An Education System Providing Equal to All November 23, 2009

A western education has been said to be the best of any and true, it offers countless opportunities for any type of person but whose lifestyle is it promoting?  Schools in Canada have many possibilities for success in its students but often there are some who are in need of an extra support lifeline.  For many Aboriginal students, school hasn’t been a most desired place to attend simply because of the constant ridicule and need for support that doesn’t seem to be there for them.

The drop-out rate for Aboriginals has always been regrettably high and many are left wondering why there is such a low success rate for these students to graduate from highschool.  If you think about it, the Aboriginals were, as is well-known, the first to inhabit North America, complete with their own rules, politics, and schooling systems; all which are very different from average schooling practices.  They were surviving all on their own and thriving off the land they respected when along came those who were possessed by a strong sense of ethnocentrism and well determined to assimilate these people.  Now, through all the hardships that have had to be bared by the Aboriginals, they have come to adapt quite well considering the circumstances to which they were forced to accomodate to.  It can be argued that many others people in school can have the exact same types of troubles as Aboriginals but it is trying to be made a priority to cater to Aboriginals first because the education system today is based majorly on european traditions, which are also common to asian traditions.  The main goal is to do well in school as to get a good job to support yourself and possibly a family one day but even though the goal is similar in Aboriginal cultures, the way of getting to that place is completely different, with the teachings holding no resemblance to those of westernized schools.  On top of their initial way of educating each other being completely different from today’s schools, they were forced to be assimilated.  Many immigrants from other countries come here expecting the education system, some even coming here just for the education system, and are well aware of what is to be expected of them and can make connections between the difference in education tactics; while Aboriginals had their type of education, expecting only their traditional learning, here in Canada long before today’s type of learning touched the soil but somehow that education system has become the predominant one just because the other was looked at as being foreign and witchcraft-like.  Everyone who attends western schools haven’t, in the least, had to adapt to this system as much as the Aboriginals and for sure haven’t had to become subject to the severe and harsh assimilation these people have to experience.

Other types of target groups in schools excel or at least succeed more so than Aboriginals because they have been brought up knowing no other form of education or of any kind that differed to such an extreme extent as did the Natives’ traditions did.  True, changing the entire educational system is relatively impossible but because it is impossible, students of Aboriginal descent can use the most support they need.  When it gets down to it, it’s the lack of support that these people need and that’s exactly what they don’t necessarily receive.  On top of all the racism and ridicule they go through while they’re in school, they don’t feel the urge to learn.  I mean, would you if that were your situation?

This has become a topic to think about.  Everyone deserves the right to a proper education that helps them.  School should be able to cater to everyone’s needs and not just a select few.  Think about it.

http://www.leaderpost.com/news/Aboriginal+drop+rate+draws+failing+grade/2141183/story.html

The Highway of Tears November 22, 2009

Nicole Hoar, 25

When you look at this picture, what do you see?  Is she familiar?  What part do you think she plays in society?  Obviously, if she is the main element to my blog, she must be of some importance.  A woman in power, maybe? A civil rights activist?  Because she stars in my writing she must be an influential part of some sort of community but perhaps not.  It is that specific type of common assumption that keeps women like her out of the papers because she in fact seems to be not too important for people to be aware of.  Now, that may not be entirely the case but those in power, or at least those who have the power to distribute information, may not have that view-point but are aware that that is how society has come to operate.  It may be subconscious to most and not to some others and no matter how insistent we are about making everyone an equal in the definition of a human being, there are still those who really hold no interest to some and very little to others.  So why would an editor, let’s say, be inspired to talk about this type of person when what they’re most preoccupied about is selling newspapers?  Broadcasting the story that sticks.

The Highway of Tears, for the last decade, has been a long stretch of road between Prince George and Prince Rupert where countless women, all of Aboriginal descent, have up and disappeared.  It’s these precise women that have somehow escaped the publication other missing women cases could almost impossibly avoid.  So many lives have been unaccounted for and mysteriously very few were even aware of that fact.  It’s a question of humanity; apparently there are those who are newsworthy and those who are not.  When we’ve been able to reach such a high level of information absorption, it’s hard to perceive that there are such predominant subconscious biases that, let’s say, a reporter can cater to stories that they would assume one would want to read.  But when has reading about misery and loss become an act of appetite?  When has one story of death become more important than the death of another?  We have been irrevocably drawn up in the constant measure of stature; the impervious pattern of “important people”.

Nicole Hoar was 25, 5′ 9”, and about 130lbs.  Occasionally wore her dark hair in a high pony tail and had blue eyes and glasses.  Was last seen carrying a purple and black backpack and wearing beige Capri pants with a red long sleeved shirt.  She was carrying an olive green shoulder bag with an orange dragon on it.  She was last seen heading west from Prince George, hitchhiking to Smithers on June 21, 2002.

She’s been missing for a good 7 years now and how often have you seen her as the main element on the 11 o’clock news?