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Category Archives: Equity
New Workplace Issue: Reforming Academic #Labor, Resisting Imposition, K12 and #HigherEd
Posted on June 8, 2015 by Stephen Petrina | Leave a comment
New Workplace Issue #25
Reforming Academic Labor, Resisting Imposition, K12 and Higher Education
Writing About Academic Labour
Joss Winn
Survival in the New Corporatized Academy: Resisting the Privatization of Higher Education
Ellen Boesenberg
The Radical Keynes: An Appraisal
Carlo Fanelli
"A Multitude of Wedges:" Neoliberalism and Micro-Political Resistance in British Columbia's Public Schools 2001-2014
Anne Hales
British Columbia Obstructs the Shock Doctrine: Struggle, Solidarity, and Popular Resistance
Tobey Steeves
Higher Education Reform in Bangladesh: An Analysis
Md Moazzom Hossain, Amir Md Khan
Film Review of Economic Freedom in Action: Changing Lives
Sandra Ximena Delgado, Michelle Gautreaux
Workplace and Critical Education are published by the Institute for Critical Education Studies. Please consider participating as author or reviewer. Thank you.
Posted in AAUP, Academic freedom, Academic Labor, BC Education, CAUT, Commercialization, Corporate University, Critical Education, Critical University Studies, Critique, Equity, Ethics, Government, Institute for Critical Education Studies, Privatization, Research, Strikes & Labor, Student Movement, Student Speech, Teachers, Unions, Working condition
Tagged Academic freedom, BC education, Critical Education, Government, K-12 issues, Students, Teachers, unions, Working conditions, Workplace Journal
New Workplace Issue: Academic Bullying & Mobbing #academicfreedom #ubc #aaup
Academic Bullying & Mobbing
Academic Bullying and Mobbing: Introduction to the Special Issue
Of Sticks and Stones, Words that Wound, and Actions Speaking Louder: When Academic Bullying Becomes Everyday Oppression
Harry Denny
Beyond Bullies and Victims: Using Case Story Analysis and Freirean Insight to Address Academic Mobbing
Julie Gorlewski, David Gorlewski, Brad Porfilio
Graduate Students as Proxy Mobbing Targets: Insights from Three Mexican Universities
Florencia Peña Saint Martin, Brian Martin, Hilde Eliazer Aquino López, Lillian von der Walde Moheno
Bullying in Academia Up Close and Personal: My Story
Mobbing in the Context of a Woman's Life
Rachel Morrison Kenney
Pathogenic Versus Healthy Biofilms: A Metaphor for Academic Mobbing
Antonio Pedro Fonseca
Threat Convergence: The New Academic Work, Bullying, Mobbing and Freedom
Stephen Petrina, Sandra Mathison, E. Wayne Ross
Posted in AAUP, Academic freedom, Adjuncts, Administration, CAUT, Corporate University, Critical Education, Critical University Studies, Critique, Disputes, Equity, Ethics, Free speech, Government, Institute for Critical Education Studies, Media & Technology, Research, Student Speech, Students, Teachers, Unions, Working condition
Tagged Academic freedom, Critical Education, Equity, Students, Teachers, Working conditions, Workplace Journal
Henry A. Giroux: Authoritarianism and the assault on public #education #criticaled #bced
Posted on January 6, 2015 by Stephen Petrina | Leave a comment
Henry A. Giroux, Truthout, December 30, 2014– As public schools are privatized, succumbing to corporate interests, critical thought and agency are erased, and education emphasizes market values rather than democratic ideals. The emergence of larger radical social movements depends on public education maintaining its role as a democratic sphere.
Once 2015 begins both the US Senate and House of Representatives will be controlled by the Republican Party, one of the most extremist political parties in US history. (1)Coupled with the empty centrism of the Democratic Party, their ascendency does not bode well for public education or a host of other important social issues. Nor does it bode well for democracy. If we conjured up George Orwell and his fear of state surveillance, Hannah Arendt and her claim that thoughtlessness was the foundation of totalitarianism, and Franz Kafka whose characters embodied the death of agency and the "helplessness of the living," (2) it would be difficult for these dystopian works of literary and philosophical imagination to compete with the material realization of the assault on public education and public values in the United States at the beginning of the 21st century.
These are dangerous times. Compromise and compassion are now viewed as a pathology, a blight on the very meaning of politics. Moreover, in a society controlled by financial monsters, the political order is no longer sustained by a faith in reason, critical thought and care for the other. As any vestige of critical education, thought and dissent are disparaged, the assault on reason gives way to both a crisis in agency and politics. The right-wing Republican Party and their Democratic Party counterparts, along with their corporate supporters, despise public schools as much as they disdain taxation, institutions that enable critical thinking, and any call for providing social provisions that would benefit the public good. Not only are both parties attempting to privatize much of public education in order to make schools vehicles for increasing the profits of investors, they are also destroying the critical infrastructures that sustain schools as democratic public spheres.
