On October 19th, I should have been somewhere in the GECDSB, being awkwardly lead through the expectations of my practicum. Instead, I was at Walpole Island! An opportunity to visit a First Nations community was as interesting for me as it was for the visiting Chinese students, if not more so. It was not only a free trip out the city (which alone is great), and a chance to get to know my Chinese counterparts whom I will be visiting in May 2013, but I also had an ulterior motive. When we get done at UWin, my husband Niall and I are hoping to head to the far, far north to teach. This means we will likely be teaching on a First Nations reservation. Though every Native reserve is different, neither of us have much experience with reserves, so any experience is sure to be good.
When we arrived at the Walpole Island Elementary School (WIES), a K to 8 school, we were welcomed by the school principal. It was a P.D. Day and the mood was very mellow in the school. We were encouraged to explore. But first, the principal was asked to say a few words to us. What he had to say was one of the most memorable speeches I have ever personally heard.
He introduced himself, telling us a little about himself, then floored us. Then, beginning by saying that WIES is appallingly underfunded, he explained the situation in detail: public schools are funded by the province and receive about $10,000 annually per student, but as a reserve school WIES is federally funded, and receives only $6,000 per student, yearly. He stated these things in such a matter of fact way. He went on to say, "We do not use this as an excuse." Each member of staff is charged with making the most of what they do have, but that this chronic under-funding is being brought to the Supreme Court as a human-rights issue.
When asked how this injustice could be so blatant, he nearly spat out the term Bureau of Indian Affairs. He said this was the most notoriously inefficient government body in Canada, which fails all imposed audits, yet is still responsible for organizing and distributing funds for reserves, and therefor schools on reserves.
As an grad of a B.A. in Anthropology, I am no stranger to the poor reputation of Native Affairs, but I was staggered by this discrepancy. How can schools perform on par with sub-par funding? At WIES they somehow do, according EQAO scores anyhow. The principal, while disputing the usefulness and validity of such tests, used the EQAO results of his school to show that they are dong pretty well by Ontario standards, even exceeding them by 2 to 3% in writing.
As a teacher in school like WIES, I think I would feel pressure to perform that much greater, and impelled to get outstanding results from my students, in part because I view WIES as an underdog in the seemingly never ending role of David. It is a common correlation that low socioeconomic status often means poor academic performance, but fortunately the community of Walpole is not too bad off, and can make up for the lack of school funding independently.
The second concern I have about working in a school like this, with insufficient funding, but one that is in a less affluent community, would be stereotype threat. We just learned about this in psychology class and I think it is an interesting concept with real world applications. The theory speculates that people tend to fulfill the negative stereotype that they perceive others have of them or their social group. It is used to explain long standing gaps in racial and gender performance trends. By recognizing it though, you can combat it. Helping a school population overcome this is a huge task for teachers and administrators. Failure or success in getting a student past stereotype threat has lasting effects on self-image and therefor their life long after they have graduated!
Thanks to the McGuinty government and ETFO for making my October 19th trip to Walpole possible! I am more determined than ever to make a difference in the lives of my future students!
