Paul Martin heads aboriginal business program
A new pilot program headed by former prime minister Paul Martin will give aboriginal students more business training so they can help develop their local economies.
The project aims to encourage more aboriginals to pursue careers in accounting by placing promising students with mentors from two major accounting firms in Fort Frances, Ont., and Brantford, Ont.
Martin said the program presents a "small but promising window" to allow students to pursue careers in accounting and business that they hadn't previously considered.
"Accountancy is such a basic part of the whole financial world, and the whole financial world is such an important part of the business world that it just was a natural," he said a news conference Monday.
"There are not a lot of aboriginal accountants in this country and the recruitment is very slow."
Chief Gary Allen from the Nigigoonsiminikaaning First Nation in Fort Frances said his community needs to train people who can assess the financial benefits of different projects such as mining, forestry and tourism.
"In my community, in terms of economic development, we're looking at water power generation, we're looking at partnerships in mining, we're looking at partnerships in forestry, tourism," Allen said.
"And one key component of all those is finance – looking at the demographics, looking at forecasting and the economic benefits. So we need to develop the capacity at an early level, because our students just are not picking up these trades."
Up to six students will participate in the mentoring program at three high schools in Ontario in the first year – two in Brantford and one in Fort Frances.
Kevin Dancey, head of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, said he hopes the project will eventually expand across the country.
"We are starting small – two to three students in Fort Frances and five to six students in Brantford," Dancey said.
"It is important to start with a pilot, to learn from it, and to make sure we are doing this right."
The partnership, which stemmed in part from the friendship between Martin and Dancey, isn't seeking any government funding and will be largely supported by Martin's Aboriginal Initiative as well as by the participating accounting firms, BDO Dunwoody in Fort Frances and KPMG in Brantford.

Summary: Mr. Martin is making a program to teach and help Aboriginal people to become successful business men.

Questions: Do you think this is a good idea?
Do you think this program will create a greater population of Aboriginal people in Canada?
What other programs could help the Aboriginal people?

Wayne Gretzky skated among his players Monday morning at Madison Square Garden, wearing a baseball cap and yelling instructions. The group of young players who make up the majority of the Phoenix Coyotes were listening with puppylike curiosity. The older players, however, the ones who remember Gretzky’s genius as a player from having seen him across the ice, might have appreciated the wisdom he was sharing even more.
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Fred Sjostrom, center, had the Rangers’ best view of the goal by Blair Betts, near left, that tied the score in the first period.

If it happens on ice and it involves hitting and scoring, The Times Slap Shot blog is on it.Gretzky could have regaled them with stories about his great days at the Garden, the three seasons he played for the Rangers. But now, as the Coyotes’ coach, in New York to face the Rangers on Monday night, Gretzky had more pressing issues at hand. He stands at the center of a franchise trying to mold itself around him, with its success and his still very much in doubt.
The Coyotes have made the playoffs only five times since moving to Phoenix in 1996, and not in the past five seasons. The franchise, which began as the Winnipeg Jets in the World Hockey Association, has won only two playoff series in its N.H.L. history (in 1985 and ’87).
It is now banking on a combination of Gretzky magic, a roster with 10 players who are 23 or younger, and a few veterans mixed in to help. So far, it is not working very well. The Coyotes’ 4-1 loss to the Rangers on Monday was their sixth straight loss, and Phoenix has fallen to 8-10-2 after a strong start.
“Wayne has tremendous patience, and that’s what it takes,” said Coyotes General Manager Don Maloney, a former Rangers player and executive. “It’s really a leap of faith for us to stay patient with young players. There is significant pressure for us to be better, to get to the playoffs. We’ve got 18- and 19-year-olds that we have to play. It’s a challenge.”
Both sides of that challenge showed Monday night. The Coyotes played their up-tempo offensive style, taking 36 shots against the Rangers, who rarely yield that many. Phoenix started well and took a 1-0 lead 4 minutes 8 seconds into the game on a goal by Enver Lisin, a 22-year-old forward just called up from the minors.
The Rangers (15-7-2) then took control, tying the game on a goal by Blair Betts at 13:33 of the first period, and going ahead 1:15 into the second on Brandon Dubinsky’s first goal in 14 games. Nikolai Zherdev had three assists, and Henrik Lundqvist made 35 saves.
“It’s a tough scenario for our young guys to go through because I can tell they’re getting a little bit frustrated,” Gretzky said. “It’s hard to score at this level and it’s hard to be successful, but you have to continue at it. I don’t know what to say right now other than I know my team is working hard. If they keep working like that, good things are going to happen eventually.”
Gretzky is 115-132-19 in three-plus seasons as a coach, but he has found energy in the youth movement of the past two years. The Coyotes finished fourth in the Pacific Division last season, a step up from three straight fifth-place finishes, and the promise is there. They have spectacular second-year forwards like Peter Mueller and Kyle Turris, and are bringing along this year’s first-round draft pick, Mikkel Boedker.
“They’ve got some real good talent, but it might take a few years,” said Rangers forward Fred Sjostrom, who was one of the Coyotes’ young players before he was traded to the Rangers on Feb. 26. “That’s the process. They can be a team to reckon with in the future.”
The strength of the Coyotes’ young talent prompted management to swing a significant trade this summer, acquiring the 29-year-old center Olli Jokinen from Florida for defensemen Keith Ballard and Nick Boynton and a draft pick. In Jokinen, the Coyotes added a top-tier center, a player who consistently scored among the league’s leaders despite being on a consistently bad team. He had 91 points two seasons ago for Florida, which was 12th in the Eastern Conference.
“I believe this franchise is going in the right direction,” Jokinen said. “It’s been fun, to see these young guys. Their goal is just to be better every day. Their work ethic and their attitude that they bring to the rink every day, it’s amazing. The next few years are going to be a lot of fun.”
But how long it takes for the fun to arrive is the question. Maloney acknowledges they are under pressure to show strides this season and to make the playoffs, no small feat in the Western Conference.
They are counting on the Gretzky magic taking hold soon.
“I think Wayne has hung in there long enough to be no longer that superstar player that may or may not last as a coach,” Maloney said. “He came through that. I think he’s a good coach. He’s got unbelievable instincts and tremendous patience with our group. That’s what this franchise needs.”
SLAP SHOTS
The Rangers snapped a two-game losing streak. ... Center Scott Gomez returned to the lineup after missing five games with a stress fracture in his ankle. He had the most ice time of any Ranger (22:40), and had an empty-net goal.


