by Ann Pohl
May, 2000

What is CAAS doing now?

In the Spring of 1999, the infant Coalition also spawned a working group focussed on developing projects and finding resources.

Working with some seed funding from the United Church of Canada, the project working group looked at the issues of structure, priority initiatives, administration and funding sources. It also expanded to include a number of people who are now known as our "Academic Advisors": Dave Anderson (Dene; M.Ed.; Instructor at York University); Celia Haig-Brown (Ph.D.; Professor at York University); Jackie Moore Daigel (Cree; M.Ed.; Professor at Queen's University), and Harry Smaller (Ph.D.; Professor at York University). In the Fall of 1999, two different projects were identified, and funding requests were submitted to the Canadian Race Relations Foundation for a "Student Awareness Survey", and to the Millenium Fund for a professional development manual called "Teachers Teach Teachers".

In March of 2000, the Canadian Race Relations Foundation announced that it will be funding the Student Awareness Survey (SAS). The SAS will measure the level of awareness and understanding of recent Canadian high school graduates on key Aboriginal issues and historical facts. The SAS will be developed under the guidance of our Aboriginal and Academic advisors, to measure the actual learning achievements of first year university students, relative to a set of learning expectations that CAAS is currently developing. This set of learning expectations will be drawn from the experience of Aboriginal educators and traditional teachers, the recommendations of the Final Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, an extensive literature review and other research.

The SAS will provide a baseline analysis of what students are currently learning about Aboriginal Peoples in school board-operated schools across Canada that are mandated with curriculum from Provinces and Territories. A screening process will be used to ensure that students attending First Nations and other Aboriginal controlled schools are not included in the study, and every effort will be made to get a representative regional, ethnic/cultural, and linguistic sample (the survey will be translated into French).

As part of the SAS, we will certainly discover some students who provide high quality responses to our questions. Through them, we will be able to identify some teachers, in non-Aboriginal controlled classrooms across Canada, who do a good really job with Aboriginal Studies. In a later phase of our work we will follow this trail to its source, to interview and document the strategies used by these successful, or 'exemplary', educators to deliver Aboriginal Studies. Throughout 2000, a priority task for the CAAS is to recruit the volunteers from our network who will help the Coalition by administering this survey in their communities.

The Milennium Fund proposal and some other initiatives of the CAAS are still up in the air. Approaches have been made, and are being developed, to a variety of other funders. As well, the CAAS has begun designing a website and publishing a Newsletter, to expand and update its network.

Reform of Aboriginal Studies Curriculum Must be Led by Aboriginal Persons

"Elements of racism are intertwined in history, in the history books, in the library books. It is found in school curriculum."

From the Final Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples:
William Tooshkenig, quoted in Volume 4; Chapter 7: Urban Perspectives; pg. 527

More >> Page 3