Cultural Norms in China

Willows Whisper Lightly: A Misleading Title

The water formed a rivulet and as gravity exerted its force the liquid flowed downwards and towards the depression where my carry on suitcase was situated.  I sensed the impending danger and moved the suitcase as the water streamed by.  People walked through it and another young child was playing with a toy in the stream of pee left moments before by a child whose mother had pulled down her quilted pants exposing her fat little bottom to the cold world allowing her to relieve herself on the busy walkway in front of the ticket entrance at the Jinhua train station.



 It’s just a cultural thing I am told and therefore I should be tolerant of such behavior, but then in Kuwait abusing a nanny is also a cultural norm.  I guess I’m odd I don’t like to see children or adults piss in public places and Arab men shouldn’t beat the hired help.  Why is it that a country that can orbit a woman around the planet and sell sophisticated medical diagnostic equipment to hospitals in the European community not be able to use disinfectants in their washrooms, or deodorant under their armpits.  I’m  just sensitive, I know.



I watch as a Chinese store owner comes to the threshold of his food store and “horks” and spits on the sidewalk where his customers walk as they enter his store. I watched another man as he places a finger over one nostril and forcefully blew the contents of the other on to the street, also while positioned in a store front.  I had no desire after that to buy food, or anything else from those stores.





Sanitation is lacking in China  and I am thankful that heavy rains clear the streets on a regular basis.  In my own school I can not bring myself to use the public washrooms as they are not properly cleaned, instead I have to make the trip across campus to our own apartment.  I have asked the Chinese admin to use cleaning products, but that would cost money and cut into the budget, then maybe the Chinese principal would have his driver chauffeur him in a VW instead of an Audi.

24 and Jack Bauer

The House that Jack Built  (24)

Just as in the Middle East I have access to a wide range of pirated DVD’s.  Recently, I got the entire set of 24.  I had already watched the first five seasons years ago and still have the original DVD’s you copied for me Paul.  

Ironically, at the end of season five I left Jack Bauer on a freighter imprisoned and heading for China, that was the end of the season. I felt helpless, there was nothing I could do for Jack at the time.  All of these years since I have been worried sick about Jack and what happened to him in China.  I have often wondered how it is that the free world is able to remain safe without Jack Bauer yelling and screaming and saving the world every season, each year in only 24 hours. 

I thought maybe while in China I could unravel the mystery, so under the pretext of finding a principal’s job I decided to do something about the situation.  I have gone through season six in record time.  I have discovered that the time tested formula is still intact. That is: a combination of  high octane, adrenaline driven plot lines in which people you trust only turn around and  betray you, then die, while Jack whispers and then yells, is wounded, never eats, or goes to the washroom, or changes clothing in any given 24 hour period, kills hundreds of people and never skips a beat. Jack is backed by the CTU staff who work tirelessly in a dismal poorly lit cement bunker and are constantly betrayed by fellow workers, often tortured themselves and then say they are okay and go right back to work because its for the good of the country.  

Ironically, when I got to China, Jack had already left and, as I write this is fighting terrorism in the Los Angeles area by preventing old Soviet style suitcase bombs (from a recent 50% Bentley sale) from being detonated.  All the bad guys are dead, yet the viewer knows the plot must thicken because its only 2 am and this is in real time and the day is not over my friend...as I ponder the time plot differentials the phone rings.  I let Jack get it.  Wouldn’t you know it, the call is from China.  I get a surge of adrenaline, hope springs eternal, because I know with certainty I am still in the game with Jack and there’s 8 hours left. 

Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon

As I drove up to the theatre I saw several young men in white shirts and dark ties zealously working the crowd giving out their literature and offering copies of the Book of Mormon.  Since I was here to see the play I wasn’t certain if it was the script of the play or the religious text, sacred to believers of the faith, that they were offering to the masses out on the streets.

What did the Dalai Lama say about religion and opiates or was that Lenin and Mcartney.  None the less these mormons were manning up in the cold weather prostilitizing to the theatre masses as they approached the gates to be entertained in, as some reviewers have said, “A sacrilegious ride of perversions and mockery of the mormon faith.” 

Now that I have actually had the “sacrilegious ride” I would have to say, although there are some truths to the above quote.  I also have to disagree with it as the play goes much deeper than mere mockery and sarcasm.  I have to admit what is one to expect in a profound religious philosophical sense from the creators of a semi adult weekly animation TV show that has barely survived 17 seasons of prime time audiences.  In a word or several.  The play had depth, breadth.  It was profound with deep meaning far beyond Mormons. 

