For those who don’t know me, I am a trained teacher and an indigenous mother. I have very strong beliefs about the importance of education. You can read some of those opinions here: http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/calling-all-our-superheroes

So I am not anti-education, by any stretch, and I even feel it is necessary for our children, native and non, to succeed in this crappy colonial, racist system because unless we jump through those hoops (and yes often even if we jump successfully) our children face marginalisation.

Nonetheless, I have little to no faith in the structures we are given as ‘options’. What I mean is, most schools are shit, the teachers are often shit, the admin are often shit, and the educational policies are definitely shit. School systems are still mired in 19th century mentality, and more importantly, schools are NOT safe places for the majority of children. Not even for most White children. “Safe and successful” schools are experienced by a tiny minority of extremely privileged children.

You’d think that with things so bad for most people, that there’d be a continent-wide movement to change this, but inertia is powerful. Particularly when economies are centered around the absolute need for parents to work full time just to survive, making it imperative that children be in the hands of daycare workers and teachers for the bulk of the day. Which, btw WOULD BE FINE IF THE SYSTEM DIDN’T ACTIVELY PERPETUATE VIOLENCE.

But I’ll tell you this. People have successfully brought education back to the community level before, and it can happen again. Freedom Schools. indigenous Survival Schools. Language Nests, etc.

Our communities, native and non, need to figure this out again. And we need to make it happen, by supporting our kids, and structures which elevate rather than pacify them. Yup, we need to keep those full time jobs, because that shit is life and death, no lie. But we also need to figure out how to support new models of education NOW. Cuz trust me, by the time the state figures this shit out, it’ll already be too late for our kids, and probably even our grand kids.

If I can teach Chemistry to 9 year olds in a third of the time it usually takes to run through a highschool course (and I’m not talking little Einsteins here, just regular kids)…then we can teach ALL our kids everything they need to succeed in this stupid standardised testing system AND what they need to learn to decolonise and recreate or create sustainable, human structures into the future.

Do you believe that? I absolutely do. Now I’ve got to figure out how to do it without letting my kids starve in the meantime.

And I WILL figure that shit out.

Success, sacrifice, and Indigenous education

We’re talking about restoring our indigenous languages, and this is going to be a great quick conversation, come check it out! Just click on the link to join the spreecast.

Tansi - Kuei - Bozhoo-Wachiya-Kwe Kwe, Shé:kon - Ahni
join Leanne Simpson Christi Belcourt, Clifton Nicholas, Khelsilem Rivers,Chelsea Vowel and others to discuss how to restore our languages in our every day lives. Sunday March 31 for National Aboriginal Language Day

This is going down in about 15 minutes, hope you join us!

A day-long event to learn about Anishnawbeg & Haudenosaunee Nationhood, Indigenous Women’s Leadership, Canada’s First Nations Termination Plan, Defenders of the Land, and Building a New Relationship between Canada and Indigenous Peoples

I will be participating via Skype at around 8:00pm ET. Tune in now, some amazing talks going on, I’m beading and have it on in the background.

Snuck into the budget is a clause requiring anyone on reserve who gets social assistance, to enter into job training. More funds are earmarked to help First Nations enforce this than there are to actually create the training programs.

$155 million towards FN infrastructure over 10 years. So about $25,000 per First Nation. Enjoy your new…doorknobs?

Bill C-27, the First Nations Financial Transparency Act is being rammed through the Senate in order to bring it into force before March 31st so it will apply to all the Contribution Agreements, many of which lack non-derogation clauses and require First Nations to abide by various pieces of legislation created without consultation.

While taken piece by piece, the various attacks on indigenous peoples by the Harper government seem minor…taken as a whole, and we are facing a situation worse than when Trudeau introduced his White Paper in 1969.

We are under attack. We have been branded as either human resources to exploit, or as humans in the way of resource exploitation. We do not exist as nations or as peoples in the eyes of this government.

These are seriously grim times, and we are going to need serious resolve to face what sometimes feels like overwhelming obstacles.

I hope you’ve rested up, because Idle No More was just the prologue. If we don’t fight now, in this generation, we will have nothing left for our children, much less our grandchildren.

This live spreecast is going on right now, and has a line up of some absolutely amazing speakers still to go, including Chief Theresa Spence, and Wab Kinew among others. Get in there!

We don’t need more Ward Churchills. If there is a rumour in your family that you may have some native blood, that’s cool, that’s fine, definitely learning more about your family is a great thing.  But there are people who use that rumour to claim they are a member of an actual indigenous nation, and that’s where things get problematic.

This is particularly a problem when people…and let’s be honest, we know people are doing this…when people trawl for information about the nation they are rumoured to have long ago ties to, and then piece that information together to form a persona.  We’ve seen people go from ‘I heard this rumour’ to full on ‘I grew up on the rez!’ in the space of months. Months. Like no one saw it happen.

I have to say that I was impressed when one person claiming membership in an indigenous nation finally admitted that there was no factual basis for this claim. This person went back to identifying as an ally.  There is no shame in being an ally.

So please just stop. Go ahead and learn about us. Go ahead and ally with us. Go ahead and meet Elders and let them teach you if they choose, and cherish those teachings, all of that is really okay. But don’t lie.

Just don’t fucking lie.

To me, the most amazing thing that came out of our Women’s Townhall was what Gabrielle Fayant brought from a youth conference she attended. I think we NEED to follow up on this:

Education

• The goal is to educate others in a coordinated effort, all of it to be inclusive and accessible.

A proposal was put forth to do 12 weeks of nation-wide Aboriginal education class for the public, with one Aboriginal theme/topic per week.  All Idle No More activities for that week would focus on this theme/topic. For example, week 7 would be Residential Schools.

Activities could include: book club meetings; peaceful rallies; “send a link to a friend”; writing to MPs; blogging; Facebook status updates; round dances; articles written for magazines; radio station interviews; classroom presentations; teach-ins; art exhibitions; pamphlets; ‘education circles’ (perhaps more interactive than teach-ins have been); helping mobs (where people are slowed down but then provided with lots of information and sometimes coffee/tea and bannock); YouTube videos; and info tables set up like an embassy; street teams to poster walls and so on “to name a few”!

Time to bring this Idle No More simmer back up to a boil!

Tumblr. The place that does not replace an actual living indigenous community, and thus is not the place for certain discussions.