Summary:This article is about Wayne Gretzkys struggles whith his team and what they need to improve on.


Questions: What was the Coyotes name before they were the Coyotes?

How do you think Gretzky feels about his teams struggle to win?

Do you think the Coyotes will improve?

posted by Sam Harding

article from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/sports/hockey/25rangers.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=slogin

From lacrosse to hockey

http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/Hockey/English/Amateur/everyone.html

Aboriginal
From lacrosse to hockey


The true origins of ice hockey are unknown. Several theories suggest successive borrowing from sports such as the English game of bandy, the Scottish game of shinty, the Irish game of hurley, or lacrosse, as played by Aboriginal peoples.
Members of the First Nations can be proud to have influenced Canada's national sport. The Aboriginal nations of North America have for a long time "run a stick across the snow", an activity known as "Snow-Snake". Some sources also suggest that the word "hockey" is derived from the Aboriginal word "ho-ghee", which is the name for a common injury in the game of lacrosse.
Since 1920, the Micmacs of Nova Scotia have made hockey sticks out of a single piece of wood. Very popular among North American teams, these homemade sticks were used by players until 1930. Like Canadians, the First Nations created hockey leagues. The number of games grew, the players improved and several were recruited by the National Hockey League.
Former NHL players:
2001 NHL players:
George Armstrong Henry Boucha John Bucyk John ChabotRon Delorme Stan Johnathon Wayne King John Kordic Reggie Leach Jim Neilson Ted NolanDale McCourtArthur QuoquochiEverett SanipassGary Sargent Fred Saskamoose Bryan TrottierGrant Fuhr Eddie OlcyzkDan Kordic
Arron AshamBlair Atcheynum Craig BerubeDan Cloutier Theo Fleury Stu GrimsonDenny Lambert Norm MaracleSandy McCarthy Jamie McLennenBrantt MyhersGino Odjick Rich Pilon Rudy Poeschek Wade ReddenJamie RiversSheldon SourayHarry York Chris Simon
The Great Canadian North: heated up by hockey fever
In spite of the harsh winters and glacial temperatures typical of Canada's north, hockey fever swept Nunavut. With snow harder than cement and the iciest of winds, the Inuit communities adopted hockey as their national sport.
The inhabitants of Rankin Inlet, in the Kivalliq region of Nunavut, have only been playing ice hockey for about forty years. There were humble beginnings for the players of this sport, as huge cracks across the ice posed obstacles to skaters, the goalies used baseball gloves or caribou skin mitts to stop the puck and the early winters kept the players from lacing up.
In about 1975, an old building, the "Dome", was used as an arena. The natural ice was very thin and the heating non-existent. At least the hockey players were shielded from the wind blowing at -30 degrees Celsius. The fans gladly travelled by snowmobile to and from the arena to watch games. The "Dome" became the Forum for the inhabitants of Rankin Inlet.
In the following decades, hockey became increasingly popular. A real stadium was built and the Rankin Inlet Minor Hockey Association was created. The teams faced off against ones from Yellowknife, Hay River, Churchill, Alberta and Iqaluit at various tournaments.
The people of Nunavut now hope to see one of their hockey players don an actual NHL sweater.

Summary:
This article suggests that the game of hockey comes from the game lacrosse as played by the Aboriginals. It talks about how the game of hockey has spread through the Aboriginal community.

Connection: This article is connected to Aboriginals and the history of one of the sports they play.

Questions:
1. What was the Aboriginal name for hockey?
2. What was the name of the common lacrosse injury suffered by the Aboriginals?
3. What do the Aboriginas dream of for one of their hockey players?

