Sharing the Flame: Aboriginal Learning

Recognizes programs incorporating the foundational principles of Aboriginal learning­—place, spirit and language—to enhance learning opportunities and outcomes

Master of Education: Leadership in Learning (Nunavut)

Introduced in 2006, the Master of Education: Leadership in Learning has provided for the very first time an opportunity for experienced Inuit educators, with Bachelor of Education degrees, to complete a graduate program in Nunavut. Through a highly successful partnership between the University of Prince Edward Island’s Faculty of Education, Nunavut Department of Education, St. Francis Xavier University’s Faculty of Education and Nunavut Arctic College, the first cohort of 21 Inuit women graduated on July 1, 2009. With their new qualifications, these graduates are prepared to provide much-anticipated leadership as agents of change in the Nunavut education system. Planning is underway to offer the program to a second cohort of students.

The program was collaboratively designed to meet the professional needs of experienced Inuit educators by combining Inuit Qaujimajatuqagit (Inuit Traditional Knowledge) and Inuit languages with all the elements of a mainstream graduate program.
Objectives
  • develop Inuit educational leadership within Nunavut
  • increase the capacity for Inuit research in education
  • contribute to the creation of an Inuit education system in Nunavut
Innovation
  • graduate program that combines Inuit Qaujimajatuqagit (Inuit Traditional Knowledge) and mainstream knowledge delivered in Nunavut
  • combination of face-to-face and distance courses taught by professors with extensive Nunavut teaching experience
  • elders, Inuit co-instructors and a trained counsellor on the instructional team
  • local mentors to assist with all aspects of distance education courses
  • Inuktitut and English used as modes of communication and expression

Benefits
  • infusion of Inuit education leaders in Nunavut
  • increased options for educational research by Inuit
Contact

Fiona Walton
Associate Professor
University of PEI
550 University Avenue
Charlottetown, PE  C1A 4P3

Tel: 902.566.0351
Fax: 902.566.0416
E-mail: fwalton@upei.ca
Mi’kmaq Studies / Integrative Science Program

The vision of the Toqwa’tu’kl Kjijitaqnn/Integrative Science Program is to bring together modern Western sciences and the Mi’kmaw conceptual world view. Given the label “MSIT” (a Mi’kmaq word meaning everything together), these courses taught at Cape Breton University emphasize relationships within nature, and acknowledge the profound knowledge of such relationships as they are reflected in Mi’kmaq language and legends. Course content is approximately 80–85% Western/mainstream science and 15–20% Indigenous science.   

Objectives
  • address the low participation rate by Mi’kmaq students in the post-secondary sciences and science-related programs
  • address the lack of acknowledgement by the mainstream science community of Indigenous knowledges
  • pursue Two-Eyed Seeing, defined as the visionary principle of learning to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous Knowledges, and from the other eye with the strengths of mainstream scientific knowledge.

Innovation

Integrative science courses include: 

  • Sense of Place, Emergence and Participation: the exploration of human consciousness including its brain-basis as understood in modern neuro and cognitive sciences, as well as the traditional world views of Aboriginal people
  • Ways of Knowing: the exploration of ways of knowing about and living within nature, including Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and modern ecosystem stewardship
  • Cycles and Holism: human understandings of cycles, rhythms and transformations in nature, including western science and Aboriginal conceptual world views
  • Wholeness: human understandings of wholeness and change in nature by exploring the topics of health, disease and healing
Benefits
  • demonstrates that Aboriginal students succeed in formal learning when their culture is honoured and reinforced
  • between 1999–2007, the number of Aboriginals in first-year post-secondary science at Cape Breton University increased from nearly zero to 115 Mi’kmaq students
  • this program has been explored as a model of interest by universities internationally (notably in Australia), and by Aboriginal Studies departments within Canada

Contact

Cheryl Bartlett
Cape Breton University
PO Box 5300
1250 Grand Lake Road
Sydney, NS  B1P 6L2

Tel: 1.800.474.7212; 902.563.1136
Fax: 902.563.1941
E-mail: cheryl_bartlett@cbu.ca
Website: www.integrativescience.ca
The Native Language Instructors’ Program (NLIP)

The Native Language Instructors’ Program (NLIP), residing in the Department of Aboriginal Education at Lakehead University, offers a series of opportunities for fluent Native-language speakers of Ojibwe, Oji-Cree and Cree:

