IMPROVING SCHOOL SUCCESS FOR FIRST NATIONS STUDENTS

FIRST NATIONS EDUCATION COUNCIL REPORT ON IMPROVING SCHOOL SUCCESS FOR FIRST NATIONS STUDENTS

This study was commissioned under the belief that there must be successful models of First Nations education which, if found, would obviate the necessity of "reinventing the wheel". Regrettably, no such models seem to exist. What was found was research data on every possible aspect of the problem, data that reveals not only what is going wrong, but what might be done to make them go better. That the problem remains unsolved in spite of a multitude of studies and conferences; tells us that maybe the catch phrases and dialogues that have grown up around the problem, should be put to one side in favour of fresh ones. That the old dialogues have produced little in the way of change suggests that new approaches are in order, dialogues that call up new experiments in classrooms and in First Nations communities. In other words, what is needed is a new invention. For the school district and the communities to strike out on an entirely new path would require not only new insights but a lot of courage. Other paths would seem to only slightly modify and to perpetuate what is. It is time to break from the traditional mold and move on to solutions.

There are, however, immediate steps worth taking. Changes that modify the ways schools and teachers respond to academic and social problems would seem to have the quickest payoff for the students. Such changes are well within the understanding of professional teachers. Programs aimed at improving cross-cultural understanding between schools and First Nations students and families should also receive immediate consideration. The research data is put together as an annotated bibliography. The report, itself, is followed by recommendations that were written with the advice and help of a panel composed of nine members of the First Nations Education Council.

The reason why many First Nations students are not successful in school is due to a complex set of factors. Many of these factors are similar to those any other unsuccessful student would face, factors easily identified by most teacher professionals. The complexity arises when it is found that what was thought to be recognizable, is itself driven by something more puzzling and unique. Therein lies the complexity, and the difficulty of finding easy answers. An example of this is found in the reading problem.

Statistically, as many as twenty percent of all primary children never become fluent readers, and remain hesitant readers right through school into adulthood. That First Nations children are more often found with this deficit suggests that even when remedial actions taken by schools and teachers are successful, that there is some additional difference about these children not being taken into account. In some cases frequent family moves and absenteeism can be said to be the reason for the lack of reading progress, but behind these family controlled events are the cultural and economic drivers which prompt them. It is the cultural drivers which teachers must take into account when it comes to reading methods. It is known, for instance, that a direct attack on reading code without a call to the experiential background of the First Nations child is unlikely to succeed. Regrettably, any student who does not acquire reading fluency in the primary grades is not likely to do so in later school years, and is destined to either leave school early or leave with a second-rate certificate.

Other problems arise out of the social and economic context in which children live. This relationship between school success and socio-economic factors is well known to educators. Teachers know that the socio-economic status of children greatly handicaps school performance. That this factor influences First Nations communities in much the same way as any other comparable community we might expect. A recent study supports this expectation. An Indian and Northern Affairs study showed that if socio-economic factors are comparatively equal, the impact is all but equal on both First Nations and non-First Nations communities. In both depressed socio-economic communities, academic scores were depressed when compared to the urban norm. However, there was a difference: many more First Nations students in the compared communities dropped out of school than did non-First Nations students. This suggests again, that First Nations students bring a difference to school that is not being accommodated in the school system.

The experiential background of families is another well-known determiner of school success. If the family has a tradition of school success, the children are likely to do the same. That many First Nations elders were educationally isolated from the greater community by the residential school process means that academic success of a kind found in the mainstream schooling is a very recent experience for most families. It is not surprising, then, to see that secondary students responding to our local survey, more often than not, limited their career aspirations to those in which many contemporary First Nations adults are now employed. School support workers, social worker, tribal police, counselor, law studies and teachers were often mentioned with references to service to First Nations peoples. Very few of these First Nations students aspired to the broad range of other careers found in our contemporary society. This suggests that either the choices they make are because they are today's First Nations children, or that they feel that other careers are not socially within their reach. It would be useful to know more about why First Nations students make the career choices they do.