First Nation groups attempt to crash Tory convention

About 50 Aboriginal protesters attempted to gain access to the Conservative Party policy convention held in Winnipeg to present a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Nov. 13.
The group included First Nations people from across Canada who were in the city for the Defenders of the Land Gathering to strategize for recognition of land rights they say are not recognized by both provincial and federal jurisdictions.
Initially group spokeswoman Harmony Rice denied the gathering was being held in Winnipeg because of the Conservative Party policy convention or that the presentation of the letter was a protest.
But at the organizational meeting and workshops earlier that afternoon many confirmed that was precisely the reason why they were in Winnipeg.
Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation Band Councillor Sam Mckay, one of six community members jailed earlier this year for defying a court order by not allowing a mining company access to their traditional lands in northern Ontario, said his attendance at the conference was pretty simple.
“We realized that we couldn’t resolve our land issues in the courts,” said Mckay. “So we have to strategize to protect our lands from further development.”
Mckay estimates his First Nation has spent $700,000 on what he calls a futile court battle and has left his band close to bankrupt.
“They used the courts to bankrupt us and then thought we would just sit on our hands,” he said. “They were wrong.
“Now we have to do what we have to do to protect our land. It’s ours and the province of Ontario and that company have no rights to it,” said Mckay.
“I’m willing to die to defend our land. After all, what have I got to lose? We’re already broke.”
Milton Born With A Tooth of the Blackfoot Nation in southern Alberta met with RCMP in front of the Winnipeg Convention Centre to ensure the group’s concerns would not fall on deaf ears.
“I was surprised,” said Born With A Tooth, who claims to be known to the RCMP in Alberta. “They were respectful of our right to voice our concerns and we wanted to communicate that our intentions were respectful.
“I wasn’t expecting that kind of reaction from them,” he said noting they weren’t allowed inside to attend the convention as observers.
Though the letter was delivered as planned the event nearly didn’t happen due to disorganization. A media release issued that afternoon said the letter would be delivered at 6 p.m., but at 5:40 it had yet to be completed, nor had anyone left for the Winnipeg Convention Centre in Winnipeg’s downtown.
A plainclothes RCMP member was later seen scampering up the escalator with the letter.
No one from the conservative party was available for comment to confirm the letter was received by the PMO.
But later on that evening, as reported by the Canadian Press, Harper exalted his government as serving the interest of all Canadians. Harper also said the party must live up to the wide regional representation it achieved during the Oct. 14 election.
“We must listen to all voices, whether they supported us or not,” he said in a speech whose repetitive refrain cast Conservatives as “Canada's party.”
The group included representation from the Maliseet Nation in New Brunswick, Moose, Mushkego, Woodlands and Plains Cree, Anishinabe, Gixstan, Blackfoot Confederacy, Sioux, Six Nations, Mohawk, and Chippewa people from the northern United States.

Ontario's forgotten children: Making the grade

Up here north of 50, in a town unmarked on maps and unlinked by road to anywhere at all but primeval woodland, there lives a genius girl who may be doomed.

She looks like any 9-year-old, perched at her bedroom computer in T-shirt and jeans, downloading Eminem and giggling at "South Park versus The Simpsons."

But Kayla Rae has a gift. She can do math better than 99 per cent of kids her age anywhere, not just here in North Spirit Lake, a tiny fly-in reserve northwest of Thunder Bay.

The psychologist who tested Kayla says she could grow up to be anything she wants; she could be the one to cure cancer, she's that smart.

"I can do Grade 6 subtraction and I'm only in Grade 4," she boasts. "My teacher Joseph lets me stay for lunch to do extra work."

Kayla loves to learn. She has only missed two days this year at her seven-room grade school; both times she was sent home with a fever.

But there's more to Kayla's story. She keeps falling asleep at her desk. She has been crying lately after school and she won't tell teacher Joseph Farsang why. Last week, she bombed a quiz that Farsang was sure she would ace.

And there's something else. Her shoulders slump, she falls back in her chair and drops her eyes.

"I can't read," Kayla mumbles, hanging her head. "I don't know how."Anywhere else in Ontario, a 9-year-old non-reader who is fatigued and depressed would unleash an army of experts, from reading specialists to social workers. There might be an annoying wait, but help would come.

But not here, in fly-in communities like the 24 that make up Sioux Lookout District First Nations, which stretches from Lake Superior to Hudson Bay.

Here, that safety net so taken for granted in the south disappears, and some of neediest children in Canada are left without the help they need to learn.

There is no literacy consultant Farsang can ask why a child with an almost photographic memory for numbers cannot master her alphabet. There is no social worker here, 660 kilometres from Thunder Bay, to listen when Kayla speaks of an aunt who hanged herself.

This is ground zero of the growing education gap between Canada's native and non-native children.

In native schools on reserves, which are paid for by the federal government instead of the province, educators say there is too little help for children with heartbreaking need.

Local communities say they are left to run schools with empty bookshelves, loose teaching requirements, rampant turnover, no mandatory curriculum, no system for checking how well students are doing and no money to fly in experts to determine why even bright students like Kayla sometimes can't learn.

Here, in tiny grade schools sprinkled across the north, Canada's booming ranks of First Nations children start to fall to last place. By Grade 12, nearly 60 per cent will drop out in frustration and either head home or hit big-city streets, roughly twice the dropout rate anywhere else in Canada. A study of 1,800 children in Grades 1, 3, 5 and 7 in Sioux Lookout communities in 2003-04 found that more than 86 per cent were at least two grade levels behind in both literacy and numeracy, which would classify them as special needs students under Ontario's education system.

At first glance, the tangle of obstacles facing these children seems insurmountable; the hunger pangs of poverty, the brain damage and hearing loss of fetal alcohol syndrome, the mistrust of education among families still living with the memory of residential school abuse, the inherited despair of a welfare community where as few as 1 in 4 have jobs; the truancy of children whose parents are often addicted to crack cocaine and alcohol.

Just last Monday in North Spirit Lake, the school cancelled classes because only 20 of the 70 students were sent to school.

But dysfunctional families bear only part of the blame.

Canada's auditor-general has sounded the alarm twice in five years over woefully inadequate federal funding for native schools, and Ottawa is slated to meet with aboriginal leaders next month in a policy retreat to seek ways to shrink the learning gap.

Locally, a small number of band councils have been guilty of steering education dollars away from the classroom.

And some communities are just too small and remote to have the police and social services to ensure the kind of calm and safe environment that children learn in best.

Yet no matter how small the fly-in reserve, it will have a grade school, which is why native leaders have zeroed in on schools as the place where change must start.

In Northern Ontario, a group of native educators say they have the makings of a plan for schooling that could be a first step out of the despair that has haunted these communities.

They admit it takes heavy lifting to remove the obstacles facing these children, but that's exactly what specialists like speech pathologists, psychologists and occupational therapists are trained to do. These consultants used to be flown into remote reserves back when Ottawa ran the schools 20 years ago.

