Posts tagged with groundswell.

A reading week eye opener

Ian Wylie, February 26, 2009 at 4:30 PM

Over reading week*, I had the opportunity to visit six First Nations communities in Central Ontario. I met with Chiefs, listened to Elders and spoke with youth. Along with 18 other university students from across Ontario, I was one of the first participants in a new initiative called the Canadian Roots Exchange program.

 

The program, led by student-run charity Operation Groundswell, aims to break the traditional stereotypes that so often surround Native communities. Stereotypes that either generate pity or hate and certainly inhibit dialogue and understanding.

 

In every community we were welcomed with potlatches and stories - some traditional, others modern - relating social challenges, especially disparities in funding between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal schools.

 

The experience was difficult for most participants, not because of what we saw in the communities but what we saw in ourselves: a fundamental ignorance of indigenous people and the way the Canadian government (and Canadians) treat them.

 

We were angry that our education on Indian Residential Schools did not mention the last one closed in 1996, or of the enormous intergenerational impacts the schools continue to have. Or that the schools were established, as one head of Indian Affairs put it, to "kill the Indian in the child."

 

We were angry how in every school we visited, administrators like Principal Steve Styres of Wausuaksing School explained how they received between two-thirds and half the funding for their students than students in the non-reserve school in Parry Sound.

 

How come our country continues to employ systems like that, which promote discrimination? How come stereotypes continue to impede understanding in a country that places an enormous value on truth and education? (This sets some of the myths straight.)

 

On our last day, we visited the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa. In what was an ironic conclusion to the past seven days, we noticed the museum had dedicated only a few lines to residential schools: a footnote and an afterthought that framed the schools in a largely positive light. The paragraph mentioned "good intentions and practices"  (like forcibly removing children from their families, I suppose) and some unfortunate instances of abuse and murder.

 

Seeing that written in Canada's national museum reminded me of what Chief Isadore Day of Serpent River said on our first day, that we learn in silos. Far from broadening our minds, the institutions created for our education can trap us into patterns of thinking. We must challenge our beliefs and the institutions that shape them. That's a message every university student should hear.

 

*Reading Week, for those who don't know, is a mid-term break instituted by universities to prevent students from going loony in the long second semester.

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