Teachers have been deskilled. Losing much of their autonomy to be creative in the classroom, they have been relegated to technicians whose sole objective appears to be enforcing a deadening instrumental rationality in which teaching to the test becomes the primary model of teaching and learning. Moreover, they are being demonized by the claim that the major problem with public education is lack of teacher accountability. The hidden order of politics here is that larger political and economic considerations such as crushing poverty, mammoth inequality, a brutalizing racism and iniquitous modes of financing public education all disappear from the problems facing schooling in the United States. Teachers also serve as an easy target for the (un)reformers to weaken unions, bash organized labor, discredit public servants, and "argue that education can be improved if taxpayer money is funneled away from the public school system's priorities (hiring teachers, training teachers, reducing class size etc.) and into the private sector (replacing teachers with computers, replacing public schools with privately run charter schools etc.)." (3)
Read More: Truthout
Posted in Children & Youth, Critical Education, Equity, Ethics, Government, Privatization, Students, Teacher Education, Teachers, Unions
Gomez & Murillo on Teacher Education: Demands from the Boundaries #criticaled #highered #ubc
Posted on October 14, 2014 by Stephen Petrina | Leave a comment
The Institute for Critical Education Studies presents:
Teacher Education: Demands from the Boundaries
Héctor Gómez Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez (Santiago, Chile)
Fernando Murillo Universidad Alberto Hurtado and Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez (Santiago, Chile) UBC PhD Student
Tuesday October 14, 2015 Noon – 1:00pm UBC Scarfe 1209
[See link to presentation slides below]
Gómez and Murillo will discuss their new book Formacion docente: demandas desde la frontera [Teacher Education: Demands from the Boundaries], a collection of essays that gives voice to perspectives and approaches frequently absent from traditional practices, but are fundamental to the transformative possibilities of teacher education.
The essays are situated within a postcolonial perspective in dialogue with queer theory, inviting a rethinking of current discursive practices around the curriculum of teacher education, asking – among other things – Where do these discourses and practices come from? What gives them legitimacy?, What effects do they have? as a way to problematize the ways in which the curriculum of teacher education is responsible of signifying, appropriating and reproducing identitarian configurations, as well as problematize ways of thinking that discipline and configure certain modalities of life projects through their formative action.
About the speakers
Héctor Gómez: Bachelor in Education – Teacher of History and Social Sciences, Master of Arts in Education and Curriculum. Professor and researcher at the Faculty of Education of Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez. Head of the Curriculum Unit at Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez in Santiago, Chile.
Fernando Murillo: Bachelor in Education – Teacher of English as a Foreign Language, Master of Arts in Education and Curriculum, UBC PhD student. Former curriculum advisor and policy maker for the Ministry of Interior, Government of Chile. Professor and curriculum advisor at Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities, Universidad Alberto Hurtado and Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez in Santiago, Chile.
Gomez & Murillo PPT
Posted in Critical Education, Equity, K-12 issues, Students, Teacher Education, Teachers
Tagged Critical Education, Equity, K-12 issues, Students, Teachers
Malala Yousafzai #Nobel Peace Prize co-winner #youth
Malala w UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. (Photo by Brendan McDermid/Reuters)
CBC, October 10, 2014– Children's rights activist Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan says she is honoured to share this year's Nobel Peace Prize with India's Kailash Satyarthi, whose work also involves protecting the interests of young people.
"I'm proud that I'm the first Pakistani and first the young woman, or the first young person, who is getting this award," Yousafzai, 17, told journalists in Birmingham, England, where she now lives after Norwegian Nobel Committee chair Thorbjørn Jagland announced the honour in Oslo.
She was at school when the announcement was made Friday. Yousafzai is the youngest winner of a Nobel Prize. The previous youngest laureate was British scientist William Lawrence Bragg, who won for physics in 1915 at age 25.
As for the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner, Yousafzai eclipses Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karman, who won in 2011 at 32.
Yousafzai and Satyarthi are being honoured for "their struggle against the suppression of children and young people, and for the right of all children to education," the committee said.
The committee said it "regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism."
Read More: CBC
Posted in Children & Youth, Equity, Students
Tagged Equity, Students
BC Ministry @FassbenderMLA may allocate $864m for #bced grad research projects #16kpergrad #bcpoli #whystopatfinland
Posted on May 8, 2014 by Stephen Petrina | Leave a comment
In all fairness to the balance of BC grads overlooked in research allocations last year, the BC Ministry of Education will do the right thing: Allocate $16,000 for each grade 12 student to conduct a comparative education research project of their choice. This could help those seniors who may not graduate actually complete. Yes, in the face of budget cuts and bad faith bargaining in provisioning fair contracts for BC teachers, allocating $864m to grads may seem a bit frivolous. Or not.
But fair is fair. Guaranteed, BC high school seniors should be knocking on the Ministry's door for their allocations.
In this developing scenario, the BC Ministry of Education will continue its comparative education research agenda. Why stop at Finland?
Grads could hit the pavement, traveling to each and every country– no, not just country (there are only about 200), but every province and state in the world– to compare the educational system with that of BC. But are there 54,000 provinces and states? No, so expand the comparative ed research agenda to cities– there are about 37,000 cities. Obviously, some will have to go to small towns.
OK, theres the math. The ministry will allocate $864m to send 54k grads to cities and towns around the world the compare their ed systems with BC.
It's not easy to get reports from grads so make that $900m. But then you might ask, why stop at grade 12? Isn't that ageist?