So now Sioux Lookout District wants to bring them back, so struggling children here get the same help as they would anywhere else in Ontario. Moreover, they also want to make schools a hub that can reach out and address some of the larger social issues, from parenting to literacy.

They believe that the cycle of despair can be broken slowly, child by child.

Without it, the future seems grim.

What hope is there for bright prankster Samuel Meekis, a North Spirit kindergarten student whose birth defect means he cannot speak, cannot fully hear and breathes through a tube in his throat?

A Winnipeg doctor has said Samuel needs speech therapy every day, but the closest therapist is in Thunder Bay.

Samuel's classroom aide, Chrystal, has no special training. She spends much of her time answering school phones, because the secretary was laid off earlier this month when funding ran out. When Chrystal does find time for Samuel, she teaches him sign language from a book, even though no one else in town knows sign language, including his mother.

What hope is there for Gerald Ignace, an affable 12-year-old who has brain damage caused by fetal alcohol syndrome?

Gerald is North Spirit's unofficial Welcome Wagon; wandering the streets pulling his empty red wagon, he greets visitors with cheery questions.

"Do you have a dog? What's your mom's name?"

The next day he will ask them again.

In school, Gerald also has an aide called a "tutor-escort" who admits he has no notion how to help the boy learn. Angus Rae sets a timer for Gerald to sit still for 15 minutes and copy down words. Gerald can't understand what he reads; he just copies the symbols. Psychologists say he would be better off learning life skills like how not to poke people or wander into homes without knocking.

This is why you need people who know how to evaluate special need, say the educators of the Sioux Lookout District first Nations.

"The social factors facing our children make our special education caseload so much higher than other places, but we have no resources to help them," says David Kakegamic, education director at Sandy Lake First Nations, a fly-in reserve north of North Spirit.

"I have 94 students on a waiting list for formal assessment, but no money to get that done. We need the resources to help our children be ready to learn at par with children in Thunder Bay or Toronto," he says.

Through a proposed $5-million pilot project called Saving Our Children, the Sioux Lookout District Education Planning Committee has called for social workers, reading consultants, speech therapists and psychologists to fly in on a regular basis to help figure out how best to help children like Kayla, Gerald and Samuel.

The plan also urges the creation of pre-school centres, adult literacy programs, parenting help, books for the community and annual eye and ear exams in the schools.

It is a first step, but an indispensable one. The alternative is another generation of children ill-equipped with the skills to graduate from high school, go on to higher learning and become informed citizens ready to take decision-making roles at home and in the wider world.

So far, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada has rejected the proposal.

Meanwhile, a growing chorus of native and non-native advocates say the current system has gone on long enough:

Canada's Auditor-General Sheila Fraser slammed Ottawa last November for failing native children who live on reserves. She said school funding is so inadequate compared to provincial public schools that it will take 28 years for them to catch up to the high school graduation rates of their non-native peers.

Former Premier Bob Rae was so alarmed by the learning gap between native and non-native children as he reviewed post-secondary education for the Ontario government that he called for a plan to encourage more native students to pursue higher learning.

Ontario Lieutenant-Governor James Bartleman, whose mother is Ojibwa, is so concerned about the reserves he calls "Ontario's Third World" that he has sent more than a million books to fill the empty class shelves and will start summer literacy camps this July. He has twinned 100 northern native schools with schools in the south, which have pledged to send books to fill the empty library shelves.

"It's just criminal that the same opportunities are not in these isolated communities," said Bartleman in a recent interview. "If they don't get educated, they have disdain for themselves and others, they become a menace to themselves and others and in the end, the taxpayer picks up the cost."

MP Andy Scott, Canada's Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, praises Bartleman's book drive as a "value-added" gesture, but agrees it doesn't let Ottawa off the hook for improving native schools.

He says education is now recognized as the key to closing the sizeable gap in quality of life between native and non-native communities.

"The past is full of examples of failed efforts to solve the problem ... but it's fair to say education is the driver on closing that gap. It's one of the most critical issues," said Scott in an interview yesterday. He said a policy retreat May 31 will see government and aboriginal leaders seek ways to shrink the learning gap, and admits "much more money will be needed."

But artist Saul Williams says native children are not getting a fair shake.

"I'm sorry to say it, but these are racist standards at play across the north, and a whole generation of children are being cheated right here in Ontario," says Williams, education director at Weagamow First Nations, a fly-in reserve an hour north of North Spirit by bush plane.

"Where else would there be such a double standard? Our children don't have the same opportunity as other children in the same province."

While the per-student operating grant on a reserve school is not always vastly different from the per-student grant anywhere else in Ontario - about $7,500 a year - its buying power can be only half as strong, say educators, because of the high cost of doing business in the north.

These are isolated communities where everything has to be flown in and out, so even bananas for a morning snack program cost $4.45 a kilogram. Communities cannot afford their own psychologist or speech pathologist, and it can cost up to $4,000 to send a student and accompanying adult to a big city such as Winnipeg to see a specialist.

Unlike the 2 million children in public schools run by the province, whose reading and math skills are the focus of a new Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat and squads of roving specialists who visit schools preaching the latest reading techniques, children on reserves are on their own.

Schools are "encouraged" to follow the provincial curriculum, but no one checks to make sure that's the case, and there's no money to conduct the kind of regular testing that happens elsewhere in the province.

Teacher turnover is rampant because the isolation can be brutal. It often costs $400 by bush plane, each way, to reach the nearest library, gym or coffee shop. Joseph Farsang is the third teacher in Kayla's class this year. It doesn't help that the conditions can be rough. North Spirit's teachers' quarters had no heat or running water for weeks this winter.

