We made it to Winnipeg and the Kekeenamawkayo Conference is now in full swing! This morning officially kicked off with keynote speaker Charlene Bearhead, the Education Lead at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.
Ms. Bearhead came with a strong message. She talked about the familiar goal often identified in First Nations education, that of “Closing the Gap”. We have all heard this before and we recognize it as closing the gap between Aboriginal students and non-Aboriginal students. Ms. Bearhead identified that yes, we do want to see Aboriginal students achieve results that will lend themselves to this, such as we want our students to read fluently, in English as well as in their own language. We want our students to be able to be confident and competent with their numeracy skills. However, more significantly we want Aboriginal students to meet more important results for their all around well-being. We want Aboriginal students to live longer lives. Too often than should ever be heard, we get news of an Aboriginal student losing their life too soon. We also want Aboriginal students to stay in school longer. The ways in which students in the North obtain their education makes it difficult for some to succeed. Leaving their families at a young age to go to high school is only one factor that contributes to high drop out rates. As educators, and Ms. Bearhead and Matthew Angees, KERC Executive Director, both emphasized that any individual working in a school is an educator contributing to the education of those students, Teachers, Teaching Assistants, Support Staff, etc., we need to know what we can do to best support successful results among Aboriginal students.
Ms. Bearhead touched on the sensitive subject of non-Aboriginal teaching staff and their role in teaching cultural protocol. She mentioned that not everyone feels it is appropriate for him or her to teach cultural protocol, due to whether they are Aboriginal or not. Ms. Bearhead said that communication is key to working around this. A teacher can find out what is appropriate for them to teach and what is something that would be best handled by having an Elder or another guest speaker come and speak on the topic. She said it best when she said, not everyone may be responsible for teaching cultural protocol, but “Everybody has the responsibility to teach the truth.” The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has many resources teachers can access, and they can provide support for bringing this message of truth to students.
We were shown a very touching video, Educating our Youth from fall 2015 when thousands of students visited the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, following it’s opening, and were taught so much about Residential Schools and their history in Canada. The video was powerful in hearing from the youth, Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal and their initial reactions after what they had learned on that day.
She left us all with the question, “What do we have to lose if we do something different?” Ms. Bearhead finished with the message that a foundational shift is needed, but that can’t just mean piling on a bunch of stuff to what we already have, we need a true change in how we do things.I hope everyone took a little something away from Ms. Bearhead’s Keynote, as well as all of the other speakers that opened the conference this morning. Sessions have wrapped up for day one and I hope everyone is gained great knowledge from the sessions they attended. Bring on day two!