I have been to Salt Lake City on vacation and seen the Salt Flats, the cathedral, the city that mormons built, the museum documenting their “history”, their institutions of higher learning and all the rest.  I’m no different than most of you.  It is an easy thing to mock, ridicule, make fun in, snicker at, laugh, sneer, deride, criticize and well you get the idea.     

I mean really lost tribes of Israel in North America, Jesus appears to them, golden tablets are buried and found, wars, persecution and migration.  It sounds so Christian.  Who would believe a story like that unless you had faith and several wives.

Let me give you some basic plot line and character development and I will mention there is a scene from hell in which they featured Starbucks coffee. I have to say that was the one thing that offended me.  To me hell is a place without coffee.  I’m afraid the authors lost me on that finer theological point.  Apparently young mormon men, not sure about the women, go off into the secular world for two years to do missionary work.  Our main character, an ace student of mormon theology teachings is set on going to preach to the heathen of Orlando when in fact the elders of the church send him and his nerdy, simple minded partner to Uganda.

In Africa, after, having their luggage stolen they discover a land dominated by AIDS, poverty, war lords, superstition, ignorance, and violence.  People have given up on God and chant a phrase which translates “Fuck God.”  After all what has any one including God done to help these people in their daily despair and misery.  The team of Mormons already stationed in Uganda welcomes the two new missionaries to their demoralized midst as collectively they have been incapable of converting a single soul to the Mormon faith. 

Price and Cunningham begin their mission with yes, missionary zeal.  It is, however, nerdy Elder Cunningham who baptizes a local Ugandan woman in a process symbolically paralleling the sexual act.  Cunningham proceeds to fabricate a version of his faith that he truly does not understand in order to convert the natives.  His version of the faith involves a mix of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek and Mormonism woven together in a synergetic symbolic mix of frog fucking, God loving faith finding a new convoluted version of mormonism which would make the founding folk religious zealot Joseph Smith turn in his grave, or at least give up the location of the gold plates he used to translate the book of Mormon in the first place.

As ridiculous as the Mormon religion might seem to an outsider, a non-mormon, this is how ridiculous Cunningham’s fanciful tale sounded.  But it its bizarre quirkiness it served a valuable service in unifying the Ugandans against the oppression of General Butt Naked and his clitoris paranoia.  It gave them hope, strength and eventually victory over seemingly insurmountable odds.  In short the religion had function and value.  In there version of a God, their frog fucking symbolism any crazier than Mormons  with buried golden plated and multiple wives.  

The ultimate brilliance of The Book of Mormon is that beyond its entertainment and shock value it teaches that any  and every religion has value no matter how ludicrous it may appear to the outsider.  A religion when all is said and done is simply a well told story with its unique set of icons, prophets and usually a Book designed to organize a group of people along certain values and standards.  Oh and a God.  

Gender Equality in Kuwait

How I Lost a National Writing Contest

I was making my typical drive to work this morning and like driving a regular route in any location, for any job it gets very routine and anything that changes from that routine stands out in your mind.  One of the Arab drivers in front of me used his signal light to announce to the world his intention to make a legal turn to the right.  I remember feeling a sense of surprise and perhaps even pride that here, in this time and in this place a Kuwaiti driver was showing the good sense and common courtesy to signal for a turn.  He then turned left.

Fine.  This story is really about a writing contest, but I thought the driving example would be testament to my attitudes about Kuwait and in the end very germane to my case as to why I lost the writing contest.  To be fair I did get a certificate of participation as they give in elementary schools and we were all told that we were winners; and so you see I am not writing out of a futile and misguided feeling of bitterness.  I have my certificate.


The sponsor of the writing contest, AWARE is an organization dedicated to bridging the gap between the Arab and Western cultures represented here in this small desert nation.  As part of my orientation, last October, a group of teachers, including myself, were invited to the centre to get an introduction to Kuwaiti Culture 100.  Most memorable for me was the large buffet that followed the lectures and the question and answer period.

From the AWARE website I took  this  paragraph  to explain their purpose: “The Advocate for Westerners-Arab Relations center is a non-profit, non-governmental, and non-political organization working for promoting positive, constructive relations between Westerners and Arabs by organizing social activities and information services related to Arab and Islamic culture.  "It is through culture that we preserve our heritage, that we express our creativity and that we share our individuality with the world,"  Over the years, AWARE has built a reputation as a consistent, trusted, and reliable resource for westerners in Kuwait.”