In the rest of Ontario, teachers are required to have a university degree. Many remote reserves have native teachers who did not finish university, and sometimes not Grade 12, but who earn an abridged form of a bachelor of education degree recognized only on reserves. The abridged degree was itself an attempt at a solution, because it can be easier to train a local resident to become a teacher than to attract and keep more educated professionals from down south.But even fully certified teachers like Joseph Farsang can feel over their head.

"I step into my class where half the students have some sort of special need, and I feel like I have stepped into murky, fast-running water that follows the rules of the wild," he says.

"We are in survival mode here, and many teachers give up and leave, heartbroken for life."

His Grade 5 students read at a Grade 1 level. Teacher Laura Marchand's Grade 8 students read at a Grade 4 level. Marchand, a retired Vancouver Island principal, doubles here as principal in her spare time, on weekends.

In truth, Marchand feels more like a social worker, keeping close watch on the girls who are thin, not because they are on diets, but because there is no food at home. She quietly slips some of them food.

But while she weeps openly for children who live in homes of such poverty and neglect, she dare not ask too much lest she be compelled to call Children's Aid and lose another student to foster care far away.

"It's very discouraging to work with these dear children who have so many problems and no resources to help them. It was easier running a school of 580 students in the south than this small school of 70 children."

Two years ago, leaders of the Sioux Lookout District First Nations became so alarmed about their students' poor achievement that they pooled $500,000 from their special education budgets, added $90,000 from Health Canada and hired a psychologist to come in and test them.

In the largest study of its kind in Canada, Thunder Bay psychologist Mary-Beth Minthorn-Biggs assessed 1,800 children in Grades 1, 3, 5 and 7 across 22 native communities over 2003-04. She used the Canadian Test of Basic Skills, which measures reading, vocabulary and simple math ability and tested each child twice within one school year.

Her results were devastating. More than 86 per cent were at least two grades behind. In Ontario schools, any child lagging that far behind would be classified as special needs, and extra funding would kick in for each student. Funding doesn't work that way for schools on Indian land, which get an extra 11 per cent added to their overall education funding for all special education needs.

To learn why students scored so poorly, the Sioux Lookout chiefs then hired Minthorn-Biggs to take in a team of doctors, community workers, a psychologist and academic assistant to conduct full medical, educational and home assessments on 130 children at Sandy Lake.

Again, these results were shocking;

53 per cent of children had a hearing or vision problem that interferes with their learning; 71 children need glasses for distance, yet only five have been prescribed glasses;

23 per cent had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder, which affects short-term memory, hearing, impulse control and intelligence;

54 per cent of children said they do not have enough food to eat.

"Where is the parity for these Canadian children?" asks Minthorn-Biggs. "When someone immigrates to Canada, we welcome them with the gift of education. We guarantee them all the opportunities provided to children who were born here; supports that range from special education to ESL.

"But with First Peoples, it's different. I know we can't change what happened in the past. We can certainly work to ensure these beautiful children have the same opportunity as my kids have in the city."

Sioux Lookout District education directors like David Kakegamic and Saul Williams were so outraged at the results, that they proposed an urgent $5-million, three-year pilot project called Saving Our Children, which would fly in a team of assessment experts twice a year to these communities to evaluate the children, and assign one special education resource teacher for every four communities to work closely with the schools on helping needy students. It includes early literacy and pre-school centres, adult literacy programs to encourage parents and grandparents to read with their children, parenting help for families, books for the community and annual eye and ear exams in the schools.

But the government has said no. The proposal was turned down more than a year ago by Katherine Knott, director of education in Ontario for the federal department of Indian and Northern Affairs.

This month, Knott also turned down Sandy Lake's request for $104,000 to assess 94 needy students.

When the Star asked Knott about the needs revealed by the Sioux Lookout study, she said she is not convinced it used a definition of "special need" consistent with definitions in other school jurisdictions.

"We're working with First Nations groups to develop some consistency and understanding over what 'high needs' really means and how you address it," said Knott in a telephone interview.

"Is there adequate funding to assess every student? No. Is there a need to establish priorities for education spending? Yes.

"Can the public purse support the needs of all these children? That's a difficult question."

Veteran teacher Anne Williams remembers when the public purse did better at supporting native students, back when Ottawa ran the schools and supported a system of regular assessment and support.

When Ottawa turned over control of native schools to First Nations bands themselves in 1991, it withdrew those supports.

Like school boards anywhere that complain they get too little money to do their job properly, native leaders say inadequate funding has left them helpless to serve the children.

"When I came here in 1984, we had reading specialists and speech pathologists and occupational therapists who would fly in to our communities to help the children; we didn't have to fly the kids and their families out," said Williams, a non-native Grade 3-4 teacher married to education director Saul Williams.

"We're so concerned about our kids' falling behind that a group of experienced teachers did our own unofficial assessment and found that in a school of 120 children, 92 appear to have special needs.

"But we have one special education teacher - and one is not enough."

For now, the Sioux Lookout District chiefs have enough money left to hire Minthorn-Biggs for one last visit to a few schools to run fleeting assessments on the most needy of their children. Wherever she alights, she gets a hero's welcome and is whisked off to see as many children as possible.

Sandy Lake's special education teacher Karen Petz was desperate for Minthorn-Biggs' help with several children who will not speak.

Draven is a favourite of this teacher with 17 years of experience in special education in Ottawa-area schools. The affectionate boy cannot seem to form words, but he understands what is being said and does a victory dance when he gets something right. He looks like a football player who has just scored a touchdown.

But Petz is winging it with Draven; trying two different tactics; teaching him simple sign language so he can communicate and trying to help him to begin to make sounds.

"Am I doing the right thing?" she frets. "I'm no speech pathologist. I desperately need help. An expert would know from the placement of Draven's tongue whether his problem is structural, or whether it's something else. An audiologist would know whether these children can't speak because they have partial hearing loss.

