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Feature

Native program offers a
second chanc¢

by Valorie Lennox
The Review

No one knows how many of
Canada’s first citizens are
functionally illiterate — but no
one doubts there are many.

The 1987 Southam Report on
literacy identified an estimated 5
million functionally illiterate
Canadians — but did not include
natives in the survey. Provincial
Ministry of Education attempts
last fall to track the progress of
native students ended in
controversy amid charges of
racism.

“It’s a very sensitive subject.
The government is damned if you
do and damned if you don’t,” said
Bill Stavdal, a Ministry of
Education communications
department spokesman.

“There’s a general admission
that the system hasn’t been serving
our native Indian students as well
as it ought,” he added.

Edith Baker, Vicki Thomas and
Robert Sam agree. The three work
with adult native learners at the
Saanich Indian Adult Education
Centre on the Tsartlip reserve.

They are picking up where the
school system failed.

“It’s a major problem. A lot of
the students went to the local high
school and are testing at Grades 4,
5 and 6,” said Baker. “A lot of the
Indian kids are just pushed
through because of their age.”

Thomas did a survey on all four
Peninsula reserves between May
and July 1989.

“T found out that there were a lot
of people in the four bands that
were illiterate. They were having
problems treading the .
questionnaire that I brought
around,’ she said.

Noting the school system does
not meet the needs of the middle-
class students for which it was
designed, Baker asked “How can
it meet the needs of minority
groups?”

Native students who attend -
public schools start out equal with
their non-native classmates in
kindergarten but by Grade 5 are
usually two years behind their
peers, Baker said.

One reason is language: for
many students raised on isolated
teserves, English is a new
language. Baker notes native
languages do not translate readily
to English and there are
consonants in English which
native-speaking children cannot
pronounce.

There is a residue of bitterness
in the native community left from
the residential school system, in
place as recently as 10 years ago.
The early years of the system
separated children from their
families and attempted to separate
them from their culture —
punishing children for speaking
their native language.

When residential schools were
discussed recently by a class at the
adult education centre, Sam said
some of the adults became so
upset they had to leave the room.

“My mother and her brother
and sisters used to run away from
the Indian agent,” said Thomas.

She left school after Grade 8,
was married at age 16 and a single
parent with two children by the
time she was 20. Realizing she
could not support herself and two
children on social assistance,
Thomas enrolled at Camosun
College for upgrading and a
business course.

“It was sort of difficult,” she
admits. Her son had a heart
condition which required special
care, halting Thomas’ studies for
six to eight months at a time.

She eventually reached a
university level and was hired
three years ago as a teacher
assistant for the upgrading
program. Now she works as an
instructor and project assistant for
the native program.

Baker told a similar story of
leaving school early and becoming
a single parent.

._ After I did lots of
unmemorable things in my life,
then I went back to school and
went through the upgrading
process,” said Baker. She
overcame difficulties with reading
to ear a Bachelor of Education
degree and now oversees the
Native Indian Teachers’
Assistance program.

The Saanich Centre’s first basic
literacy and math class graduated
May 11 with 13 of the 16 students
completing the 26-week course.

if school

The classes, held from 9 a.m. until
4 p.m. Monday to Friday, brought
students who started at a Grade 3
to Grade 6 level up to Grade 8.

“They have to earn that pass,”
said project director Sam.

The Canada Employment
Centre-funded basic literacy and
math program qualifies adults for
the adult education program.
Before the basic program was
introduced, Baker estimates 60 per
cent of the native applicants did
not qualify to enter adult
education courses.

“Our whole society is based on
being literate. If we're talking
about having our people be
employed and maintaining secure
employment — the whole concept
of improving the reserves — we
have to start with literacy,” said
Baker.

Sam said the change in the
students who completed the first
course was dramatic.

“When they first came in here,
they were a very shy, withdrawn
group. When they left here, they
were different people.”

B5

TheReview Wednesday, June 6, 1990

Creator’s gift is for writing

Elder David Elliott left the San-etch people a priceless legacy:
the ability to write their language.

“He called it a gift from the creator because it is so
simple,” said Elliott’s daughter, Linda Underwood.

“We never had a written language until Dad started to
work on it. The last 12 years of his life, we started recording
our language and legends,” she said.

She estimates no more than 10 people can still speak the
traditional SENCOTEN language. But Elliott’s 38-
character alphabet allows the language to be preserved.

Elliott designed the language to be reproduced on a
standard typewriter, using dashes, underlining and accents
combined with standard letters to reproduce the sounds of
the language.

Children in Grade 3 can read the language without
special instruction, Underwood said.

READY TO LEARN at the Tsartlip basic literacy and math

Class is student Jason Pelkey, receiving a workbook from
instructor Beverly Stevenson.

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NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION WEEK * JUNE 3—9, 1990

MOVING
RIGHT ALONG:

a //
: A

The Ministry of Transportation and
Highways is also hard at work on hundreds
of new projects including the Vancouver
Island Highway Project, the Cassiar
Connector Project in Vancouver and the
Okanagan Connector Project, linking Merritt
with Peachland,

marks the introduction of a
1990 new Transportation Plan
for British Columbia, a plan that brings all
of B.C’s transportation agencies together
with the goal of moving people and goods
quickly and efficiently.

Now, during National Transportation
Week, we can look on some of the recent
achievements in our transportation
industry. In May, B.C. Ferries demonstrated
their on-going commitment to improved
service with the introduction of The
Mid-Island Express, a new route linking
Nanaimo on Vancouver Island with
Tsawwassen in the Lower Mainland. Plans
are also underway for the building of four
new ships and additional terminal upgrades
that will keep our ferry fleet in step with
erowing demand.

Together with B.C. Ferries, B.C. Transit,
and B.C. Rail, we will continue to explore
efficient and innoyative ways of providing
the “freedom to move.’ And together, we
salute the thousands of men and women in
British Columbia's transportation industry
who ultimately make it all happen.

= Province of
British Columbia

Ministry of Transportation
and Highways

Hon. Rita Johnston, Minister

RECYCLE

TheReview

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