I was new to Kuwait and I thought this exercise at the AWARE would give me some valuable information.  By this time I was drawing on about 4 weeks of exposure and had toured some of the megamalls.  The Avenues is probably one of the largest and most modern malls on this planet.  This mall even has Dubai beat without the skiing.  Malls are large because they are the focal points of shopping and recreation.  They are domed cities in the hot desert where families come out to stroll the wide avenues and explore the many shops.

One thing I noticed early on is that Kuwaiti men love to parade.  They are well groomed, with trimmed five-day growth beards, immaculate dish dash and head gear, expensive watches, jewelry and foot wear.  They don’t seem to shop or carrying any parcels or even go into stores for the most part. I see them in groups, usually with cell phones and frequently holding hands. Freeze frame.

Yes, in this ultra conservative Islamic state boys and men parade in open public areas holding hands and often show overt levels of affection. The culture and religion is oppressive in the sense that it does not allow what the western world would consider normal levels of interaction between the genders.  My theory of rampant homosexuality in a religious society is simply another manifestation of the Catholic Priest Syndrome in which imposed celibacy from a religious hierarchy leads to repression and ultimately “intimacy retardation.”  In the case of the Catholic priests read the newspapers documenting  the abuse and torment some of these holy men have imposed on innocents.

In Arab culture boys are not allowed to date.  The more conservative families have their daughters covered at adolescence or earlier in the abaya, sometimes accessorized with a veil, a mesh over the eyes and gloves.  Is it no wonder that when women who are considered taboo, are covered and unavailable in any physical or emotional sense that men revert to other outlets.  Homosexuality, which does not actually officially exist here, is rampant.  Catholic Priest Syndrome in the Islamic world.

I am aware of a situation in  which a young woman was severely beaten by her mother because she was found to have boys’ names and numbers on her cell phone speed dial.  After the beating she changed her ways and altered all the boys’ names to girls’.  Lesson learned.

The two writers who won the AWARE writing contest were positive and passionate about the merits of Islam and Arab culture in Kuwait.  As I sat in the audience listening to their stories, the first place story entitled, “Fire in the Desert” had to do with the passion of the faith and the language, and I began to have self doubts.  Was I such a cynic that I couldn’t see the positive? Was I so jaded that I couldn’t get the winners points about equality within this society?  The answer was a resounding NO.

Equality?  What equality?  Upon three seconds of further reflection I thought the author was just like the driver in paragraph one.  This young British author actually wrote that when he came to this country he was under the illusion that there was no equality between the genders and through living here he has been able to dispel this stereotype of Arab culture.  He cited an example from his own experience in which he went to a dentist and assumed, when in the examination room, that the man in blue cover alls was the dentist and the female in attendance was the technician/assistant.  Quelle surpris when he realized the roles were reversed thus proving gender equality in Kuwait.

First, I would have to say that the female dentist likely was not from Kuwait.  By the way my dentist is a Kuwaiti male trained in Ireland who has numerous female Filipino assistants floating around. I’m sure they don’t make a western salary and as for gender equality, I haven’t seen it yet.

Over the last two years I have been doing a quick read of Thomas Friedman’s book,        “The World is Flat, A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century.”  The book is about globalization, the flatness of the Earth has to do with the ability of countries to compete in the new global market place.  He explains why some places like China and India have become so successful and why the Arab world, for the most part,  has not.

I’m not a business person, but I think that openness is critical to successful business practices (Friedman, 2005)” because you start tending to respect people for their talent and abilities.”  He explains that when  chatting over the internet to another developer, planner, programmer or investor one loses sight of ethnicity.  You deal with people on the basis of talent and ability.  In fact the whole view of human beings is, “talent based and performance-based rather than the background-based world.”

In the Muslim world, as in Kuwait and Saudi especially, religious clergy, fundamental islamists ban jtihad, or the interpretation of the principles of Islam in the light of current circumstances.  Much of Islam is stuck in the past and has difficulty aligning itself with other cultures in a modern time in a globalized world.  The more radical would like to purge the Arabian peninsula of all foreigners and foreign influences.

Keep in mind it is often these same conservative elements that import drugs and alcohol into the region and go on sex vacations to Bangkok.  A friend recently told me that while waiting in the Riyadh airport for a flight to Amsterdam he got into conversation with a cleric.  They exchanged stories and itineraries and it seems that the holy man was off to Amsterdam for some well deserved sexual recreation in the red light district of this liberal city.  Hypocritically as this may sound, it is justified by the fact that such behaviour is permissible while passing through a secular society.

