Expressions of Policy Effects: Aboriginal Students’ Memories of Public School

• In Event: The Power and Limitations of Critical Research as Praxis: Youth, Race, and Schooling in Western Canada

Abstract

This study represents an effort towards what Smith (1999) referred to as “re-righting history” as a decolonizing strategy. In that vein, art-making, focus group and interview methods were used to explore the memories of the public Aboriginal education policies held by the Aboriginal students for whom the policy was intended. Smith (1999) asserts that revisiting history is significant for decolonizing. In particular, knowing the past is important for doing the “critical pedagogy of decolonization” and requires Indigenous peoples, to “revisit, site by site, our history” (p. 34) with the knowledge that it was constructed according to European interpretations. This paper explores the absence of history in public school policies intended to change education inequality for Aboriginal peoples in British Columbia (BC). I draw upon Foucault’s approach to discourse in understanding the effects of particular texts and institutions, in this case, Aboriginal education policy and public schools (Foucault in Rose, 2005). This absence is particularly troubling given Indigenous peoples’ traumatic history with colonial education policies systems in the Canadian context. Acknowledging this history is critical to understanding the challenges faced by public education systems in improving their graduation track record with Aboriginal students. As a district administrator responsible for Aboriginal education, this study is undertaken with these challenges in mind. As Schissel & Wotherspoon (2001) have argued, an historical understanding of Aboriginal education recognizes the link between the experiences of those who attended Indian residential schools and Aboriginal students in contemporary education contexts. In particular, an appreciation of the personal narratives of those who experienced the Indian residential school system and its ongoing policy effects can provide an historical context against which effective policies can be developed.
Although, aboriginal education policies known as enhancement agreements (EAs) convey the importance for all members of the school community to increase their knowledge of Aboriginal histories and cultures, a critical analysis of five randomly selected EAs in BC reveals that notions of “cultural sharing” replace history. Aboriginal students’ memories of these policies attest to an erasure of history in favour of a curriculum with a “hands-on” character that is also a feature of neo-colonial discourse and found in BC EAs. For, although the notion of “cultural sharing” is a feature of the neo-colonial discourse identified by Bishop & Glynn (1999) in the New Zealand policy context, it is also a prominent feature of public school policy developed for Aboriginal peoples in BC.
Aboriginal students’ perspectives are rarely considered in the development of Aboriginal education policy and could influence policy makers to address the absence of colonial history in the Canadian context. Acknowledging this traumatic history through policy and curriculum is an important strategy for making public education experiences more relevant and meaningful for Aboriginal students. Aboriginal students’ art and personal narratives of their memories of public schools reverberate with the ongoing policy effects that originated with colonial education policies.

Author

• Lyn Denise Daniels, The University of British Columbia