Assessing Bilingual Education in Nunavut; Has Mother Tongue Instruction Decolonized Our Minds - Research Paper Example

Assessing Bilingual Education in Nunavut; Has Mother Tongue Instruction Decolonized Our Minds? The history of colonial education globally is one fraught with cultural tension and power inequality. Plans and aims for the education so-called “native” populations in the North America, Africa and Australasia took a variety of forms, all of which were guided by benevolent aims of uplift, Christian salvation and civilization. The form of these aims changed over time, and from country to country; in some cases, the influence of “native” cultures and parents were regarded as a negative, retarding influence on students, while in others, incorporation of native language and culture were taken as necessary to the overall civilizing mission. In many cases, bibles translated into local tongues were the first, primary or only tool for instruction. The history of “native” education in Canada is no exception to this overall pattern. The first schools in the Canadian North were residential mission schools established by Anglican and Catholic missionaries. These early schools carried out instruction and religious education in local languages. As government education policy regarding First Canadians consolidated and government support for education in the North increased, there was a resultant shift toward English only instruction in schools that served Inuit students (Patrick, 250-254). At the time, this was viewed as a solution to unemployment and lack of economic integration (Patrick & Shearwood251, Aylward). By the 1960’s a global push was underway for “decolonization” of the education of indigenous communities, which included instruction in native languages (Patrick & Shearwood 255). The reasoning behind this shift was that students would be more successful in their academic pursuits when instructed in their native languages, while such instruction would provide avenues for advancement among adults in indigenous communities. At a deeper level, decolonization of education was linked to the broader political and cultural effort to “decolonize the mind” of indigenous communities, a phrase made popular through the writings of Franz Fanon. Instruction in Inuit languages would allow students to avoid the destructive colonial condition of viewing oneself and ones communities through the eyes of colonial authority, and instead promote the development of a sophisticated, literate Inuit subjectivity. Now, forty years later, bilingual education and other anti-colonial educational reforms have had a chance to take on this enormous task. This paper aims to assess whether the aims of such reforms have been achieved, to note any unintended consequences of the policy and to assess the potential of future reform policy. The question remains; did bilingual education achieve its most original aims by empowering the Inuit subject and reversing the cultural imperialism of colonial education policy? This paper advances the argument that bilingual education had limited success in achieving its original aims. While Inuit subjectivity has been strengthened in the process of policy change, cultural imperialism in education and society as a whole have, not been entirely eliminated. Colonial Education 1928 saw the establishment of the first residential school in the territory that would (in 1999) become Nunavut. This coincided with the establishment of English-only education, as opposed to the earlier methods of teaching in Inuktitut. These schools also represented the first comprehensive government policy of “native” education, despite earlier detached and incidental financial support of earlier, local, mother-tongue education (Patrick & Shearwood250). This shift and consolidation of mission schools into a government policy was not merely a shift from local, community-based religious instruction into residential schools focusing on children only and in English-only, but represented a fundamental shift in and consolidation of a colonial ideology of education in particular and “native-ness” in general, underpinned by a particular (Victorian ) ideology of childhood. English-only religious instruction depended on the ideology that western, English culture was morally and economically superior to Inuit culture, that religious salvation was a critical aim of government schooling policy, and that children are “blank slates” or “empty vessels” to be filled with content (Fredua-Kwarteng 430). Education could make Englishmen of so-called Eskimos, to their benefit, as well as the benefit of non-Native residents of the Northern Territory, who benefitted from making English the language not only of educational instruction, but trade (Patrick & Shearwood251). In this sense, this initial shift from Native-language religious instruction to English only residential schools, while a major change, did not represent a total ideological break from the older form. Independent missionary instruction was held in native languages primarily as practical matter for the earlier period; the ideological approach was certainly one in which the cultural superiority of Englishness and moral superiority of Christianity over Inuit culture and religion was considered a matter of (spiritual) life and death (Fredua-Kwarteng 430). . The shift toward residential schools, while representing a fundamental difference in approach also fundamentally represented the increasing relevance of native education to the goals of government and commerce, not simply religious institutions. Residential schools in these communities (as well as in other colonial environments around the world, such as Australia) were extremely disruptive of the family and community life in native communities, nearly delivering a death-blow to native languages (Fredua-Kwarteng, 433). Residential schools were designed to separate generations of Inuit-speakers