Friedman states that  “in the Arab-Muslim world women are treated as a pollution or a danger to be cut off from the public space”.  Attitudes like this and the treatment of women which results effectively removes half of the talent pool from contributing to the enhancement of the economy and to the society as a whole. Equality?

Men have become accustomed to a system of great privilege from birth on, and because they are male that gives them power over their sisters and female members of society.  Ironically, gender control is also bad for men as it seems to instills in them a sense of entitlement and discourages within them whatever it is that causes one to improve as an individual.  

The winning essays spoke of tolerance and understanding, two things that I don’t believe are currently represented in the educational system.  My school, might be an exception.  I actually am allowed to teach a world culture course, largely of my own design.  This may be rewarding and enlightening to the students and eventually get me deported.  Conservative schools do not teach about other cultures, nor do they stress tolerance to other faiths or to other schools of Islamic thought.

As I sat in the hall at the AWARE listening to the winning stories, I could admire some elements of their technical and creative writing style, especially of the first place paper.  I later congratulated that author and indicated that I thought he deserved to win.  However, I am left with my observations that I live in an intolerant and privileged society.  It is a over indulged, pampered welfare society that depends on its Islamic tribal nature to cope with the modern world, and as a result is failing itself and especially the generation I now teach.  I am so glad I lost that contest.

Rejoice

Sally Ann

The shelves were sparse
Christmas decoration

used and worn, 
he trudged the aisles
in search

of a bargain,

his long white hair in curls 
under a dirty grey baseball cap,

in his cart a plastic angel
with chipped paint and a lightened 

sign

 “ Rejoice.”

School Uniforms

Uniformity versus Individualism

The population of my school is about 2200 students with a staff of about 200. I think by most standards that qualifies as large.  During my first year I made the mistake of wearing a white T-shirt with dark navy pants to class.  I immediately had the feeling that I had gone under cover among the masses as I was essential in a version of the school uniform. I never made that mistake again.

Although I have never attended a school that required me to wear a uniform and do not bear the emotional scars that Frank Etherington (School Uniform Proposal is a Bad Idea, Jan 31) seems to, I think on that one day I wore white and navy I had a sense of what it was like.    I felt as if I had lost an element of my individuality, definitely my teacher identity was gone, as I become one with the student body if only briefly.

As a teacher I must also enforce the uniform dress code which is much easier said than done.  The reality of the situation is that the wearing of uniforms is really about the ongoing and universal conflict of individuality and personal rights versus conformity and standardization.

For every standard in the dress code students can find a dozen ways around it, or to adapt the rule to their will.  In fact students adapt rules like flu viruses mutate.  The “How to Wear “section of the agenda book provided to each student states things like: “in a neat tidy fashion, not excessively long, only two buttons undone, plain white T-shirts with no markings, shirts tucked in, pants at waist level, shorts no more than 12 cm above the knees, ties must be worn in the conventional manner, dress shoes, running shoes or sandals.”  The combination and permutations evolve from this starter list of dress recommendations.

Boys, for example, can wear either a white T-shirt or a white shirt.  T-shirts do not have to be tucked in, but the shirts do.  Therefore it is possible to wear an extra long hip hop style T-shirt under a shirt that is loosely tucked in at the belt.  Then of course there there are the inevitable low slung baggy pants, still very navy and technically in uniform.  The ensemble is complete with running shoes with laces undone.  Between classes some choose to accessorize with ball caps. Next gold chains and bracelets appear for the seven minute excursion between classes.  Briefly the students score on the side of individualism.

While on cafeteria duty I see a senior student approach with shirt out.  I prepare.  I get eye contact and point to the offending shirt.  He does a quick fake, temporarily going for the shirt tail he pivots around me, picks up speed and is gone into the crowd.  I could pursue but there are twenty other young violators in easy range, my dance card is full.  

After lunch, back in my classroom, I begin the pre-class routine.  “David sweat shirt off, Laura that pink lacy thing is not uniform, Kyle, chain under your shirt,” and that’s only what I can see from the waist up.  I’m tired and I haven’t even started teaching yet.

I saw the irony off the uniform issue when we once had “Civvies Days”  during which time students were allowed to wear their individually chosen street clothes.  Peer pressure being what it is among adolescents, they may as well have been in uniform.  In fact I’d say they were, uniforms that they had chosen for themselves. On those days you would hear me say, “David, what does that actually say on your T-shirt?...and the beat goes on.  Students, by virtue of their conformity, have created their own uniforms and they don’t even know it yet.