Posted in BC Education, Critical Education, Equity, Government, K-12 issues, Protests, Research, Students, Teachers, Unions
Tagged BC education, Budgets & Funding, Critical Education, Equity, K-12 issues, Students, Teachers
Canada Conservatives defer First Nations education bill #idlenomore #bced #yteubc
Gloria Galloway, Globe & Mail, May 5, 2014– The federal Conservative government has shelved the centrepiece of its aboriginal policy after proposals for improving on-reserve education were widely rejected by native leaders, and prompted the resignation of the national chief who had supported them.
Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt put a hold Monday on the legislation known as the First Nations Control of First Nations Education Act, three days after Shawn Atleo stepped down as leader of the Assembly of First Nations, saying his endorsement of the bill was becoming a distraction.
Mr. Valcourt had relied on the support of the AFN and its leader to justify passage of the bill – which would have boosted spending by $1.9-billion over multiple years – over the objection of other chiefs. So, when Mr. Atleo resigned, he backed down. "Given the recent resignation of the national chief," his spokeswoman said in a statement on Monday, "following today's second reading vote, any further consideration of this legislation will be put on hold until the AFN clarifies its position."
The decision was greeted with relief by those chiefs who had spoken out against it, particularly provisions that would have tied new funding to standards set and monitored by Ottawa. But even those opponents said efforts to reform a system that is failing so many young indigenous people must continue.
"There is no time to kick and scream for joy here because we've got a lot of work to do," said Isadore Day, the chief of the Serpent River First Nation in Northern Ontario, who was one of the more outspoken critics.
"I think we achieved what we needed to," Mr. Day said of the news that the legislation would not be moving forward, at least in the short term. "Now the work begins to refine the position – from being reactionary and on the defence to putting forward what the plan ought to be for First Nations education."
Read More: Globe & Mail
Posted in BC Education, Equity, First Nations Education, Government, Idle No More, Indigeneity, K-12 issues, Student Movement, Students, Teachers
Tagged BC education, Equity, First Nations, Idle No More, Students, Teachers
CFP: Academic Mobbing (Special Issue of Workplace) #education #criticaled #ubc
LAST Call for Papers
Academic Mobbing
Editors: Stephen Petrina & E. Wayne Ross
Editors of Workplace are accepting manuscripts for a theme issue on Academic Mobbing. Academic mobbing is defined by the Chronicle of Higher Education (11 June 2009) as: "a form of bullying in which members of a department gang up to isolate or humiliate a colleague." The Chronicle continues:
If rumors are circulating about the target's supposed misdeeds, if the target is excluded from meetings or not named to committees, or if people are saying the target needs to be punished formally "to be taught a lesson," it's likely that mobbing is under way.
As Joan Friedenberg eloquently notes in The Anatomy of an Academic Mobbing, the toll taken is excessive. Building on a long history of both analysis and neglect in academia, Workplace is interested in a range of scholarship on this practice, including theoretical frameworks, legal analyses, resistance narratives, reports from the trenches, and labor policy reviews. We invite manuscripts that address, among other foci:
Effects of academic mobbing
History of academic mobbing
Sociology and ethnography of the practices of an academic mob
Social psychology of the academic mob leader or boss
Academic mobbing factions (facts & fictions) or short stories
Legal defense for academic mob victims and threats (e.g., Protectable political affiliation, race, religion)
Gender norms of an academic mob
Neo-McCarthyism and academic mobbing
Contributions for Workplace should be 4000-6000 words in length and should conform to APA, Chicago, or MLA style.
FINAL Date for Papers: May 30, 2014
Posted in Academic freedom, CFPs, Critical Education, Critical University Studies, Equity, Ethics, Faculty, Free speech, Government, Legal issues, Organizing, Student Speech, Students, Teachers, Unions, Working condition
Tagged Academic freedom, Critical Education, Free speech, Government, Students, Working conditions, Workplace Journal
Blue dots symbol of resistance for First Nations #idlenomore #bced #bcpoli #yteubc
Posted on February 13, 2014 by Stephen Petrina | Leave a comment
Blue dots becoming symbol for First Nations Education Act resistance
Meme meant to represent those not included or considered in current FNEA legislation
Angela Sterritt, CBC News, February 12, 2014– A "blue dot" movement has taken the Twittersphere and Facebook by storm. Photographs of Indigenous people with a blue dot on their chest are being posted on social media.
It follows what happened at a joint announcement on the First Nations Control of First Nations Education Act (FNEA).
The proposed legislation was announced in the Kainai First Nation on the Blood Tribe Reserve in Alberta. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo and Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt held a ceremony in the community to "seal the deal."
Reda More: CBC News
Posted in BC Education, Equity, Ethics, First Nations Education, Government, Idle No More, Indigeneity, K-12 issues, Protests, Student Movement, Student Speech, Students, Teachers
Tagged BC education, Government, Idle No More, K-12 issues, Students, Teachers
Cookie-cutter solutions for First Nations education won't work #idlenomore #edstudies #bced #ubc
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Chief Charles Weasel Head at last week's announcement about changes to First Nation education. (Photo by Arnell Tailfeathers)
Angela Sterritt, CBC News, February 12, 2014– Twila Singer knows a thing or two about education on-reserve.
