The Aboriginal Education Project (OTF Report)
Over the last two years, OTF has been enthusiastically working with the Aboriginal Education Office (AEO) of the Ministry of Education to increase teacher awareness of the Ontario First Nation, Métis and Inuit (FNMI) Education Policy Framework. This initiative, which has been fully funded by the government, has three primary components. The first stage of the project was the development of a teacher resource entitled Seeing Every Face, Hearing Every Voice. This resource is currently being vetted with FNMI stakeholders through the AEO and is expected to be in final production late this spring and into our schools by fall 2012. The second phase was the development and delivery of summer workshops. The Aboriginal Perspectives in Education workshop series was offered in the summers of 2010 and 2011. The third and equally engaging piece of the project is currently underway!
Close to 100 teachers from across Ontario are participating in a year-long Aboriginal education awareness and literacy initiative called Books of Life. This third phase of the project began with an intensive two-and-a-half-day training session for project participants this past fall. Sensory awareness, storytelling, and book creation workshops were provided, and teachers developed ideas and strategies for building books and story bundles. Teachers were partnered with colleagues from across the province. Wherever possible, teachers from schools with few or no Aboriginal students were matched with those in schools with relatively high Aboriginal student populations. As well, teachers from the southern parts of the province were grouped with colleagues from the north, and rural and urban mixes were made where possible. Thirty-seven ETFO members from Durham, Hastings and Prince Edward, Kawartha Pine Ridge, Lakehead, Ottawa- Carleton, Peel, Rainy River, Simcoe County, Toronto, Thames Valley, and Waterloo Region are all now back in their classrooms guiding their students in developing books about who they are, what they value, what they celebrate, and how all of our lives are shaped by our cultural and historical contexts.
In June 2012 when student books are finalized, participating classes will keep copies, exchange copies between partner teachers, and provide OTF with copies of their creations. Ultimately, it is our hope to showcase the books we receive at the Word on the Street festival in Toronto this September. Maureen Anglin, a coordinator with Frontier College, worked with OTF on the delivery of teacher training and says that participants now have a “deeper understanding of the role that Aboriginal storytelling can have in different teaching moments” and it is hoped that teachers will be able to “infuse this new knowledge in their classes.”
To keep up to date with the Aboriginal Education Project and the many other initiatives at OTF, mark otffeo.on.ca in your Favourites list on your Web browser and be watching for Books of Life!
