My
name is Chris Scholten. I am a student at Red Deer College
As far as my actual life journey,
well it’s a pretty simple story, as it centers mainly in the Red Deer area. Most of my life was spent
here, though much of it was spent moving around between various small towns
that I don’t remember very well. My mom and dad had an on-and-off relationship
until I was 8; they had me when they were 17, got married when I was 6, and
were legally separated by the time I was 8. Whether they were together or not,
my brothers, sister and I lived with our mother until I was 10. It was during
that time that we did most of our moving. Our mom never had a stable financial
situation, and even though my dad helped out whenever he could, they were both
very young, and their career options were limited. One weekend when I was 10,
we were on a court-ordered weekend visit with our dad, when my mom showed up
for some reason. They got into a huge fight, the cops got involved, and the
next thing we knew, we were now living with our father, and all we had with us
was what we’d packed for the weekend. Our dad took the sudden shift very well
in some aspects – within a week or so, he had bought us some new clothes and
got us enrolled in a new school. When I was there, I had volunteered to take
care of this one little guy every other recess whose name was Galen. He was
part Native, though he never really knew his background. We always had fun
playing together, and our favorite thing to do was rough-house during recess
for the rest of the school year. When I was in grade 6, my dad brought a woman
to move in with us. She had two kids and another on the way, thanks to my dad.
As for her two kids, their names were Helaenna and… Galen. Well, hello again.
Of
course, as I mentioned before, I never found out about Galen and Helaenna’s
Native heritage. Either his family didn’t know or they didn’t care. It just
wasn’t something anyone talked about. My father and my new stepmother raised
the seven of us kids to be Christian, and so everyday we would read the Bible
after supper, and every Sunday we would dress up to go to church. Galen didn’t
like this at all, not because it violated any traditions or values of his, but
because he wasn’t used to living in such a strict, conservative household. In
his old life, he ran and played carelessly; he was quite a hyper and
rambunctious child. But my dad had his own way of doing things, and while the
rest of us stayed quiet if my dad threw a fit over things not being done
exactly the way he wanted it, Galen was often the first to lash back, and this
caused a lot of havoc between not only him and my dad, but between my dad’s
family and his mom’s family. Of course there is a lot more to the story than
this, but I know his part best. The notable thing is that the rest of us (other
than the youngest) had plenty of time to be scared into behaving like good
little boys and girls, but he never really settled down. My stepmom left with
her kids and the youngest when I was 18, and Galen is still a smart-mouthed
little rebel to this day.
My
family sort of fell away from the church scene when I was about 14; I continued
going to church and prayed to God and read the Bible quite devoutly until I was
19. During this time, I made friends with a Native named Stan. I met him in
church, and I was charmed by his honesty and his mission to overcome the
adversity he faced due to his heritage. This was the closest I had ever come to
seeing the true nature of an Aboriginal person at that time. Every other time I
had ever encountered a full-blooded Native Canadian up close and personal, he
or she was poor, disheveled, almost always drunk, and either panhandling or
offering to do some odd job for a couple dollars. It was no mystery to me why
my dad was always going off with his “drunken Indian” jokes, even though I made
no secret of my disapproval every time I heard them. I knew there were “good
Indians” out there, but as far as I was aware, they all resided at those
tourist sites where elementary schools take kids on field trips to learn about
“early” Native American cultures. So to see a Native person who was “just like
us,” one who I could take home to my family and say, “See, Dad! They’re just
like us; now will you stop with the racist jokes, already?” He started going to
my high school and our friendship grew from there. Eventually, due to growing
tension in my home, I was ready to move out on my own, and I could see no
better possible roommate than Stan. I was warned about Stan; people were
telling me moving in with him might not be a great idea, but I brushed them
off, dismissing them as clinging to prejudices which would soon be removed once
I came out of our 12-month lease and told them all what a wonderful experience
it was. How disappointed I was when I realized that he too was, to a degree, an
embodiment of the stereotypical “drunken Indian” – a young man addicted to
alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana, who liked rap, petty theft, breaking and
entering, and hated going to work to pay his share of the rent. How hopeless I
felt when I realized this just days after we had signed the forms and moved all
our stuff in.
I
felt bad, though, because I knew it wasn’t that simple. He had his own demons,
and his personal struggles, like mine, developed throughout our childhood. I
tried to be as encouraging as I could, and offer my help whenever he asked,
without (intentionally) prying. But nevertheless, the tension was there. He was
the brown man, and I was the white man. From a historical point of view, I
represent the same people who took his people’s land and rights away and made
life so difficult for his people in the first place. Even though my ancestors
are mainly Dutch, and, to my knowledge, didn’t immigrate to Canada until the
1960’s, I, being a Caucasian, represent the people who introduced his ancestors
to the life of the wealthy white man, tore away their identity to make it
possible for them to adapt to our culture, while at the same time making it
nearly impossible to live their lives beyond the limits our people set for
them. The way I understand it, the First People were told they should become
like us, but they weren’t allowed to be too high in the ranks, lest they gain
too much power and seize back control. As far as the whites were concerned, once
we no longer needed them, they didn’t exist. And that is sort of how I see them
being treated today.