All five of her children are part of the Kainai First Nation and went to school on the Blood Tribe Reserve – in Blackfoot territory – close to Stand Off in southern Alberta. Her eldest son is now in college and her youngest is in Grade 1.
So when Singer caught wind of a community event last week, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper was to announce a historic education agreement between the federal government and First Nations, she put her ear to the ground.
"No one knew what was going on, we were left in the dark," said Singer.
The release also publicized a peaceful rally outside the Kainai Nation High School, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper made his announcement related to First Nations education.
On the day of the event, Singer made the decision to go inside for the announcement.
"We just prayed and decided that it would be OK, it would be safe to go in," she said, but she didn't expect what unfolded once they arrived inside.
Blue dots for uninvited guests
"We were separated at the door and given either a blue dot or a yellow dot. The blue dots were uninvited guests and were ushered to the gymnasium, and the invited guests were the yellow dots and they were brought to the auditorium where the dignitaries were."
Along with about 40 others in the gym, Singer and her daughters, aged seven and 17, viewed what was happening in the auditorium on TV monitors. At the end, the invited guests were directed to go to the gym for a feast.
That's when Singer was kicked out – for tweeting.
"I was so confused. Everyone around me was on their phone. My baby has never experienced violence or anger, she started to cry, so I left. In all honesty I was really embarrassed."
Then, her 17-year old daughter was asked to leave.
In a video posted online, Singer's teen daughter, Bryn Taylor, is seen being confronted by three men, two standing in front of her, and one man at her side. The man on the side wraps his arm around her back for almost a minute, and then lifts her up by her arm.
As people behind her shout "leave her alone" and "this is what my reconciliation looks like," two men pick her up by each arm and she hits the floor, then they pick her up and escort her out.
"Our families were in there, our people were in there, people who we love and interact with every day, and I think she was wanting somebody to say something," said Singer.
She said the air of silence mixed with confusion captured the essence of the announcement about changes to the First Nations Education Act that day.
"We didn't develop it, or have a referendum on it, we were left out of the loop," she said.
Lacking consultation
The Blood Tribe and Kainai Board of Education also put out a press release on the day of the announcement that said the proposed act "has not met the Crown's legal duty to consult and accommodate."
The release said the "proposed legislation is being forced on the Blood Tribe and it is similar to how the government assimilated Blood children through Indian residential schools."
But consultation is something the engineers of the proposed First Nations control of First Nations education act tout. According to the official website, the agreement is the result of "intensive consultations, discussions, dialogue and studies."
It stated that "the first phase included eight consultation sessions across Canada, more than 30 video and teleconference sessions, and online consultation activities, was completed in May 2013."
Arnell Tailfeathers, who was at the announcement as an invited guest in a media capacity tweeted to @CBC_Aboriginal, "Treaty 7 chiefs had a teleconference with Valcourt in Calgary. Valcourt hung up on them after he was done speaking."
For Saddle Lake councillor Shannon Houle, the federal government's assertion of consultation could not be further from the truth.
Read More: CBC News
Posted in BC Education, Equity, Ethics, First Nations Education, Government, Idle No More, Indigeneity, K-12 issues, Students, Teachers
Tagged BC education, education policy, education reform, First Nations Education, K-12 issues, Students, Teachers
Academic job market decimated, crashing #highered #edstudies #criticaled #caut #aaup #bced #bcpoli
Oftentimes, the academic job market for full-time (FT) faculty is inversely related to economic recessions. Not anymore. In this prolonged Great Recession, turned Great Depression II in parts of North America and across the world, youth have been particularly hard hit, more pronounced by race. The most common description for this current economy for youth is "a precipitous decline in employment and a corresponding increase in unemployment." In Canada and the US, unemployment rates for the 16-19 year olds exceed 25%. At the same time, one of the most common descriptions for postsecondary enrollment and participation in Canada and the US is "tremendous growth at the undergraduate level… the number of graduate students has grown significantly faster than the number of undergraduate students over the last 30 years." With "school-to-work" and "youth employment" oxymoronic, corporate academia and the education industry are capitalizing on masses of students returning to desperately secure advanced credentials in hard times, but no longer does this matter to the professoriate.
If higher education enrollment has been significant, increases in online or e-learning enrollment have been phenomenal. Postsecondary institutions in North America commonly realized 100% increases in online course enrollment from the early 2000s to the present with the percentage of total registrations increasing to 25% for some universities. In Canada, this translates to about 250,000 postsecondary students currently taking online courses but has not translated into FT faculty appointments. More pointedly, it has eroded the FT faculty job market and fueled the part-time (PT) job economy of higher education. About 50% of all faculty in North America are PT but this seems to jump to about 85%-90% for those teaching online courses. For example, in the University of British Columbia's (UBC) Master of Educational Technology (MET), where there are nearly 1,000 registrations per year, 85% of all sections are taught by PT faculty. In its decade of existence, not a single FT faculty member has been hired for this revenue generating program. Mirroring trends across North America, support staff doubling as adjunct or sessional teach about 45% of MET courses in addition to their 8:30-4:30 job functions in the service units. These indicators are of a larger scope of trends in the automation of intellectual work.
