Urban Indigenous School Success: the Collective
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
URBAN INDIGENOUS SCHOOL SUCCESS: THE COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY OF HOME, SCHOOL AND BUSINESS COMMUNITY THIS LITERATURE REVIEW WAS PREPARED FOR UNITED WAY, CALGARY, ALBERTA BY BLUE QUILLS FIRST NATIONS COLLEGE, ST. PAUL, ALBERTA DEDICATION As writers of this literature review, the Blue Quills First Nation College Team dedicate this work to children. All children; red, white, yellow, and black. We thank United Way in Calgary, Alberta for their cutting edge, community based leadership in seeking to address the wholistic needs of children by reaching out to parents, schools, and all community based service agencies. May we all remember that we have a collective responsibility to address the needs of all children. In the words of the late Chief Dan George, (1974) our job is to help all children take their rightful place in society: There is a longing in the heart of my people to reach out and grasp that which is needed for our survival. There is a longing among the young of my nation to secure for themselves and their people the skills that will provide them with a sense of worth and purpose. They will be our new warriors. Their training will be much longer and more demanding than it was in [the] olden days. The long years of study will demand more determination, separation from home and family, will demand endurance. But they will emerge with their hand held forward, not to receive welfare, but to grasp the place in society that is rightly ours. (p. 91) ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We acknowledge the Creator and our ancestors, the grandmothers and the grandfathers in the spirit world who provide spiritual guidance in the work we do. Thank you for reminding us, through our ‘blood memory’ of our responsibilities to serve our people. We thank our resident College Elders for their prayers and guidance, and collectively, all of our colleagues for helping in this writing journey. This work would not have been possible without a college team effort. Many staff were involved, from the researchers and writers, the typists, the editors, and especially, to those providing technical expertise in producing the final product. We thank the writing team for generously sharing their unpublished work at this time. Thank you all Blue Quills First Nations College Team (William Aguiar, Patricia Makokis, Diana Steinhauer, Sharon Steinhauer, Vince Steinhauer), and families of the team, who kindly accepted the many hours of ‘extra’ time put into this project at their expense. The writers have collectively chosen to develop this literature review as an intense examination of critical elements that contribute to the Indigenous experience in education, both the failure and the success. While the final product is more extensive than is required by a literature review, the writers believe that the success of Indigenous learners and the supports required by their families can only be understood within a deeper understanding of the complex interactions of broad and enduring practices that undermine Indigenous success and diminish the potential of Canadian society as a whole. To all the researchers we cited, we thank you for your commitment and dedication. To the United Way Calgary team, we thank you for believing in the Blue Quills First Nations College. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ................................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii A NOTE TO OUR READERS ....................................................................................................... x INDIGENOUS WORLDVIEW ...................................................................................................... 1 The Indigenous Construct ........................................................................................................... 1 Treaties: The Oral and Written Texts ......................................................................................... 7 Historical Impacts ..................................................................................................................... 13 THE RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL ERA .......................................................................................... 26 The Residential School Era ....................................................................................................... 26 A Residential School Narrative ................................................................................................ 29 Residential School Aftermath ................................................................................................... 34 Inter-Generational Trauma and Soul Wounds .......................................................................... 36 UNDERSTANDING AND ADDRESSING THE NEEDS OF URBAN INDIGENOUS FAMILIES: COMMUNITY SCHOOLS AS A RESOURCE ...................................................... 42 The Historical Impact of Colonization and Residential Schools on Indigenous Families ....... 44 Understanding the Nature of Traumatized Shame-Bound Family Systems ............................. 56 Rules that Govern Shame-bound Family Systems................................................................ 56 Control: ............................................................................................................................. 57 Perfection: ......................................................................................................................... 58 Blame: ............................................................................................................................... 59 Denial: ............................................................................................................................... 60 Unreliability: ..................................................................................................................... 61 iv Incompleteness:................................................................................................................. 64 No Talk: ............................................................................................................................ 64 Disqualification: ................................................................................................................ 66 How Childhood Trauma Affects Brain Structure, Self-Regulation, and Child-Parent Attachment Patterns .................................................................................................................. 68 Personality Characteristics of Adult Children of Residential School Survivors (or Adult Children of Trauma and Addiction) .......................................................................................... 73 Learned Helplessness ............................................................................................................ 75 Anxiety .................................................................................................................................. 75 Emotional Constriction ......................................................................................................... 76 Traumatic Bonding ............................................................................................................... 76 Cycles of Reenactment ......................................................................................................... 76 Loss of Ability to Modulate Emotions.................................................................................. 77 Distorted Thinking ................................................................................................................ 77 Hypervigilance ...................................................................................................................... 77 Loss of Ability to Take in Support ....................................................................................... 78 Depression............................................................................................................................. 78 Rediscovering the Sacred in Our Relationships: A Community-based Model that Addresses the Healing Needs of Indigenous Youth and Families ............................................................. 81 Colonization/Decolonization ............................................................................................ 84 “Wholeness” As a Guiding Principle ........................................................................................ 89 Connecting Schools and Families ............................................................................................. 92 Public School Education and Cognitive Imperialism ........................................................... 93 v Community-School Partnerships .......................................................................................... 94 Joe Duquette High School .................................................................................................... 95 The HiPass Model ................................................................................................................. 98 Implications of the HiPass model ........................................................................................... 101 School of the 21st Century....................................................................................................... 102 The School Development Program (Comer model) ..............................................................