"And it's now always possible to detect the effects of FAS. These are things I need to know the cause of before I can really help these children.

"Without it, it's like knowing someone is dizzy, but not knowing why. You can make sure they don't fall down, but that doesn't stop the problem."

Draven smiles and sits at the table in the airy special education room at Sandy Lake's elementary school. Petz puts her fingers on either side of her mouth and pulls. "Eee," she sounds.

Draven mimics her and makes the sound. "Oh yay!" he calls out, when he hears himself.

"Oh yay indeed," Petz laughs, and gives him a hug.

From the sidelines, Minthorn-Biggs steps in. She asks him to touch his finger to his nose, to put up three fingers, to move pegs on a board.

Her hunch is that Draven's problem is "structural," that is, a problem involving the formation of his mouth, not a problem of intelligence or hearing problem. So she tells Petz to carry on with her program with Draven as quickly as he can go.

Another boy comes in who won't talk. He looks nervous. Minthorn-Biggs runs a number of quick exercises, then sets down her pencil.

"When did you go to bed last night, dear?" she asks him.

Late. "Were your parents there?" Yes. On a hunch, she asks if they were drinking.

Yes.

And in the gentle questions that follow, it becomes clear that the child lives in a home of drinking and fighting so frequent, he often goes to stay with a friend.

Petz had not thought to ask this sort of question, but from now on she will.

"You can't learn if you're scared," Minthorn-Biggs tells Petz.

"It's always helpful to have a bigger picture."

Summary: This article is about Native education and why most children are way below their grade level in school.

Connection: The connnection of this article is that it is about First Nations.

Questions:

1. Do you think it's fair to the 20 children who showed up at school just to find out it was cancelled because the other 50 kids didn't show up?

2. Why do you think that a large percentage of the students have disorders?

3. Why do you think that the 9 year old girl is now flunking tests even though she used to do grade 6 math.

Residential schools ‘a sad chapter in our history,’ Harper tells First Nations

'Sad chapter in our history'



National Post
Meagan Fitzpatrick and Linda Nguyen, Canwest News Service

http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=580506

Published: Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Chris Wattie/Reuters


OTTAWA -- Canada's historic apology to residential school survivors is underway in the House of Commons and aboriginal leaders and former students are watching closely in the hopes the prime minister's words signal an era of healing and reconciliation.

"I stand before you today to offer an apology to former students of Indian residential schools. The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter in our history," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said as he began his speech.

Mr. Harper said residential schools aimed to isolate and remove children from the influence of their homes and assimilate them.

"Today we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country," he said.

Many students were abused at the schools, including the current leader of the Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine. He participated in a traditional smudging ceremony in the foyer of the House of Commons where saged smoke was burned to clear away negative spirits before he entered the Commons to hear the apology.

The sounds of pounding drums and chanters echoed through the halls of Parliament Hill where hundreds of people lined up to sit in the public galleries of the Commons.

While several churches have apologized for their roles in residential schools, Wednesday marks the first official apology from the federal government.

It comes after the establishment of a five-year Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission -- part of a $2-billion settlement reached in 2006 among the government, churches and about 90,000 former students.

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion said: "Today, we representatives of the Canadian people, apologize to those who survived residential schools and to those who died as a result of the laws enacted by previous Parliaments. And by speaking directly to survivors and victims today on the floor of the House of Commons, we apologize to those who died waiting for these words to be spoken and these wrongs acknowledged."

About 150,000 children were taken from their families and forced to attend the state-funded, church-run schools that aimed to remove aboriginal language and culture from several generations of children.

Mr. Harper acknowledged many students were inadequately fed, clothed and housed and "deprived of the care and nurturing of their parents, grandparents and communities."

"Tragically, some of these children died while attending residential schools and others never returned home," the prime minister said.

He expressed regret that they are not here to receive the apology.

Mr. Harper said some former students have spoken positively about their experiences at residential schools, but that their stories are overshadowed by stories of those who suffered emotional, sexual and physical abuse.

The legacy of the schools has contributed to social problems that exist today in aboriginal communities, the prime minister said, and that the absence of an apology has impeded reconciliation.

"Therefore on behalf of the Government of Canada and all Canadians, I stand before you, in this chamber so central to our life as a country, to apologize to Aboriginal Peoples for Canada's role in the Indian residential schools system," he said.
"The Government of Canada sincerely apologizes and asks the forgiveness of the Aboriginal Peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly. We are sorry."

The apology began at 3:15 p.m. and seated on the floor of the House of Commons to hear it were Fontaine, Inuit leader Mary Simon, Metis leader Clem Chartier, Patrick Brazeau, national chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, and other native leaders.

Several former students also had front-row seats on the floor of the Commons, which cancelled all official business Wednesday to focus on the apology, including Marguerite Wabano, the oldest known living survivor of the schools.

The 104 year old made the trip to Ottawa from her home in Moosonee, Ont.

"It is a grand day for me, it is a very special day for me to be here and to see what is going to happen today and I feel very thankful I was one of the members to be here," she said earlier in the day through a Cree-speaking translator. "I have been very well received since I have been here, since I arrived in Ottawa and I am very happy to be on Parliament Hill where the prime minister actually works."

Hours before the historic apology, aboriginal leaders expressed a sense of hope that it will set the stage for an era of healing.

"We're grabbing onto some hope that it will be a moment that will lead to a better tomorrow, that the general populace is finally going to be made aware of those severely disruptive policies over generations," said Shawn Atleo, B.C. Assembly of First Nations regional chief, in an interview.

After Mr. Harper's speech, opposition leaders will make statements which will then be followed by a ceremony, outside the Commons, where the apology will be signed by Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl and the prime minister.