We know that much of the absenteeism in secondary schools is an attempt to avoid some unpleasant aspect of schooling If school is not a place where success seems possible, then avoidance answers the resulting frustration. Students not succeeding at school will skip classes, come late and become more often absent until they finally get so far behind they quit. First Nations students do not differ in this respect, and they often leave school when they become totally frustrated in their attempt to be academically successful. In cases where academic success is not the problem, we often see that it is some event outside of school that leads to the absenteeism and an early school leaving. However, that some factor inside the school, a factor other than academic difficulties, might lead to school leaving is much harder for teachers to accept. Yet, if you were to be a First Nations student who couldn't reconcile the cultural ways learned at your mother's knee with those in the mainstream school culture, then the resulting discomfort might very well drive you away. This latter kind of discomfort is hard to detect, but once detected it must be resolved if the minority student is to enter into schooling enthusiastically.

It must be recognized, too, that studies show that no amount of disciplining for avoidance behaviours will help a student come to terms with an underlying academic deficiency. If the underlying problem is academic, then it must be dealt with as an academic problem and not a behaviour problem. That parents of such children often don't become party to school decision-making until discipline does become the issue, doesn't help. This belated and negative involvement of the family often spells an end to any opportunity the school had to have the family become a member of the school community and its goals, which closes the door on any further change for the student. Research tells us that there are likely better ways to bring these youngsters around to success.

Teachers know that there is a direct relationship between teacher expectations and student achievement. They try to overcome this effect by carefully choosing what they do and say in classrooms. A student's positive self-image becomes difficult to maintain if academic success is the only value the teacher communicates. It is not that First Nations students more often than others have a poor self-image, because apparently they do not. But many do arrive at secondary school without the necessary academic skills, which is bound to make any student feel that success is unlikely, whether they are First Nations or not. Even attempts to help such students can denigrate the self-image if not done with sensitively, especially in the middle and secondary years of school. But regardless of how sensitive a teacher might try to be, teacher expectations for academically deficient students do reveal themselves, and do negatively influence and discourage students.

Being part of an often unjustly disparaged minority, First Nations students bring with them the seeds of yet another influence on schooling. All teachers and students, including the First Nations students, themselves, are bound to be influenced to one degree or another even if they don't hold such prejudices. A well-established attitude rooted in society is hard to change. Regrettably, the research shows that most of the usual culture and racism sensitivity programs have not been too effective. We apparently don't know how to predictably remove prejudice, but at least we can insist upon an overt tolerance of differences. This does not mean we shouldn't try to do more, especially with cross-cultural education. The research provides some clues: prejudice is an attitude, and attitudes result from emotional conditioning. An attitude is unlikely to change unless emotional reconditioning takes place.

Many First Nations students tell of being alienated by the school system, and say those listening to them do not understand what is being said. Although unsuccessful students do feel the discomfort of failure, studies show that First Nations students often have different interpretations to what might be thought as everyday school events. These interpretations are derived from the differences that made them who they are, students from a First Nations culture. At other times, the students tell of the discomfort they feel as minority in a majority culture, knowing that others might hold racist and cultural views of them. They feel that more First Nations staff members would be helpful in dissipating some of this alienation. Regardless of the source of the alienation, the concerns need to be heard, and a way must be found to have this more reliably happen. Secondary students in particular are old enough to become partners with their teachers, and ways in which they can be more openly consulted about such things need to be found.

The inability of majority of the First Nations students to cope with the barrage of homework tasks also came through in our student survey. Homework is not getting done at home for a variety of reasons. The resulting burden, guilt and frustration they feel, needs the attention of teachers and schools, particularly secondary schools. Failing school gets translated into "not coping with assigned homework tasks". They say that skipping, lateness and absenteeism comes out of the futility of coping with homework. Homework overload because teachers don't schedule assignments in cooperation with others, tasks too difficult to be done by most students let alone academically deficient ones, and too much class time spent marking homework instead of teaching what is needed to do homework, are the complaints. None of these things would seem to be outside the ability of teachers and schools to rectify, not only for First Nations students, but for all other students, especially those who are less than successful.

