I’ve now made calls on that and am looking forward to hopefully visiting the museum and school in the next few weeks. I’m still going to be looking at different areas of First Nations life, but will be focusing a bit more on the education system and its relation to self-governance. I want to look at education as one area where First Nations people are taking control back from the Federal government and how that is playing out on the ground.
This week, I’m looking forward to speaking with Lisa Cooke. She’s an anthropology professor at Thompson Rivers University and studies First Nations in B.C. Among her areas of study are the north and how treaties and reserves were done in B.C. I’m looking to get some insights from her into where the current system has come from and what might be coming next.
Last week, I spoke with Nathan Matthew, the director of aboriginal education at Thompson Rivers University. As promised, here are a few excerpts from our conversation that discuss education, residential schools and what he’d like to see happen next. These are all quotes from Matthew:
“I think we’re still feeling the effects of the residential schools era that ended in the 1970s in this area and that’s where students were really pulled away from their communities and their homes with the specific intent of shredding them of their identity, their language and culture and their connectedness to their culture and that has had an incredible negative impact on how First Nations people are able to feel good about themselves, how they are able to take part in things like education and employment and it’s really been a terrible, I guess, piece of history that First Nations haven’t gotten over yet. It’s incredible the impact.”
“Now days if you’re not proactive in developing positive relationships and meeting the expressed needs of aboriginal people and First Nations that you can easily continue to be a force of colonialism and so there’s still a fight. If First Nations aren’t listened to, if they’re not, I guess, aren’t included in the planning and implementation of services, let’s say at the university level then it’s very difficult to say that you are meeting the needs and you are not a force of colonization, that you’re a force of positive development within First Nations supporting the notion of self- determination and the rights that First Nations people have in this country and aboriginal people.”
“The message that I would want to project is that there is great potential in First Nations and aboriginal people, that we are born with many many talents and many gifts and that the world that we live in serves to diminish those gifts or capacities and that’s the challenge that we have is to ensure that we do grow and that we do develop and we are strong and that we can contribute to our own well-being and also to the well being of the larger community that we live in so I think that that’s the message. There’s such great potential that’s being covered over or negated and a negative relationship with the Federal government in regards to title and rights”
“it’s rewarding to be part of a development of an environment that’s more suitable for aboriginal success and the development of effective partnerships so personally it’s good because I’ve been able to be part of it, but it’s really part of a large teamwork of quite a number of people at the university and working with the aboriginal community and organizations”
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