Will uniforms make for better schools, improve learning, create safer schools, or at least an illusion of safety, I really don’t  know.  My own choice, having once taught in a private school (my bias) is to see students appear professional in sharp uniforms which would, at least in a perfect world, represent their pride in self and school.  I believe individuality in our society is currently very over rated.   

Marty Rempel

Smoking

Previously published in “Voices” a publication of the English Language Arts Council of the Alberta Teachers’ Association

A story of youthful betrayal

Tendrils

The sand dunes soared hundreds of feet above the canal.  For every step up I had the impression of slipping back two as the hot white sand slid through the cracks between my toes.  The quest  for the summit was always worth it.  I felt free and powerful perched above everything as I searched the lake for incoming freighters.

The “dunes,” as we called them, were large sand piles; the result of years of dredging the channel entrance to the Welland ship canal at lock number 1.  They served as our look out, allowing my older brother, Walter, and I the opportunity to examine the parade of approaching ships.  If one looked particularly inviting for whatever reason we would descend our position with dancing leaps like madmen racing for the canal.  Walter was more daring and swifter and always reached the ships before I could.

We screamed up in our tiny voices at the sailors casually leaning against the rusty metal rails on decks that towered over our heads and imaginations, “Coins...throw us your coins.”

Our over exuberant begging usually worked. Sailors from ports we could only vaguely imagine threw down on us a few coins causing us to scramble after them like marbles tossed in a school yard at recess with Walter always getting more than his share.  Some of the coins were thrown deliberately perhaps into the water causing the more foolish of my friends to dive for them in the wake of the huge throbbing propeller.  The fact that we all reached adulthood is still a miracle I marvel at as the powerful water and currents threw our bodies in wild directions, seldom retrieving the coin.

We rode our bikes up the steep incline leading to the top of the lock.  From this vantage point we were above the approaching ship as it entered the lock.  We were now able to look down on the same sailors who minutes before had parted with their coins. I could never get enough of viewing the movement of the lumbering gates pushing tons of water aside as they slowly swung wide, as if in welcome embrace, of the approaching vessel.

“Are you going to stare at the lock all day?”  My brother intruded into my thoughts.

Walter had descended the cracked cement steps and sat under the shade of a large willow.  With my long legs I took the steps two at a time to join him.

“Try one.”  He urged, while tantalizingly fondling the cigarette.

Before I had a chance to respond he took another long drag and held the smoke deep within his lungs for a long time before forcefully exhaling in one mighty breathe.  He didn’t cough.  He had graduated quickly from the hollow sticks we had smoked in the vineyards behind the school.

Walter taunted me again.  Do you want to try it?”

I hesitated for only a moment and, impressed by his manly display, took the smoldering cigarette into my small hands and inhaled quickly.  I lacked expertise and confidence.  I broke into a series of quick coughs and with a shaking hand passed the filter tip back to Walter.

“Now you can’t tell mom,” he crowed.

I coughed again not so much from the smoke this time more in disbelief.  I was stunned by the realization that Walter had set me up.  He had set a trap and I had dumbly and eagerly fallen into it.  He was right.  I couldn’t tell mom.

I could not be a traitor and if I did I was also compromised in my mother’s eyes.  Walter’s lack of trust in me temporarily threw me.

I reached for the cigarette with false bravado and slowly, awkwardly sucked on it.  I exhaled with all the calmness I could muster, trying desperately not to cough again.

“You’re right, I gasped.  “I can’t tell mom.”

I paused for maximum dramatic effect, focusing on the rising tendrils of grey smoke.

“And neither can you.”

Parent/Teacher Interviews

Parent/Teacher Interviews: A Retrospective

As a young teacher some three decades past, the parents who attended my parent /teacher interviews were all much older than I. Often I felt quite insecure about this age differential and was more hesitant to say what I really thought.  I still felt much like a kid myself in the presence of these parents.  I tended to stay close to the ropes because I lacked experience.

After becoming a father myself for the first time, and after having taught for five years, I felt that I had come of age as a teacher. The era prior was merely my apprenticeship. At this pivotal point in my career as both teacher and parent, I straddled the line of each world. I felt that finally I had something more relevant to say as a peer and an equal drawing on my dual insights.  Over the years, I have loosely grouped parents into five categories.

The first group, and sadly a rapidly expanding one, consists of those parents who enable their children. These parents seem to operate out of a confrontational modality which seems to instinctively cause them to rise to their child’s defense no matter what the situation.  Comments such as: “She’s not like that at home.  What are you doing to her school?”

 “My son is excused from doing oral presentations.” 

 “That’s not fair.”