and protect native children from the perceived negative influence of their communities and families; for this reason, students slept, ate and lived isolated from their families, with devastating consequences in terms of students’ identity, attachment and emotional development (Fredua-Kwarteng, 437). Because of the underlying assumption that children were blank slates, these impacts were not predicted or discounted (Fredua-Kwarteng, 435). Life within residential schools exacerbated this fundamental disruption, resulting in what critics have defined alternately as “cultural genocide” as well as “professional and cognitive imperialism”. (Fredua-Kwarteng, Patrick). Because students were not, in fact, blank slates, “English-only” instruction and social life as well as the ideology of cultural superiority had to be brutally enforced, and became a source of tension within schools, between students and instructors and administrators, and between native and non-Native. In one sense, this colonial construction within schools perpetuated the opposite of what was intended by the original, seemingly benevolent, aims of the ideology behind government policy and residential schools. Rather than producing assimilated natives from blank slates, the direct experience of oppression and repression emphasized student’s nativeness and exclusion from and repression within English society, as well as their second-class status. The resulting conflict, as well as the educational failures of students impacted by it was perceived as the result from flawed values and characteristics of native culture itself, rather than from the assumptions and implementation of English-only education (Aylward, 4). The Push for Reform: Bilingual Education Reform of the education system had its roots in a fundamental, global movement against colonialism, as well as the negative ideologies which underpinned colonial regimes. Political movements around the world focused on the rights of socially oppressed and native communities, emphasizing the decolonization not only of political systems which had previously excluded native communities as well as colonial ideologies as represented in literature, history, education, music and art. This anti-colonial movement began at the end of World War II; by 1950 the United Nations had already issued a recommendation that students be educated in their mother tongue (Patrick & Shearwood253). In the case of Inuit education, this recommendation was not implemented until the 1970’s including teacher training for native instructors. This shift, some analysts argue took place in the context of the push by French-speaking Canadians for bilingualism in education and the public sphere more generally. It also occurred in the context of a renewed movement for a positively-defined native identity as well as land claims by native communities (Salokangas 17). These claims ultimately resulted in the establishment of Nunavut by as a geographic territory in 1999. These two contextual factors which resulted in educational reform in the 1970’s represent two distinct ideological approaches and justification for bilingual education. From the perspective of the United Nations and non-native reformers, bilingual education was seen as a economic and practical necessity as religious instruction declined as a key aim of native education. Meanwhile, the influence of the Quebecois push for bilingual education meant that one key strand of reform retained both the structure and the colonial ideology of education that viewed native languages and cultures as second best, and Other. The main goals of education would continue to be primarily economic and in many respects cultural, including an emphasis on timeliness and attendance (McLaughlin 1987) On the other hand, native activists around the world pushed for a more fundamental ideological shift in education and elsewhere. In this approach, mother tongue instruction would help to cement a new, native subjectivity which rejected the colonial mentality of cultural hierarchy and assist students in “decolonizing” their minds. From this perspective, the goals of education would also be radically different than those of missionaries, government and industry. Primarily education would be a venue for teaching social values, transmitting cultural information, and developing art, science and literature. This vision was premised on a distinct understanding of children and students not as blank slates, but as individuals embedded in cultural life as well as family and other social relationships (Salokangas). The resulting reform and implementation of bilingual education was something of a compromise. While the structure of education closely mimicked the culturally western approach taken in both French and English schools of Southern Quebec (Patrick), the institution incorporated many more radical-minded educators as teachers and administrators of the new curricula. This tension led to some of the contradictions within the system of bilingual education, and directly corresponds to some of the important critiques of the policy and practice of Inuit education. The Reality of Bilingual Education: Evaluation and Critique Bilingual education is the main pillar of language protection and promotion in Nunvut, and part of a larger strategy to indigenize institutions and establish “local control” (). These goals, in themselves represent the culmination of a movement for empowerment, and seem to be having some positive benefits with respect to language and community (Hot 183). First, bilingualism and literacy in the Inuit mother tongue is having a positive impact on the survival and adaptation of a language that was once under threat of repression and potentially destruction at the hands of colonial authorities and English-only schools The vast majority of houses in all three regions of the Inuit territory are bilingual, with the result that the language is under no current