  • Native Language Teachers Certification (NLTC), designed to certify participants to teach their language
  • Native as a Second Language Diploma, which provides opportunities for NLTC graduates to expend their teaching skills
  • Native Language Summer Institute, where participants can expand knowledge and become learners of their language
Objectives
  • provide students with a basis for understanding the underlying structure of their language, as well as basic methods and techniques for teaching Native As A Second Language
  • promote understanding of practical pedagogical principles
  • provide students with a combination of observation and teaching experience
  • present knowledge on the traditional teachings and values inherent in Native languages and culture
  • provide an opportunity to promote the survival of Native language and culture

Innovation
  • program is grounded in the foundational principles of place, spirit and Aboriginal language and represents an original and innovative approach to lifelong learning that embraces indigenous knowledge and experience
  • encourages and honours the involvement of parents, Elders and community through:
    • a three-summer program, which allows participants to leave their communities for short amounts of time
    • Odaminawin language and culture camp, which allows families to remain intact during participation in program activities
    • residence, providing a home-away-from-home sense of community by having participants reside together with Elders and resident staff
    • Elders-in-residence, providing guidance, support and cultural teachings and counsel to participants and their families

Benefits
  • NLIP graduates are employed in First Nations, public and private schools, in Head Start (AHS) programs, adult education, education resources development, and many are now providing leadership as faculty and staff of the NLIP

Contact

Stelómethet Ethel B. Gardner
Chair, Department of Aboriginal Education
Lakehead University
955 Oliver Road
Thunder Bay, ON  P7B 5E1

Tel: 807.766.7195
Fax: 807.346.7706
E-mail: egardner@lakeheadu.ca
Website: education.lakeheadu.ca/aboriginaleducation

Uniting Our Nations: Relationship-based Programming for First Nations and Métis Youth

Since 2004, a team of CAMH University of Western Ontario Faculty of Education researchers and educators has worked closely to develop a number of strength-based programs in collaboration with Aboriginal youth, educators, community members and the Thames Valley District School Board. Activities have focused around the transition between grades eight and nine; this has been identified as a particularly difficult transition for many youth, as students shift from attending small schools in their home communities to being bussed into large schools in an urban setting.  A secondary focus has been providing leadership and development opportunities for Aboriginal students once they have successfully made the transition to high school.

Objectives
  • provide opportunities for Aboriginal youth to strengthen positive relationship skills and develop leadership capabilities within the mainstream-school setting
  • provide culturally relevant course opportunities for Aboriginal youth, to increase their school engagement and build a foundation for their academic success
  • provide a comprehensive approach to supporting Aboriginal  students during the potentially difficult transition from elementary (Grade 8) to secondary school (Grade 9) through mentoring, conferences, and culturally enhanced curricula
  • increase positive relationships with other Aboriginal youth and adults through mentoring programs (e.g., extracurricular peer-mentoring program, or as part of the First Nations Cultural Leadership Course) 
  • improve the general level of awareness of cultural and historical issues among mainstream educators through professional development

Innovation
  • a peer-mentoring program for Aboriginal secondary students to develop positive relationships with and assist younger students in making a successful transition to secondary school
  • a First Nations Cultural Leadership Course that incorporates peer mentoring, cultural enhancement activities and relationship skills
  • a culturally enhanced Grade 9 Healthy Living Curriculum that promotes a holistic approach to healthy relationships and violence prevention
  • Grade 8 transition conferences that bring together students from urban and reserve elementary schools, to connect them to positive supports available in the high schools

Benefits
  • innovative initiatives help to incorporate cultural-enhancement activities, culturally relevant ways of knowing, and stronger connections to community and youth mentors as Aboriginal youth transition into the mainstream school setting
  • comprehensive approach strengthens youths’ connections to school as a place of learning and fosters their learning spirit, thereby building a better foundation for general school success
  • demonstrated increase in students’ behavioural, cognitive and attitudinal indicators of youth engagement

Contact

Claire Crooks
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Centre for Prevention Science (CAMH-CPS)
100 Collip Circle
Suite 100
London, ON  N6G 4X8

Tel: 519.858.5144
Fax: 519.858.5149
E-mail: ccrooks@uwo.ca 
Website: www.youthrelationships.org

 

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