Mr. Strahl will address the guests and leaders of aboriginal groups will also make remarks.
Events are being held across the country to mark the historic day and in Ottawa, activities began at the break of dawn on Victoria Island were a sacred fire was lit.

In anticipation of the emotional day for former students and their families, the Assembly of First Nations had health-support workers on hand on Parliament Hill and has a toll-free distress line that is staffed 24-hours a day.

Summary

This article is about a historical day in the House of Commons when Prime Minister Stephen Harper publically apologized to the First Nations community for the terrible treatment of students of Indian residential schools.

Questions

1. Do you believe that this apology is enough considering how these students were abused?

2. Do you think that this apology will bring peace and reconciliation? If so, how?

3. Do you think that Stephen Harper or the government should do more than just apologize? If so, what else could have been done?

Indigenous cultures rivalled those of civilizations around the globe

HAYDEN KING

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081028.wconatives29/BNStory/specialComment/

October 29, 2008 at 3:26 AM EST

Thomas Jefferson once remarked that those who don't read newspapers are better informed than those who do, even as the former may know nothing, the latter only know falsehood and error. This brings to mind Margaret Wente's recent column about Olympic official Dick Pound, who said, "400 years ago, Canada was a land of savages." Ms. Wente's Saturday column has likely set back the first nations' campaign for an accurate representation of native peoples in the mainstream media by 10 years.

In fact, a brief survey of the original peoples of this continent illustrates an array of accomplishments that rival civilizations around the globe, including those in Western Europe. Yet today, in North America, the ancestors of those from both continents live side by side, separated by a canyon of misunderstanding. To gain insight, we need only turn to indigenous oral traditions, wampum belts, birchbark scrolls and Tsalagi and Aztec texts. In addition, scholars of all stripes from all corners of the globe have contributed to a greater knowledge of indigenous cultures.

Perhaps most impressive among their findings is that indigenous peoples were adept farmers, originally cultivating and harvesting two-thirds of the foodstuffs the world consumes today. These include the tomato, peanut, potato, chili peppers and corn. In fact, at the time of contact, and long before Gregor Mendel's experiments with pea plants, the Huron in Ontario had genetically engineered 17 different varieties of corn. Not quite the Stone Age hunter-gatherers of Ms. Wente's column.

But the achievements don't end there. And because Ms. Wente uses European-inspired standards of success when measuring first nations "savagery," a comparison is in order. At a time when the Anishinabek had societal codes forbidding incest, the crowned heads of France and England were as inbred as poodles. While Christians were burning "heretics" at the stake for suggesting the Earth wasn't the centre of the universe, the Mayans were charting the movement of the stars, creating a calendar within seconds of modern-day atomic clocks. The Wet'suwet'en practised a matriarchal society, while on the other side of the Atlantic, women were the property of men.

In addition, and contrary to Ms. Wente's assertion, the Haudenosaunee did influence the U.S. Constitution. American "founding fathers," including Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson, explicitly recorded the first nation contribution. John Rutledge even articulated the structure of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and their "Great Law of Peace" to the drafting committee. (He spoke of a complex federalism whose leaders included executive, legislative and judicial branches — the latter of which were generally a group of elder women). The Haudenosaunee actually practise a 900-year-old democracy and the longest lasting peace between nations in recorded history.

Yet another disturbing aspect of Ms. Wente's column was the dismissal of traditional ecological knowledge — this is the sum knowledge of a given first nation or Inuit community that has been accumulated and amended for thousands of years. Dismissing it reduces us to conclude, for instance, that the Inuit have survived in the world's harshest climate by sheer luck. Of course, this is nonsensical. Sophisticated knowledge of ice flows, animal migrations, wind patterns and temperature fluctuations ensured their success in the past and educates scientists, the military and resource companies in the present.

In fact, such traditional ecological knowledge also significantly contributes to Western medicine: essiac is a cancer treatment, evanta cures leprosy, foxglove aids heart care, kava kava reduces stress, and quinine treats malaria. All of the above are indigenous inventions. Not only can such ecological knowledge save lives, it may also help save the world. First nations peoples have lived sustainably in North America for tens of thousands of years, respecting all life, however small, putting an emphasis on reciprocity and understanding that their relationship with ecosystems is one of life and death. At a time when first nations peoples can teach us so much, Ms. Wente would have us ignore them.

Indigenous cultures were and are diverse and vibrant.

They lived in cities larger than those in contemporary Europe, had greater populations, taller buildings, sophisticated governance structures, varied art forms, tested scientific knowledge and on, and on. What is truly savage is the perpetuation of a false representation of first nations, Métis and Inuit peoples, particularly when they've worked so hard to overcome racism and stereotypes. But perhaps Jefferson was right all along, we shouldn't expect much from newspapers anyway.

Hayden King teaches indigenous studies at McMaster University and is a member of the Beausoleil First Nation on Chimnissing.

Summary

This article is about Mr. King’s strong disagreement with Ms. Wente’s information on first nations, when reporting about Dick Pound’s comments on “savages”. He points out that there is proof they were more advanced in things like farming, ecology, and government, with an example of a 900 year democracy which is the longest lasting peace between nations in recorded history. Mr. King concludes that what is actually savage is Ms Wente’s false reporting.

Questions

1. How do you think it is possible for two reporters to have such different information on the same topic?

2. Did this change your view on Inuit nations?

3. Do you agree with Thomas Jefferson’s quote “those who don't read newspapers are better informed than those who do”?

link to the class

We are studying first nations cultures in History.

