Northern Aboriginal Teachers' Voices

David Friesen & Jeff Orr

Two members of the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina explore, with 36 NORTEP graduates, how they impact children, schools and communities in Northern Saskatchewan.

In the first phase of the project, nine Aboriginal teachers from northern communities tell their stories, which are documented in a monograph.

The researchers explain that:

The Program Review of NORTEP claims that it has been an effective teacher education program... Yet no study has explored this program from the perspective of the graduates themselves. The stories which follow are intended to begin to hear the voices of those who have spoken out about their experiences in northern education, and to provide a forum for discussion about the issues which they raise.

In the monograph, each story is followed by a discussion guide to be used in facilitating teacher reflective group sessions about issues in First Nations education. The researchers believe the report is a tool for teacher professional development. They also provide information about how they are using the innovative research method of documenting teacher voice to explore instructional issues.

Teacher stories provide a window on teachers' lives. They obviously focus on some things but not on others... It became more and more evident as we talked to these teachers that the complexity of their teacher lives were filled with joys and frustrations which were often not known to others within their own school, let alone by people in their community and beyond...

We believe significant professional development occurs when teachers construct their own biography and then reflect on how it is lived out in the classroom. By reading and reflecting on their own stories as well as the stories of others, teachers gain deeper understandings of their teaching practices...

The authors will be building on these stories and others in future phases of the research to identify key elements that NORTEP graduates bring to successful teaching in northern schools. To provide a flavour of the report, we provide excerpts from two of the nine stories.

A Cree Language Teacher's Story: Preserving Northern Culture

Before I was old enough to go to school we lived on the trapline with my dad. My dad was a traditional Metis trapper and it was through his grandfather, who was white, that I came to embrace the traditions of two cultures...

I have been teaching in the north now for many years and have found that the students who speak Cree as their first language have an easier time learning English. Those who come with an inability to speak good Cree have difficulty with English because they have not mastered either language. Our values are embedded in our language and thus my dream is to preserve the Cree language and teach our students of their past, of their roots which go deep into the generations of life lived out on the northern trap lines.

As a child of 12 years, I was out in the wintertime checking the fish nets. Today there are few children who experience this: the trapline culture is surely becoming an event of the past. As a teacher, I have noticed the students who do go out on the trap line for a month or two in the fall are more perceptive. They are very aware of their environment and their relation to it, able to relate the names of all the trees, plants, birds, and so forth, in Cree, if they are Cree speakers, or in English.

We, as Aboriginal teachers, are teaching our students about the trap line culture and the values inherent within it, of living and working together.

A High School Teacher's Story: Transforming Cree Education

When I graduated (from NORTEP) I went for an interview with my Band's Education Committee... Right off the bat one of the interview committee members asked me a question in English. He said "Hypothetically speaking." Because there were all Cree speakers interviewing me, I stopped him and said, "Do these people understand what you're saying?" So he asked them and they said "no." So I asked if we could proceed with this interview in Cree. They said, "Why not, if everybody agrees, then we will." So we did.

If I had my way, I would have bilingual teaching from K-12. One time I was in the resource room and I was listening to a trap line kid being tested on oral comprehension. The teacher read the story and asked questions. I think he got two questions out of ten. The teacher had to go somewhere for a few minutes to answer a phone, so I quickly read the story to him again in Cree and asked the ten questions and he just nailed the ten questions off just like that. So I think there is a bias there. That's why I interchange the two languages...

With regard to the Native Studies, I teach Grade 10 and 11... I do a lot of Metis and Native Studies about the fur trade and the treaties with them. When I first talked about our treaties I discovered the students knew nothing about them. They didn't even know what a Treaty person was or non-Treaty, Bill C-31

I try and cover relevant material like the treaties, but I always zero in on what's affecting us. I bring up a lot of contemporary issues, like the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord. I explain exactly what it is in Cree. Then I bring in the Indian Act a little bit. We cover the White Paper and the Red Paper. I cover the Peter Ballantyne Band land entitlement settlement and other current local issues. Whenever something like that comes up, I discuss it right away and then go back to the unit I'm teaching. It brings a lot of truth to Native Studies, and they think, "Hey, this class is for real." They're pretty interested by the whole thing. I didn't get that when I was going to school. I guess I am giving these kids some knowledge that no one else is giving them...

An ideal teacher will always associate with the students no matter where: at the store, out of town, on the highway, anywhere... I tell the students I'm at the same level, although they tell me that I am not. I say, "I am a person that comes from this town and got an education and came back to teach. I'm at the same level you are. There's no such thing as social status between us here." And I converse with them many times out there in the community. One thing I notice about many teachers is they keep to themselves and they don't really associate with students out of the school. But I do.