But
I needed Stan. He was more than a roommate. He was my friend. For me, friends
have always been a scarce commodity, and so I tried to treat every one as
sacred. I still don’t know to this day if he felt I was trying too hard to make
him “adapt”; then again I was trying to adapt myself. I wanted more for Stan
than what he was used to. But so did everyone else. One time he showed me a
giant photo album full of pictures from all the camps he’d been put into – he
was once an avid Boy Scout or Cadet or something. Since his infancy, I could
see that people were trying to make him adapt to a white man’s society, keep
him from growing up and being a “delinquent,” because he was considered “at
risk” due to his “rough” family history. I was there almost every time he went
on a job hunt, for moral and emotional support. He didn’t have much luck being
accepted, for various reasons which may or may not have included his ethnicity
(just as it may or may not have been due to his love for poorly-timed sarcastic
remarks). As for the smoking and the drinking, I was a smoker, a toker, and a
drinker myself, so I certainly was not going to be the one to call up TLC and
host an intervention for him. All I asked is that he not over-consume,
considering his tendency to become belligerent when drunk, and to consume at
appropriate times, i.e. not when we’re still trying to move our stuff into the
house using my dad’s truck. Nevertheless, he wasn’t a monster. He was generous with
his money when he had money to give. He offered temporary shelter to those
without homes. He often was the one who went grocery shopping and was good at
keeping the house clean.
It
pains me to see that all these simple character flaws are so easily attributed
to race, but at the same time, it begs the question: how likely would he have
been to grow up with the exact same experiences had he been of a different
ethnicity? I feel like the fact that he is a native guy who dresses a certain
way in public helps reinforce Native Canadian stereotypes in the minds of
passers-by. Many people believe Natives in general to be poor, cheap drunks who
get loud, rambunctious and violent, and should generally be avoided if seen in
public or on the street. These assumptions have ambiguous origins, but they are
very different from reality, even more so that I originally knew. For example,
in the U.S., 78.9% of the 68,000+ Native Americans and Alaska Natives 25 or
older who had received a bachelor’s degree had received theirs in a field of science
and engineering in 2011 (United States Census Bureau, 2012). As for alcohol and
drug use, it’s not nearly as prevalent as some of us think. According to an
American survey on drug and alcohol use from 2007, studies have shown that
there are, by percentage, more Caucasians who consume alcohol than Native
Americans (they also drink more than Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and
African Americans) (Chartier, n.d.).
Yet,
what the numbers say and what the public sees are still very different, and
this has a profound impact on Aboriginal people’s ability to enter
post-secondary school and well-paying, satisfying careers. In a research
project done in Toronto consisting of 24 aboriginal youth aged 15-25, less than
two thirds had completed high school; three were currently attending college
and none were attending university (Baskina, 2007, p. 5) What is society doing
to help the situation? I don’t pretend for a minute to know what exactly is
going on around here with the government and all their specialized Aboriginal
programs and events and what-not. However, I do see that a need for improvement
has been acknowledged, and initiatives have been taken here in Alberta to do so. In
February 2002, Alberta Education devised the FNMI Education Policy Framework. Its long-term objective included
improving academic success for FNMI students from Early Childhood to Grade 12
and through post-secondary education, as well as “Foster[ing] a greater
appreciation and understanding by all Albertans of First Nations, Métis and
Inuit people.” (Alberta Learning, 2002, p.13) Through this, the public school system in Alberta has been able to
recognize that FNMI people want their children to adapt and thrive in Western
society, but they also want them to remain aware and connected to their
cultural roots (Alberta Education, 2012, p. 10)
I
hope this paper has been a satisfying demonstration of my knowledge so far on
FNMI education needs. What I have discovered while writing it is just how little
I actually know in comparison to the presumptions I had before. The above two
documents from Alberta Education would be a great resources to read over while
continuing my journey toward becoming a teacher. I will also make it a goal to
check for more progress reports on the FNMI
Education Policy Framework, to keep me up to date on what’s being done to
improve the quality of education for Aboriginal students. But overall, I
believe the best course of action when I start teaching will be to treat them
with as much care and respect as I will with every other student I meet, and
acknowledging them all as individuals with unique needs, goals, tastes, talents
and approaches to learning.
Works Cited:
Retrieved from
Baskina, C. (2007). Aboriginal Youth Talk about
Structural Determinants as the Causes of their Homelessness. First Peoples Child & Family
Review, 3(3),
31-42.
Chartier, K. (n.d.). NIAAA
Publications. Retrieved March 22, 2014, from http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh40/152-160.htm
Ridgeway, S. (2013, June
21). Common Native American Stereotypes Debunked — Everyday
Feminism. Retrieved March 22, 2014, from http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/06/common-native-american-stereotypes-debunked/
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