Parents who blindly “protect” their child also assist them in escaping any semblance of accountability and responsibility.  Such parents popularize conspiracy theory in that to them all teachers are out to get their child because there is a constant “personality issue.”  

A second group of parents, those of over achieving students (or perhaps just over-achieving parents) whose strong family values and work ethic lead them to ask me how their violin prodigies/ math genius/ school council president/honour roll student/ scholarship winning sons and daughters can improve. These parents I call the “4% factor”.  The question left hanging in the air at these parent interviews is always the same, “What about the other 4%?”  With these parents, I try to cool their jets, let them smell the coffee and/or roses and lead them to realize that by most standards a mark of 96% is actually quite good. In these cases, I lobby in the direction of allowing their kids to have a life.

The third category of parent is the “Silent or Absent Father Group.”  During these parent interviews, the mother asks all of the pertinent questions and often and quite overtly will kick her husband under the table for asking a question or even clearing his throat.  In such cases, I try not to show too much pity and try to get the father into the discussion through tentative eye contact.  In many households mother knows best and father is a silent background hum or sometimes static noise.  When I do direct a question to a silent father, often a look of temporary panic crosses his face before he can defer back to his wife who alone holds the family nurturing skills.

Most recently, I have taught ESL and discovered a whole new category or parent.  These parents are usually recent immigrants with marginal English skills.  These interviews are therefore more problematic. In a common scenario, one of my ESL students will act as the interpreter.  During these interviews I often wonder why my very short comments take so long to translate, and even more worrisome, why my longer comments are translated in just a few words.  These parents, with old world values want the best of opportunities for their children and care deeply for their academic success. Perhaps the greatest honour bestowed on me during an interview occurred when a Korean mother bowed to me after the interview and presented me with a gift. I was speechless and deeply touched. However, as I view the contrasts between parents and some of my ESL students, I conclude that the children with their I-pods, Adidas and slang are assimilating too quickly and I feel a certain sadness for the parents and what will become of their expectations. 

The “Proud Parent” group is the easiest to work with as there are no real issues of any kind to deal with, as their children are well adjusted, motivated and generally right on track.  My role is to dish out the well deserved accolades and kudos and allow the parents to savour the moment as they would a Belgian chocolate.  These interviews are short but rewarding.

The last group is the “Anonymous Parents” these are the ones that you generally need to meet most urgently but rarely ever see.  Often their kids are problematic, have learning disabilities or social/emotional problems.  One such parent actual apologized to me for being the mom of one of my students.   They are the blank spots on your parent/teacher interview schedule, the no shows who through indifference or total frustration avoid the school.

The constant in all of this is that there is no one perspective, reporting on student progress through interviews is a process briefly and partially illuminated through the teacher/parent interview which has become an educational institution in and of itself. 

After so many years, I prepare my classroom, gather my notes and clear my throat.

“So let me tell you about “little Johnny…”

Marty Rempel

Native Education in Alberta

An Educational Story

Fort Chipewyan is a predominatly native community of Cree, Dene and Metis with a population of about 1000 on two reserves on either side of a municipal town site.  My school Athabasca Delta Community School is located in the town site and students bus in from the neighbouring reserves.  The school itself was built to have a trading fort frontier feel to it.  It does.

Native culture here, and likely in most native communities, values the importance of the family.  The role of the elders as a source of knowledge and wisdom is recognized and almost revered in native culture.  However, I discovered that there is a significant disconnect between what is valued and what is practiced.  I was soon to learn that many families with links to residential schools are severely dysfunctional and native traditions were rapidly eroding.

Despite the fact that children are valued they are given very loose structure in their lives and little discipline. This type of scenario often translates into students who do not know how to behave in a classroom and don’t want to be in school.  Many students rebel against the authority of the teachers.  They are openly and frequently defiant.  Students here, as in the general population, spend a disproportionate amount of time with video games.  I have grade one students telling me about the joys of playing “Grand Theft Auto.” 

I have grown to admire the public school teachers here and how they survive the ordeals of the every day classroom, their’s is not an easy job.  Sadly, some locals still regard teachers as outsiders and criticize them for coming to the community just for the money. Yet, in some cases they do not want native teachers in their classrooms as they feel they are not a qualified or as well trained. I heard one case of an Inuit teacher teaching in a Cree community causing one mother to complain.  After several months, and discovering that the Inuit teacher was quite capable, this mother had the good sense to apologize to the principal.  

