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.
14 comments:
i think that it is very sad that they would cancel school just because 20 kids came and that they should be aloud to go. i also think that kayla is very smart but they should improve their school system by putting in more teachers or better teachers that can teach more effectively and can help students if they fail something. i also think they should start some reading program so the students will learn more and not be behind in school and be able to amount to great things.
i thought thta this artical was very intresting i though tthat the level of children failing is not part of the worlds acedemic system i could not belive that alomost every kid in this community was faling and i thought that someone mis the commnity of the misdif should do something about it
I do not think its fair because those 20 children were ready to show up and the 50 didnt! I think that is just a waste of there time.
I think that showing up to school and it was canceled because to many people didnt show up is dumb because if there are still 20 chidren then they should still keep the school going expecialy if there are only 70 children who go to that school. I dont think that they closed it because of to many people didnt show up i think they canceled because the teachers were not there or to lazy to teach thes poor chidren. I think a firl who is nine and is flunking tests but before she was doing grade 6 math is very weird. I think the reason she is flunking is because she is not very comfurtable at her school or at her home like if her parents are beating her.
It is not fair that the kids don't have a role model to look up to because I look up to my dad and there dad's have drinking problems and these kids aren't able to study or do work when they are scared.
No I dont think its fair that 20 kids show up to school and its cancelled because 50 kids dont show up. The school should also make a reading program for kids so it helps thir reading
i dont think it is fair for school to be canceled just because not everybody could make it. all kids should get an education no matter what.
I think it is very sad that they canceled school only because there were only 20 people. They nare not realising that the native kids are going to fall back in education.
I don't think they should cancel the school because other 50 kids didn't show up. That is their problem not 20 kids that show up. So I don't think they should cancel the school. And I think the school have to push childern more. And if their week at something they should teach more on that. To make students not fall behind they should have more teacher or better teacher and they should extend more studing time. If they do that I think they won't fall behind.
I think that kevin thinks she shude stay in for reading practice insted of staying in for Math
I think that the 20 kids that came should be able to learn and the others that didn't should just not go. now the kids that did show up missed some school and half to catch up and that is hard when they do not know what to do. the Kids that didn't show up just half to live with them selves know.
I think that the government of Canada should be ashamed of themselves to allow this to go on. I can't believe that this is happening in our own province! It's really sad. Why did the government appologize for abusing students when they're still abusing them? I think there needs to be way more public attention to this problem and maybe, once average Canadians realize what's going on they'll step in to help or at least demand change from the government. This article makes me realize how lucky I am!
I thnk that thier grades are droping because of all th e rasium that is being pushed against the native people.
I think it is not fair that they canceled the school because 50 other kid didn't show up. It is their fault not 20 kids that show up.
They said the students fall behind. To avoid that hapen first, they should have more better teachers. Second, they should extend more time in school.
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