Given these practices across Canada, in the field of Education for example, there has been a precipitous decline in employment of FT faculty, which corresponds with the precipitous decline in employment of youth (Figure 1). Education is fairly reflective of the overall academic job market for doctorates in Canada. Except for short-term trends in certain disciplines, the market for PhDs is bleak. Trends and an expansion of the Great Recession predict that the market will worsen for graduates looking for FT academic jobs in all disciplines. A postdoctoral appointment market is very unlikely to materialize at any scale to offset trends. For instance, Education at UBC currently employs just a handful (i.e., 4-5) of postdocs.
To put it in mild, simple terms: Universities changed their priorities and values by devaluing academic budget lines. Now in inverse relationship to the increases in revenue realized by universities through the 2000s, academic budgets were progressively reduced from 40% or more to just around 20% for many of these institutions. One indicator of this trend is the expansion of adjunct labor or PT academics. In some colleges or faculties, such as Education at UBC, the number of PT faculty, which approached twice that of FT in 2008, teach from 33% to 85% of all sections, depending on the program.
Another indicator is the displacement of tenure track research faculty by non-tenure track, teaching-intensive positions. For example, in Education at UBC, about 18 of the last 25 FT faculty hires were for non-tenure track teaching-intensive positions (i.e., 10 courses per year for Instructor, Lecturer, etc.). This was partially to offset a trend of PT faculty hires pushing Education well over its faculty salary budget (e.g., 240 PT appointments in 2008). Measures in North America have been so draconian that the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) was compelled to report in 2010 that "the tenure system has all but collapsed…. the proportion of teaching-intensive to research-intensive appointments has risen sharply. However, the majority of teaching-intensive positions have been shunted outside of the tenure system." What is faculty governance, other than an oligarchy, with a handful of faculty governing or to govern?
Read More: Petrina, S. & Ross, E. W. (2014). Critical University Studies: Workplace, Milestones, Crossroads, Respect, Truth. Workplace, 23, 62-71.
Posted in Academic freedom, Adjuncts, Administration, BC Education, Budgets & Funding, Critical Education, Critical University Studies, Equity, Organizing, Student Movement, Students, Tenure & Promotion, Working condition
Tagged Academic freedom, Adjuncts, Critical Education, critical pedagogy, Equity, Working conditions, Workplace Journal
Equity, Governance, Economics and Critical University Studies #criticaled #edstudies #ubc #ubced #bced #yteubc
Equity, Governance, Economics and Critical University Studies
No 23 (2014)
As we state in our Commentary, "This Issue marks a couple of milestones and crossroads for Workplace. We are celebrating fifteen years of dynamic, insightful, if not inciting, critical university studies (CUS). Perhaps more than anything, and perhaps closer to the ground than any CUS publication of this era, Workplace documents changes, crossroads, and the hard won struggles to maintain academic dignity, freedom, justice, and integrity in this volatile occupation we call higher education." Workplace and Critical Education are published by the Institute for Critical Education Studies (ICES).
Critical University Studies: Workplace, Milestones, Crossroads, Respect, Truth
Stephen Petrina & E. Wayne Ross
Differences in Black Faculty Rank in 4-Year Texas Public Universities: A Multi-Year Analysis
Brandolyn E Jones & John R Slate
Academic Work Revised: From Dichotomies to a Typology
Elias Pekkola
No Free Set of Steak Knives: One Long, Unfinished Struggle to Build Education College Faculty Governance
Ishmael Munene & Guy B Senese
Year One as an Education Activist
Shaun Johnson
Rethinking Economics Education: Challenges and Opportunities
Sandra Ximena Delgado-Betancourth
Review of Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think
C. A. Bowers
Posted in AAUP, Academic freedom, Adjuncts, Administration, BC Education, Commentary, Critical Education, Critical University Studies, Environment, Equity, Ethics, Governance, Government, Organizing, Publishing, Research, Student Movement, Student Speech, Students, Working condition
Tagged Academic freedom, BC education, Budgets & Funding, Critical Education, Equity, Ethics, Government, Students, Working conditions, Workplace Journal
"Got Land?" hoody continues to spark controversy #idlenomore #edstudies #bced #ubced #bcpoli
Posted on January 26, 2014 by Stephen Petrina | Leave a comment
First Nations sweater sparks nationwide controversy
Canadian Civil Liberties Association, January 25, 2014– Thirteen-year-old student, Tenelle Starr, inadvertently became the centre of a nationwide controversy over just five words on her sweater: "Got Land? Thank an Indian."
Starr, who lives on the Star Blanket First Nation reserve and attends Grade 8 in Balcarres, a small town approximately 100 kilometers from Regina, says she wore her sweater to promote her heritage and and treaty rights. (Read more) Starr says that she initially wore the sweater after Christmas break without incident, and was shocked when school officials later forbade her from wearing her sweater to school. She continued to wear it, however, and was instructed each time to either remove it or turn it inside out. According to school officials, other students and their parents were offended by the sweater, which they called "cheeky," "rude," and even "racist." (Read more)
After meetings between the school, Starr, her mother, and the Star Blanket First Nation, school officials determined that the sweater was not inappropriate and that Starr would be able to wear it to school, according to the CBC.
