of us," Freeman said.

A big part of incorporating TEK into the classroom is gaining the
acceptance and respect of the community--something that can be
difficult for an outsider.

"You have to prove to the people that you know and understand and are
empathetic to traditional education," Hill said. "If you get elder
approval, it'll be okay...That's the way it should be."

As well as gaining acceptance from the community, teachers are often
afraid to use First Nations material because of concerns over political
correctness. However, Menzies said that feeling bad about the effects
of colonization should not be an issue.

"I don't know how making me feel guilty will make the world a better
place," he said. By using a prepackaged learning resource, Menzies
said, the worry is gone. "[A teacher] would just grab it, open it up,
and work with it," he said, adding that mainstream society has much to
learn from incorporating this kind of material into regular schools. "I
want to see beyond First Nations," he said.

For example, when studying Canadian history, students focus on the story
of the nation from a strictly European point of view. There is a
profound lack of any sense of the past as seen by the country's First
Nations, Menzies said.

"The lack of awareness in society is really strong."

By sharing ways of perceiving the world, Hill said he thought that
education could help these groups reconcile what has been, at times, a
difficult relationship.

"Maybe these little courses give a little bit of understanding, rather
than the stereotypical view that seems to exist out there."