I serve as the Special Education Coordinator at the only school in Fort Chipewyan and I work with most of the coded students, that is those who have been tested for learning disabilities and behavioral issues.  Of the approximately 230 students in the school I work with about forty on a regular basis. As I began working with my students it became very clear that there was very little literacy in their home life in the sense that they were usually not read to nor did they read for recreation.  They were after all ”Special Ed” students. But perhaps more significant is the fact that native culture is based on oral traditions and until Europeans gave the Cree a written language there were no written literacy skills. 

Many of my students are several grade levels behind in their literacy and numeracy skills.  I have high school students who can barely read and grade 3 students who do not know the alphabet or the sounds the letters make.  I work with a grade five student who wishes to improve his reading skills only to the point of being able to successfully take his driver’s test.  Many of these students are about to give up or already have.  Their anger and frustration quickly translates into acting out behaviour and severe discipline issues.

When a typical, if there is such a thing, middle class southern suburban child gets to school he has been read to, talked to and exposed to a wide range of vocabulary words and ideas thousands or tens of thousands of times before entering the classroom.  My impression here, in Chip, is that my Cree and Dene students arrive in school not having the advantage of the English spoken word, story times and chances at adequate vocabulary development. For many, English is a second language. My students begin the literacy race long after the green flag has gone down and too many of them never see the checkered flag.  This year our graduation class will be composed of four students.  The drop out rate is disturbing.

The Fraser Institute rates school in Western Canada based on very narrow parameters of performance and although I don’t accept their findings as definitive, they do raise red flags.  My school is rated dead last in all of Alberta and many of the other low placed schools are also part of the Northland School Division.  

The sad thing about many of our students at all ages, but especially in the junior high grades is that they have given up on themselves. They have an unfortunate reverse or negative pride and seem to revere a lack of progress. It is just the opposite of self esteem expressed through a near total lack of achievement. Our school has no teams, or mottos and very little school spirit.

As an example, in the main foyer of our school is a fireplace with a circular sitting area.  Mid-morning, one school day while walking through I saw a senior student sleeping there.  To a guest at the school, or anybody else, the first thing they would see would be a student asleep on a bench.  I touched the student’s shoulder, big mistake, and asked him to sit up.  First I got the “don’t touch me I know my rights argument now prevalent in most schools everywhere, but after that episode I was told in strong indignant terms that he could sleep where he wanted, after all he said, “this is Chip not some southern school.”  Who was I to argue. I had already been told by some parents, whose children I had disciplined, that I don’t know the community or their kids.  Maybe they are right.

Students from “Chip” who have tried the public school system elsewhere, mainly in Fort McMurray and Edmonton, soon find themselves back at Athabasca Delta Community School because it is here that they can fail in their comfort zone.  They seem proud of their lethargy.  They take “pride” in their dysfunction.

Sometimes as teachers we get the feeling that we have been forgotten in our northern isolation. It is difficult and costly to get goods and services from the South as this is a fly in community with a winter road open for three months of the year. As a result of high transportation costs and a lack of care or resources the school and teacherages are very poorly maintained. 

Just this year alone our school has been closed due to furnace and boiler failures which resulted in frozen and burst pipes, which in turn caused massive flooding destroying my classroom and everything in it as well as the ECS and grade one classrooms on the floor directly below my room.  Since the burst pipe had 7 hours of uninterrupted flow time the water also took out the staffroom, hallways, the office and the library.  The sewers backed up and over flowed into the main floor washrooms.  The school was closed for several days only to be closed again due to, first a lack of propane pressure and no heat followed by too much propane pressure and a school overwhelmed with gas. Each event closed the school for several days.  Last year the school was closed for two months because of mold problems.  We don’t have to hope for snow days we just wait for something to break down and it always does.

I entered and won a writing contest this year promoting the merits of public education sponsored by the Alberta Teachers Association.  The contest required contestants to describe what it is that is special or unique about their school.  The contest operated under the theme of “My Alberta School.”  Naturally, I did not focus on test scores.  I entitled my piece “Continuous Small Miracles” and wrote about the small, everyday positive occurrences that happened in my school. 

My examples dealt with small actions and kindnesses taking place more on a one to one nature between students and teachers. After the contest I eventually concluded that under present circumstances the climate at our school and in this community will not significantly change, nor will our provincial test results, but there will be a multitude of successes on an individual basis based on those teachers and students who despite the odds rise above.  These people are special and they are the true success stories, and on that level my school is a great success and those successes speak to the strength of the individual, not the system.