Creator of the sweater, Jeff Menard, says that he's been flooded with orders for his "Got Land?" t-shirts and sweaters following nationwide coverage of the controversy.
Read More: CCLA
Posted in BC Education, Civil Liberties, Critical Education, Environment, Equity, Ethics, Free speech, Government, Idle No More, K-12 issues, Protests, Student Movement, Student Speech, Students, Teachers
Tagged BC education, Equity, Ethics, Free speech, K-12 issues, Students, Teachers
January 28 National Day of Teach-ins focused on First Nations Education Act #idlenomore #ubc #bced #bcploi #occupyeducation #edstudies
Idle No More + Defenders of the Land
Idle No More— As we begin a new year, we invite Idle No More groups to organize local teach-ins on January 28th based around the First Nation Education Act and the broader Termination Plan that it represents. We recognize that every Nation and community has their own unique stories, struggles, and practices and we hope that every teach-in is rooted in the on-the-ground realities that are the heart of the movement. When we include our local allies and supporters to attend, help, and promote local teach-ins we believe this adds strength to the bundle of arrows we continue to build through education.
As a support to teach-in organizers we are developing educational tools to use at local teach-ins that will focus on the First Nation Education Act and the broader Termination Plan of the Canadian government. Please feel free to use these tools, or to develop your own! We are also hoping that each teach-in will create a quick list of local struggles or issues and that we can share these lists to help guide the Idle No More movement.
We need to support one another as we continue to fight for our lands, water, sovereignty, and our future generations. We hope that these teach-ins help to deepen and strengthen our roots and prepare us for the work that lies ahead.
Read More: Idle No More
Posted in BC Education, Civil Liberties, Critical Education, Environment, Equity, Ethics, Free speech, Idle No More, K-12 issues, Organizing, Protests, Student Movement, Student Speech, Students, Teach-ins, Teachers
Tagged BC education, Critical Education, Equity, Ethics, Free speech, Government, Students, Teachers
'Got Land?' #IdleNoMore Day Of Action January 28 #bced #bcpoli #occupyeducation
Staff, Indian Country Media Network, Popular Resistance, January 26, 2014– Above photo: Courtesy Tenelle Starr/Via Metronews.ca, Tenelle Starr, a Grade 8 student at Balcarres Community School, wears her, "Got Land? Thank an Indian," sweatshirt. Starr and other students wearing sweaters bearing that slogan were initially instructed to wear them inside-out due to complaints.
The grassroots Idle No More movement was already planning a national day of action across Canada for January 28 to teach people about the First Nations Education Act, which most Indigenous Peoples oppose. Now the organizers are exhorting everyone to dress for the occasion—in a "Got Land? Thank an Indian" t-shirt or sweatshirt.
Idle No More has scooped up 13-year-old Tenelle Starr, the eighth-grade student from Star Blanket First Nation who persuaded school officials to let her wear a hoodie with the words "Got Land?" on the front and "Thank an Indian" on the back.
Since that day, the shirt's maker in Canada, Jeff Menard, has been swamped with orders. But now he might want to add another phone line. Idle No More is calling on everyone across Canada to don the slogan, which Menard sells on t-shirts and bibs in all sizes, in addition to hooded and non-hooded sweatshirts.
Menard has set up a website,Thank An Indian, to field and fulfill orders. The shirts, bibs and other items that he said are forthcoming are also showcased on his Facebook page of the same name. A portion of the proceeds will go to help the homeless.
Those wishing to buy the slogan south of the 49th Parallel can order at its U.S. source. The White Earth Land Recovery Project, part of the Native Harvest product line that is run by Ojibwe activist and author Winona LaDuke, has sold hoodies and t-shirts bearing the slogan for years. Menard has said he got the idea after seeing friends from the U.S. wearing similar shirts.
The message and the lesson have taken on new urgency as racist comments proliferated on Tenelle's Facebook page to such a degree that it had to be taken down. But that has only solidified the teen's determination to make a difference and to educate Canadians, which she said was her intial goal in wearing the shirt to school.
She received support, too, from Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta, which invited her to the Neil Young concert in support of its efforts to quell development in the oil sands of the province. She attended the Saturday January 18 performance as an honorary guest, according to Idle No More's website. Young is doing a series of concerts to raise funds for the Athabasca Chipewyan's legal fight against industrial activity in the sands.
Tenelle "is now calling, along with the Idle No More movement, for people everywhere to don the shirt as an act of truth-telling and protest,"Idle No More said in a statement on January 17. "Now and up to a January 28 Day of Action, Tenelle and Idle No More and Defenders of the Land are encouraging people across the country to make the shirt and wear them to their schools, workplaces, or neighborhoods to spark conversations about Canada's true record on Indigenous rights."
CBC News reported that Tenelle's Facebook page was shut down at the suggestion of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), which briefly investigated some intensely negative and racist comments that were posted on the girl's page after the school ruling.
"It was racist remarks with attempts to shadow it in opinion, but they were pretty forceful, pretty racist," Sheldon Poitras, a member of the band council for the Star Blanket First Nation, and a friend of the family, said to CBC News. "The family was concerned about Tenelle's safety."
The family deactivated Tenelle's Facebook account "on advice from RCMP," CBC News reported, and the RCMP confirmed that it was investigating.