Although the Ministry of Education advocates the integration of First Nations perspectives and studies from Kindergarten to Grade 12, there is little evidence to show that this is actually happening. This teacher and that one acts on this mandated goal, especially in the elementary school, but the plethora of curriculum topics in secondary schools has made compliance difficult. There is now a First Nations Studies Grade 12 elective, but it doesn't serve the need of impressionable junior secondary First Nations students needing validation in a majority culture. The Ministry has a drafted a set parallel topics for insertion into existing curriculum lessons, but they are so comprehensive in depth as to likely be dismissed out of hand by already very busy teachers. What is apparently needed is not more curriculum, but succinct advice as to how First Nations perspectives might more easily be inserted into on-going lesson topics

Other curriculum topics wanting attention are in the realms of social development, topics that belong in every classroom, both as teacher practice and as a student topic. Practicing and learning to practice concepts that assure that differences between individuals and groups are respected is rarely successful as a mere chalkboard lesson. And neither will a set of rules posted on the wall do the trick. As was previously noted, studies show that attitudes are emotionally conditioned and will change only if emotions become involved again as educational events. It is a mistake, for instance, to believe that cross-cultural education alone will change attitudes. In fact, at times, cross-cultural education has accented the differences between peoples. It is not enough to replace one set of beliefs with another. Teachers need to know more about how attitudes are learned and how they may be changed. This is important to First Nations students in the minority, but also to students in the mainstream culture. The question will not go away even if easy answers are not readily available, and it is a question that will likely need a new agenda before it will be resolved What is being done is not working: new insights and methods are needed.

It has been difficult too, to keep track of the problems First Nations students are having with the school system. Each question that now arises requires immense effort to isolate and analyze, mostly because the data has not been recorded nor has what is recorded been isolated from other data so as to allow analysis. It is important, too, that the successes be recorded so that they can become useful to others.

From these findings, a priority set of goals for the school district suggest themselves:

• Better ways of keeping track of the problems of the First Nations students is certainly needed.

• Better ways to fully engage every classroom teacher with the problem that First Nations cultural differences present must also be a priority, one that will need fresh insights and methods.

• The persisting problem of reading fluency, already a district priority, requires more than what is being done if First Nations students are to share in any successes.

• An inherent inflexibility of secondary school organizations and the resulting difficulty teachers have responding effectively to First Nations students, must be seriously addressed. Organizational inflexibility handicaps most of what secondary teachers are wont to do on behalf of students having difficulties.

• That the perceptions held by First Nations peoples are not finding their way into the curriculum day is worrying to say the least and some action must be taken to see that this is, indeed, done.

That these goals are goals meant for the school system does not exclude the need to fully involve First Nations families and communities in the development of better ways to do things. However, it is the schools and their teachers who must, in the end, accept the children as they arrive at the school door, and, more importantly, learn how to better serve them.

Five main goals are suggested by the study

GOAL I

The board of school trustees make the improvement of schooling for First Nations students one of their highest priorities, and that ways be found at the district-level to track First Nations students, their problems and their successes so as to keep the problem in focus.

GOAL II

The district find ways of having each classroom teacher examine how cross-cultural factors affect outcomes for first nations students under their care.

GOAL III

Elementary schools find ways in which reading fluency of the primary and intermediate First Nations students can be assured.

GOAL IV

Secondary schools find ways to introduce an organizational flexibility that will allow First Nations students to be more successful in school

GOAL V

The district find ways that will more assuredly have each classroom teacher, especially social studies teachers, put First Nations perspectives into lesson plans.

The recommendations on the following page attempt to suggest ways these goals might be met.