What Dick Pound said was really dumb – and also true

MARGARET WENTE

October 24, 2008 at 8:03 PM EST

Was Canada once a land of savages? And is saying so tantamount to racism? Many people would answer no, and yes. That's why Dick Pound, the high-profile Olympics figure, is in a heap of trouble for describing the Canada of four centuries ago as “ un pays de sauvages.” He was talking to a reporter from La Presse about the Beijing Olympics and the issue of human rights. “We must not forget that 400 years ago, Canada was a land of savages, with scarcely 10,000 inhabitants of European descent, while in China, we're talking about a 5,000-year-old civilization,” he said.

Not surprisingly, native groups are up in arms. “Mr. Pound must apologize to first peoples and educate himself about the history of first peoples in this country,” insisted Phil Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. Some want Mr. Pound to resign from Vancouver's Olympics organizing committee, and some want him to quit his post as chancellor of McGill University. He says he wasn't referring to today's native peoples, and he didn't mean to give offence. But critics aren't mollified. B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell calls his remarks “disgraceful.”

“Stupid” is another word that comes to mind. The B.C. government and VANOC have been working furiously – and sparing no expense – to get aboriginal groups on side for the 2010 Winter Games. The last thing they want is for native protests to steal the spotlight. Comments about “savages,” in whatever language, are not helpful.

Mr. Pound's choice of words was inflammatory, to say the least. But what about the underlying thought? Is it fair to say that the Canada of 1600 was not as “civilized” as China?

Yes, says Frances Widdowson, who, along with Albert Howard, is the author of an impressive new book on aboriginal policy and culture. Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry (to be published next month) knocks the stuffing out of the prevailing mythology that surrounds the history of first peoples. That mythology holds that aboriginal culture was equal or superior to European culture. At the time of contact, North America was occupied by a race of gentle pastoralists with their own science, their own medicine and their own oral history that was every bit as rich as Europe's.

The truth is different. North American native peoples had a neolithic culture based on subsistence living and small kinship groups. They had not developed broader laws or institutions, a written language, evidence-based science, mathematics or advanced technologies. The kinship groups in which they lived were very small, simply organized and not very productive. Other kinship groups were regarded as enemies, and the homicide rate was probably rather high. Until about 30 years ago, the anthropological term for this developmental stage was “savagery.”

“Never in history has the cultural gap between two peoples coming into contact with each other been wider,” Ms. Widdowson says.

Today, however, it is simply not permissible to say that aboriginal culture was less evolved than European culture or Chinese culture – even though it's true. Ms. Widdowson argues that the most important explanation for aboriginal problems today is not Western colonialism but the vast gulf between a relatively simple neolithic kinship-based culture and a vastly complex late-industrial capitalist culture. “It doesn't mean that they are stupid or inferior,” says Ms. Widdowson. “We all passed through the stage of neolithic culture.”

The fact that North American cultures never evolved further can be explained, as American evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond showed, by geography, climate and a host of other material factors. But today, it's not acceptable to argue that some cultures are more highly developed than others, or that cultural development is a force for good. Instead, our policies are based on the belief that aboriginal culture is equal but separate, and that the answer to aboriginal social problems is to revive and preserve indigenous culture on a “separate but equal” parallel track.

This belief has produced a sizable industry of academics, consultants, lawyers, social workers and bureaucrats, to say nothing of lucrative sinecures for many aboriginals themselves. Ms. Widdowson once belonged to this industry, as a government policy analyst in the North. She soon became disillusioned and switched to an academic career, where she has been a lonely voice in a world where native spirituality and “traditional knowledge” are held to be just as valid as Western science.

Today, “traditional knowledge,” which generally resides among the elders, is sought after by governments, studied in universities around the world, and recognized in environmental assessment processes. But Ms. Widdowson says most of it is useless – a heap of vague beliefs and opinions that can't be verified or tested. Why have the muskoxen drifted west? Because, according to the elders, the animals were “following the people because they missed them and wanted their company.”

We have romanticized indigenous culture so much that it is often described (especially in native studies courses) as morally superior. Historically, aboriginal people were more spiritual, more egalitarian, more peaceable, less greedy and more ecologically minded than the rest of us. (To which Ms. Widdowson responds, “It's hard to damage the environment with a stone axe.”) People are reluctant to challenge these assumptions. And they're not inclined to challenge indigenous spiritual beliefs, no matter how absurd. For example, anyone who questions the widespread belief that aboriginals originated in North America (rather than Africa, like the rest of us) is bound to be accused of disrespect and cultural insensitivity.

Claims about aboriginal contributions to civilization are also vastly overstated. Did the Iroquois Confederacy really influence the Declaration of Independence? Sorry, no. Do native medicinal herbs play an important role in modern drugs? No. Yet, some leading intellectuals try to argue otherwise. The thesis of John Ralston Saul's new bestseller is that we are at root a Métis civilization, even though he has no evidence to prove it. What is a Métis civilization? That's not too clear, either. But it's a good thing.

Much of our romanticism, of course, is fuelled by guilt. We robbed and mistreated aboriginal people for a very long time, and most of us feel terrible about it. Yet, Ms. Widdowson believes this denial of reality is extremely damaging. It dooms hundreds of thousands of native Canadians and their descendants to lives that remain isolated from the modern world, without the skills and aptitudes they need to make their way in an increasingly complex society. The message they get is that they need not, and should not, change.

But a neolithic culture cannot possibly give them a future. And it's time for us to face that. “The existing policy direction is so harmful,” she says. “Aboriginal people are people like everyone else. They deserve to interact with the modern world like everyone else.”

Needless to say, Ms. Widdowson, who currently teaches at Calgary's Mount Royal College, has been accused of hating aboriginals, and much else. “It doesn't mean that you're a racist or a colonialist if you recognize that there's a culture gap,” she says. “But to say that aboriginal people were just as sophisticated as the Europeans – that's just nonsense.”