COMMUNITY LEARNING HUBS provide new vision for education
By Kristin Marand T he topic of Indigenous education in Canada is informed by the tragic legacy of residential schools and the history of colonialism. Returning education into the hands of Indigenous communities is an important symbolic and actual step on the road to reconciliation. In Manitoba, inroads are being made through a partnership between the Interlake Reserves Tribal Council and the signatories of the Manitoba Collaborative Indigenous Education Blueprint – an initiative of the province’s post- secondary institutions and the Manitoba Public School Boards Association that commits to make excellence in Indigenous education a priority. Together, they have recently opened a Learning Hub. The community learning hub in Pinaymootang serves six First Nations and provides students with the resources to be
able to study closer to home. The project, designed in partnership with the IRTC, offers Indigenous students the opportunity to achieve their academic objectives in a familiar environment with the supports of remaining in their home communities. Online learning is bolstered by enhanced internet connectivity, academic and cultural supports and Elders within the community. Indigenous input into curriculum development is vital, explains Laurie McDonald, a member of Enoch Cree Nation, Survivor of the Ermineskin Residential School in Alberta and a member of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation’s Survivors’ Circle. McDonald, a retired educator, describes the educational model of residential schools as taught through the lens of settlers, deliberately excluding the oral traditions and knowledge of Indigenous communities. Establishing a community learning hub, like the one in Pinaymootang, allows for the integration of various traditional and modern learning modalities. “You’re going to get different views and this creates a discussion where
and take the values and take the teachings of each and every one of them.” The learning hub is the result of numerous factors that blend both past and present realities for Indigenous communities. During the early days of the pandemic, many First Nations encouraged their young people to return to the community for safety. However, the environments weren’t always conducive to learning. Many communities have unreliable internet, for example, making it difficult to access school resources. Many also don’t have quiet places to study. As a result, many Indigenous youths dropped out of, or otherwise paused, their post-secondary education. “When we were in Pinaymootang for the grand opening, the leadership and some of the students talked about the value, the importance, the absolute need for education in the community. One of the staff talked about how it’s closing that circle. Education in the community is so important to people because so many kids were taken away to residential schools and day schools, and so to be able to bring this back is a huge, huge success,” says Dr. Catherine Cook, vice-president, Indigenous, at the University of Manitoba. “You’ve now brought people home and you’ve brought education back to the community, run and designed by the community. So that, to me, was the biggest moment there when I realized that we had been able to partner on many levels with a community that was able to achieve part of their dream for education at home. It was really quite moving.” The IRTC and post-secondary schools are working in partnership with the communities to determine what types of programs can be delivered remotely and the ongoing educational needs of the community. There are
plans to develop four more hubs in the future. “Returning education to the community is the absolute focus and a successful form of reconciliation. It’s back in the hands of the community,” says Cook. “It’s being led by the leadership there. We’re partners so we can support that, but bringing resources and skills back to the community for education in the community, run by the community, that’s reconciliation.” True reconciliation begins with listening to the experiences of Survivors and acknowledging their truths. McDonald notes that the time for that dialogue is finite. Although the last residential school in Canada only closed in 1997, there will come a time when there are no more first-hand accounts to hear. There is no substitution for authentic discourse to convey the experiences and trauma Survivors lived. The important thing is to talk to Survivors and to feel it, says McDonald. Feeling is key to understanding and moving forward. “The history books talk about the residential school but they don’t talk about it in the ways that we went through it. The history books talked about the residential school as propaganda for government saying, ‘We’re taking these poor savages away from hunger and isolation,’ which they didn’t. [They] forced,” McDonald says. “So we have to tell our truth. And we say ‘No, this is not how it happened.’ It’s about telling that truth and trying to dispel myths and set the story straight and correct.”
you have your participants, the Indigenous students, to create dialogue and to form their own opinion, based also
in collaboration of their own knowledge of their own people but also other First Nations,” says
McDonald. “What makes a hub really interesting, there are common spokes, common threads you could relate to
From left to right: Freda Woodhouse, education director, Interlake Reserves Tribal Council; Karl Zadnik, chief executive officer, Interlake Reserves Tribal Council; Don Kelly, head of public affairs and communications Canada, Mastercard Foundation; and Kurvis Anderson, chief of Pinaymootang First Nation Don Kelly accepts a gift on behalf of the Mastercard Foundation in recognition of the Learning Hub partnership.
Honouring the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation
As individuals and as an organization, Legacy Bowes recognizes the legacy of Canada's residential school system and are continuously learning best ways to offer support to enhancing community capacity. In order to do this, we must engage in transformative spaces to forge new and meaningful pathways of knowing and being together. Part of this process involves education and awareness about the hard truths of our shared history. Through our TRC Call to Action #92 Certification Program, Legacy Bowes, in partnership with the TIPI Group of Companies, is offering education programming to Corporate Canada.
This is our Call to Action. What's yours?
www.legacybowes.com
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