Felix Autenrieth

We should give more than we take¹ (Leanne Betasamosake Simpson)

The essay begins with a quote from an indigenous intellectual because the grade 10 student M. at Belmont High School, whom I interviewed together with the indigenous education coordinator explained her life goals to me about both giving back to her community and to pursue university education in English writing and/or biology.

M. loves school and thrives in the learning environments in and out of school. For example she became nominated to participate with her short stories, which she writes in and out of school, in a Canada-wide writing contest. She is thinking through ideas of social justice and with the help of Belmont’s aboriginal education program develops her personal and cultural identity. She hopes one day to become a storyteller, wants to travel in order to learn more about other cultures but first and foremost she wants to continue her various extracurricular engagements contributing to several diverse communities (school, family, tribal or tutoring a fellow student in math). In M.’s culture, unique children have always been identified by the community and receive additional education, as their future social roles as storytellers, shamans and medicine-man/woman are of key importance for preserving the culture of the entire community. A similar approach has been chosen for M. through Belmont’s aboriginal education program.

The most significant and impressive aspect about M. is that she deeply feels to belong, stresses her cultural connection to the land and has strong empathy for others. To the question “What do you think should be changed in society?” M. answered thoughtfully: “a lot of people in the community have not proper access to food and that this is not right because it is not the people’s fault that they live in poverty; it is something which could be fixed if access to food were to become as easy as access to health services in Canada.”  I felt an equal, culturally and intellectually while talking with M.

According to the indigenous education coordinator, M. is an academically gifted student and I was considered the same in the German high school system 20 years ago, however my school system reflected the competitive values of Western society, whereas the BC school system supports not only M’s academic development but even more so the community values represented in M.’s indigenous culture.

My school experience was a desperate quest trying to fit in and to belong; good friends or even a girlfriend seemed to be out of reach and I could only dream about those social experiences. The main value of going to school was to score high in the relevant subjects and those grades were the only way to University. I had no problem delivering the good grades, however, there was no meaning to it except the dim hope that doing well in school will help me one day to leave this lonely and often fearful place, permanently. I recall, the only positive experience was the drama group of our school, which was the place for the nerdy or weird students (who are stupid enough to rehearse for a play when it is not on the test).

As I got into university, I actually enjoyed that the tests got harder. The German school and university system systematically used standardized tests to weed out the “bad” students, leading to a segregation of students starting in grade 4 and causing drop-out rates of around 50% in the first two years of university study (higher in more competitive subjects such as medicine). Unlike M. in grade 10, feeling emotionally outside the system, I still had not developed a personal or cultural identity, but I got really good about playing the system. In my second university year I received a scholarship to study for one year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and I never returned (except to visit my Mom once a year) to the most alienating country I know.

My journey as a person and teacher starts in my “Teaching Philosophy” video exactly at this point. At UIUC, I started to trust people and learned that cultural diversity actually nourishes the feeling of belonging. We are all unique in our experiences, perceptions, understandings, and exactly this makes it exciting to interact with people from different cultural backgrounds. In all cases, we share the same humanity so authenticity and inter-cultural understanding is always possible.

Unlike myself at M.’s age, M. needs not to focus her energy on getting out of an undesirable life situation and is thriving from what could have been a difficult past. In fact, M. has many friends and also the boys seem to like her. M.’s personal value system is strengthened by the BC school system and nourishes her feeling that she belongs right here on Vancouver Island. It was obvious during our entire discussion that M. has a deep trust her community will be always there for her.

I believe, as a society we have the responsibility to give young people the feeling that they belong to a community because youth need this emotional safety net for both their personal and academic development. As adults, we can decide what we want to do with our life, where we want to live, with whom we want to connect, but as teenagers we have no choice other than to deal with what society throws at us in the form of a school system.

I did not ask about M.’s grades or her socioeconomic status, as those items do not really matter in a communal environment, which we are both fortunate to share at Belmont High school.  The conclusion of the interview was that M.is really happy in school and as the BC curriculum is strength based this is what really matters. My professional goal as a teacher is to help our students in the development of a portfolio, which reflects their experienced happiness in and out of school. Social justice will be done, when future selection committees will select their candidates based on competencies and values, which matter to the students and not on some superficial criteria such as test scores.

M.’s dream is to go to university directly after high school and it makes me happy to think that her dream will come true. Professors will be excited working with M. as she gives already now much more than she takes.

References:

[1] Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake. As we have Always Done – Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance. University of Minnesota Press, 2017. Print.