The message is a quip laden with historical accuracy that refers to the 1874 document known as Treaty 4, which Star Blanket First Nation is part of, in which 13 signatory nations of Saulteaux and Cree deeded the land to the settlers of what would become modern-day Canada.
Nevertheless, many continue to view the message as racist. Idle No More aims to debunk that notion as well as clarify the historical record. Tenelle has participated in Idle No More rallies with her mother as well, the group said.
"Everyone can wear the shirt," said Tenelle in the Idle No More statement. "I think of it as a teaching tool that can help bring awareness to our treaty and land rights. The truth about Canada's bad treatment of First Nations may make some people uncomfortable, but understanding it is the only way Canada will change and start respecting First Nations."
Although Menard said that support has been streaming in from chiefs and others throughout Canada for both him and Tenelle, there has been negative feedback that shows there's still a lot of misinformation to be dispelled, he told ICTMN.
"I've been getting hate messages, Tenelle has been getting hate messages," Menard said in a phone interview on January 21, but reiterated that the slogan merely reflects historical fact. "If anybody learns their history they see that the Indians were here first."
Read More: Popular Resistance
Posted in BC Education, Civil Liberties, Critical Education, Environment, Equity, Ethics, Government, Idle No More, K-12 issues, Organizing, Protests, Student Movement, Student Speech, Students
Tagged BC education, Critical Education, Equity, Ethics, Government, K-12 issues, Students
BC govt driving more into debt and poverty #bced #bcpoli #idlenomore #yteubc #ubc
As if two recent reports that the government of British Columbia was failing aboriginal and poor children weren't bad enough, this week's Housing Trends and Affordability report from the RBC confirms that the Liberals are driving more and more into debt and poverty.
In bankster speak, BC offers "two-tiered affordability." In everyday speak, it's a province divided: rich versus poor. And guess which ones the Liberals are backing and picking to reach the finish line?
First Call and Campaign 2000's British Columbia: 2013 Child Poverty Report Card tells it like it is:
the BC government cites the importance of capitalism and free markets to poverty reduction… But the child poverty statistics in this report tell another story — even a growing economy can leave many people behind when we allow inequality to grow. BC has seen growing wealth for a few, while more middle and low income families struggle to make ends meet on poverty level wages.
The BC government has managed to remake and maintain the Province as the most unaffordable in the nation. The RBC Report goes on to say
Across the country, housing affordability continues to be the poorest, by far, in the Vancouver area, where the latest RBC measures are significantly above their long-term average.
And the link between unaffordability and child poverty?
In 2013, the BC government cannot claim to be ignorant of the abundant evidence of the harm done to children's health and development by growing up in poverty, nor of the huge additional costs in health care, education, the justice system and lost productivity we are already paying by keeping poverty rates so high (2013 Child Poverty Report Card).
It is enough to generate a recall vote for a government seized by power. If you feel and think things are bad, they are.
Posted in BC Education, Critical Education, Equity, Ethics, Government, Idle No More, K-12 issues, Poverty, Protests, Students
Tagged BC education, British Columbia, Critical Education, Equity, Ethics, Government, K-12 issues, Protests, Students
BC Liberals unaccountable after "colossal failure of public policy" and "shameful facts" #bcpoli #bced #yteubc #idlenomore
Today's report, British Columbia: 2013 Child Poverty Report Card, in which Campaign 2000 describes BC's "shameful facts" and a decade of "dismal statistics," and the November 6 report, When Talk Trumped Service: A Decade of Lost Opportunity for Aboriginal Children and Youth in B.C., in which Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond describes the BC Liberals' policies on child welfare a "colossal failure of public policy," give an accurate portrayal of the failings of the BC Government.
The BC Government's policies on children and youth are failures, pure and simple.
Ah yes, but we are told day in day out that it's the economy stupid, and if we all just close our eyes and tap our heels together three times we can imagine how well off each of us are. Do not blink we are told.
Representative for Children and Youth Turpel-Lafond is taking a stand against the Liberals' meetings that are all "talk" and no action.
And as she has on at least one other occasion, Turpel-Lafond declined an invitation to attend, saying her schedule did not allow it and that she was reluctant to attend a gathering that was focused more on talk than on delivering services to children.
"I am a bit uncomfortable attending at this point because I have just done a report entitled When Talk Trumped Service – and [the Ministry of Child and Family Development] 100 per cent paid for a conference for more talking," Ms. Turpel-Lafond said.
Read More: The Globe and Mail
Posted in BC Education, Equity, Ethics, Government, Idle No More, K-12 issues, Poverty, Students
Tagged BC education, Equity, Ethics, Government, K-12 issues, Students
BC again the worst province in Canada for child poverty: Liberals failing #bced #bcpoli #ubc #yteubc #idlenomore
Campaign 2000, November 26, 2013– The latest figures from Statistics Canada (2011) once again show that BC is the worst province in Canada when it comes to major measures of child poverty:
BC had a child poverty rate of 18.6 per cent — the worst rate of any province in Canada, using the before-tax low income cut-offs of Statistics Canada as the measure of poverty.
BC had the worst poverty rate of any province for children living in single mother families — 49.8 per cent.