threat of disappearing (Hot 184). In fact, the major writing system of the Inuit language, syllabics invented by missionaries early in the century, has even achieved the status of being enshrined by Microsoft as an language option for Windows platforms, facilitating continued literacy as well as publishing in the linguistic system (186). This ubiquity of Inuit language and its continued use as a method of every day communication is thought to have a positive impact on Inuit identity, community cohesion, intergenerational exchange and even economic integration and control at the local level. Most speakers think of Inuit as their primary language since the introduction of bilingual education, while previous familial and community disruption which were the aim of residential schools have been minimized under the new regime. While economic integration of Inuit speakers and communities into the formal economy continues to lag, bilingualism has created some demand in the region for clerks, teachers and other employees who can speak and write in both English and Inuktitut. Nevertheless, literacy is patchy in the native languages, with older mission-educated Inuit likely to be able to read and write syllabics. Researchers have note that the youngest generation, educated in bilingual immersion are largely unable to formulate “abstract” thought or higher order, academic analysis in Inuktitut, and rather use English for these purposes (Hot 185). This directly contradicts any Fanonian fantasy of “decolonization” of exactly such levels of abstract thought, art, literature and academic study that inspired many of the original proponents of the policy. Some experts argue that this failure is the result of substandard teaching, a lack of adequate materials in Inuktitut (Hot 185), the generally low socio-economic status of the Inuit community, or even cultural differences that lead to high rates of absenteeism, tardiness, and dropping out of school all together in Nunavut (Mackay & Myles, 1995). At the same time, neither political nor economic self-sufficiency nor integration, more conservative goals of language reform in Inuit education are also mixed in their results. The government of Nunavut is still struggling to adopt Inuktitut as a fully equal language of government business and policy (Hot 186). Instead, Inuit culture has been boiled down to a list of key “cultural” concepts accessible on the Department of Human Resources website, which read like generic corporate boilerplate horseshoed into Inuit terms. Relevant to education the Department of Human Resources explains: Pilimmaksarniq: Concept of Skills and Knowledge Acquisition The concept of skills and knowledge acquisition and capacity building is central to the success of Inuit in a harsh environment. Building personal capacity in Inuit ways of knowing and doing are key expectations for students. Demonstrating empowerment to lead a successful and productive life, that is respectful of all, is a powerful end goal of our educational system. This description of this concept is highly individualist and bears little similarity to the integrated, collective approach taken to education and “skills acquisition” in pre-colonial times. The description reinforces the sense of continued dispossession from culture within the ecuational system. As a result, pupils are neither prepared to take up posts as bilingual public servants, educators or private sector workers, nor are they equipped to leave Nunavut for greener economic pastures and mastery of English language as an important method of communication in the wider Canadian economy. Meanwhile, researchers and academics from all quarters despair that education in Nunavut, for reasons relating to bilingualism and others continues to suffer from a general lack of quality. Increased funding may be required to promote full literacy in syllabics in the schooling system, and in particular to develop age-appropriate materials in Inuktitut at all levels (Hot 192). Improved social support may also have a critical impact on the effectiveness of bilingual education; Inuit women report school leaving at high rates due to the lack of access to child care for their own children as well as for younger siblings (ibid). These findings, which reflect the continued dominance of English literacy in Nunavut as well as the failures of the educational system suggest that the anti-colonial aims of education reform remain elusive (Salokangas 15), despite cultivating a sense of identity and repairing some damage to community and family cohesion as experienced as a result of the wrenching practice of residential schools and English-only education (Schwab& Sutherland 2001), (Winkley & McInerney, 1998). For some critics, this result itself represents a new form of colonial subjugation, through benign neglect, underdevelopment and a cultural essentialism that posits remaining failures as inherent. Conclusion Bilingual education had limited success in achieving its original aims. While Inuit subjectivity has been strengthened in the process of policy change, cultural imperialism in education and society as a whole have not been entirely eliminated. The continued underfunding and under-functioning of the education system in Nunavut as a whole, as well as the bilingual aspects of the education system have resulted in producing more cohesive communities, but also school-leavers who are not equally literate in both languages and are unprepared for the economic opportunities available both within and outside of their communities For some, this lived reality of education reform, rather than a panacea, is a continuation of colonial subjugation and disempowerment. For others, these difficulties merely represent the need for continued reform and further investment in the materials and practice of bilingual education in Nunavut. References Aylward, M. L. (2007). 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