BC also had the worst poverty rate of any province for children living in two-parent families — 14 per cent.
BC's poverty rate for children under 6 years at 20.7 per cent is 8 percentage points higher than the Canadian average.
British Columbia also had the most unequal distribution of income among rich and poor families with children. The ratio of the average incomes of the richest 10 per cent compared to the poorest 10 per cent was 12.6 — the worst of any province.
Despite these shameful facts, and a decade of similarly dismal statistics, BC has inexplicably refused to follow the lead of most other provincial and territorial governments, of all political persuasions, to develop and implement a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy.
In 2013, the BC government cannot claim to be ignorant of the abundant evidence of the harm done to children's health and development by growing up in poverty, nor of the huge additional costs in health care, education, the justice system and lost productivity we are already paying by keeping poverty rates so high.
Read More: British Columbia: 2013 Child Poverty Report Card (Campaign 2000)
Posted in BC Education, Equity, Ethics, Government, Idle No More, K-12 issues, No confidence vote, Poverty, Students
Tagged BC education, education policy, Equity, Ethics, Government, K-12 issues, Students, Working conditions
BC school district adopts anti-homophobia policy #bcpoli #bced #yteubc #ubced
About a third of all BC school districts have a similar policy in place
Renee Bernard, News1130, November 15, 2013– The largest school district in the province will become the latest to adopt an anti-homophobia policy.
Surrey school board trustees have voted unanimously to embrace the new anti-discrimination code.
Gioia Breda of the Surrey Teachers Association worked on the document and says it's an important philosophical statement to support students facing homophobic bullying.
"You can compare students who experience racism, for example. When they go home, those students have parents who are often supportive and sympathize, whereas LGBTQ youth may not have come out to their parents," she explains.
She calls it a pro-active code.
"It offers a positive and inclusive curriculum, more sexual health education for LGBTQ youth, and education for administrators, staff and counsellors about LGBTQ issues."
She says the policy is designed to protect both students and staff.
Just over a decade ago, the school board made national headlines in its fight to ban books featuring same-sex couples, a policy it eventually changed.
The board's anti-bullying code was adopted with relative ease, compared to the situation in Burnaby a few years ago, when that school board encountered protests from parents.
About a third of all BC school districts have anti-homophobic bullying policies in place.
Read More: News1130
Posted in BC Education, Critical Education, Equity, Ethics, K-12 issues, Legal issues, Protests, Student Movement, Students, Working condition
Tagged BC education, Critical Education, Equity, Ethics, K-12 issues, Students, Teachers, Working conditions
BC gov wasted $66-million over 12 years on failed aboriginal child services #bcpoli #bced #yteubc #idlenomore
Posted on November 6, 2013 by Stephen Petrina | Leave a comment
Lindsay Kines, Victoria Times Colonist, November 6, 2013– The B.C. government's failed attempt to reform the aboriginal child welfare system during the past 12 years has wasted nearly $66 million without helping a single child, the province's child watchdog says in a new report.
Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond accuses the government and aboriginal organizations of blowing money on consultants, pointless research projects and endless meetings that go nowhere and deliver no tangible results.
"To be blunt, a significant amount of money has gone to people who provide no program or service to directly benefit children," she writes in her 86-page report, When Talk Trumped Service.
More than half the money was spent on a failed effort to set up Regional Aboriginal Authorities, while the rest went to self-governance initiatives in the Ministry of Children and Family Development that bled money away from front-line services, the report says.
Turpel-Lafond said the "colossal failure of public policy" took place at a time when many aboriginal children have no safe place to live and no help coping with violence, abuse, mental illness and learning disabilities.
"Children and youth deserve better, and the best contrition for this rather shameful debacle would be a real effort to improve the outcomes for those children by actually knowing what they require and what works to support them — to stop directing the money into the big theoretical fixes, and instead shore up the front lines of the system, especially in those places where the paved roads end in B.C.," the report says.
Turpel-Lafond spares no one in her report, noting that aboriginal organizations — particularly political groups — have been willing participants in the fiasco.
"Whether this is because they have been so overburdened by so many agendas . . . or if they believe that they are actually making progress, the representative is unsure," the report says.
The report urges the Ministry of Children and Family Development to refocus its energy on delivering front-line services to children and leave discussions about a self-government to the Attorney General.
Turpel-Lafond said Children's Minister Stephanie Cadieux has indicated that she was unaware of the problems.
Cadieux, who is slated to speak with reporters this afternoon, issued a statement in which she said the ministry agrees with Turpel-Lafond's findings and recommendations.
"We know our focus needs to be on providing direct services to aboriginal children and families," the statement said. "That's why, two years ago, the newly appointed deputy minister began the process of shifting the focus of contracts from governance to service delivery."
All aboriginal contractors have been told that future contracts will focus on direct services, Cadieux said.
She denied, however, that the money spent over the past decade was wasted. "Our efforts to build relationships with First Nations communities have established a solid foundation for government as it continues to move forward on the development of government structures."
Read More: Victoria Times Colonist
Posted in BC Education, Budgets & Funding, Equity, Ethics, Government, Idle No More, Organizing, Protests, Students
Tagged BC education, Budgets & Funding, Government, K-12 issues, Students
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