Having taught for 35 years and much of that with special needs students I have found nothing surprising in Fort Chipewyan in terms of what I read in the pysch/ed reports or through my daily work with students.  There is a cross section of many types of issues, problems and learning disabilities including: aspergers, oppositional defiance, ADHD, OCD, CD and all the other initials we use to identify and label students.  The difference here is that I have never seen such a high concentration of educational issues in such a small student population before.

Why is this?  I’m sure Fort Chipewyan is in no way unique from most other native communities in Alberta, or elsewhere in Canada.  I was still wondering about the big disconnect between values and reality as told to me by my truck driving social worker. The community of “Chip” values children, and education yet has a school with an extremely high drop out rate, and is the lowest rated school in the province.

Residential schools were a systematic and sanctioned way of robbing the natives of their culture and whatever vestage of heritage they might have left after they were cheated of land and other rights.  I’m no expert in this, but I know enough that this was a period of shame in our history and when the residential school here closed it wasn’t long before it was also demolished.

I was told one reason for the disconnect with values had to do with residential schools.  

Because of the harsh treatment experienced by many at, Holy Angels Indian Residential School (1902-1974), the Chip residential school and others like it, is where many natives lost their connection to families and family values. 

The government’s goal was to break down the culture and the family structure, thereby developing a group of people who were institutionalized; then when one throws alcohol into the mix with the dislocation of many communities from their lands that they knew, to poorer lands it eventually creates an entrenched cycle of poverty. Some of the former students of Holy Angels, now adults and parents, attend support groups today in order to deal with their horrible experiences as children while at the residential school.

After all of the social trauma inflicted on native populations “we” blamed natives for being useless. Due to the reserve system and residential schools  linked with a combination of government and church policies, it resulted in creating a true sense of learned helplessness with little sense of connection to anything, no sense of family, no sense of trust in others, or in themselves, and no sense of trust in authority. In fact the very concept of family was destroyed, but I guess that was the point of the residential school. 

Is it no wonder that because of abuse and extreme methods of discipline students who left those schools became parents who didn’t know how to parent and were reluctant to discipline.  Soon a generation developed robbed and devoid of heritage and tradition and seemingly helpless to rectify the situation. The evil of residential schools created more than one monster.  The legacy plays on in families and schools today here in “Chip”.

The reality is that much of the parenting in native homes is done by members of the extended family and more often than not by the grandparents.  In traditional native culture there was good reason for the grandparents to handle child rearing because parents would be “out on the land” making a living and surviving.  In modern society some parents seem to rely too heavily on tradition with the continued expectation that grandparents raise the children.  As contemporary society has developed the traditional roles have not changed and possibly family life has suffered in some ways because parents excused themselves from their parenting role. 

Presently, at a point in our school’s development and history when more resources are needed, along with smaller class sizes in order to better deal with the many obvious issues, educational spending is being reduced. It was only last year that the entire Northland School Board was dismissed by the Minister of Education and an acting superintendent was appointed to turn the jurisdiction around.  An extensive study was done which highlighted numerous weaknesses within the system as a whole.  Now with the most recent provincial budget, cuts have been made and again Northland and other needy jurisdictions, especially rural ones, will go without, while still being expected to do more with less.

I begin to wonder if public education is up to the task and whether or not it can succeed against such odds in isolated northern communities, like Fort Chipewyan and other rural areas in Alberta. Any one approaching my school might be quite surprised to read at least four large signs identifying several oil companies for their gifts to the school and the community. Similar signs appear in the interior of the school. Most everything we have in our school, that is of value, from the playground equipment to the computer lab to the community resource centre has been paid for through the generosity of oil companies.  

As a teacher I value the contributions made by oil companies for they have made my job easier and improved education and the lives of our students, but is this what public education is coming to in Alberta? Public education is a system which is provincially mandated, board directed and tax supported.  In Alberta that means it is an inclusive educational system which according to the Alberta Teachers’ Association’s definition provides, “...opportunity to develop ingenuity, creativity, critical thinking skills and a strong sense of citizenship.”

It seems there is a continous and growing gap between the needs of an over taxed school system and the ability of a government to meet the educational needs in Fort Chipewyan.  In these cases gifts and contributions from oil companies fill that gap and signage appears advertising the donations.  Although my school is the beneficiary of oil company profits it also demonstrates the failure of public education to provide the opportunities to promote, “ingenuity, creativity, critical thinking skills and a strong sense of citizenship.” In the end the solutions become political and not pedagogical. I think the students in Fort Chipewyan deserve better. 

Fort Chipewyan is a community with an unfortunate history, one in which the residential school system tragically failed them. For many, living in a reserve system with a residential school deprived them of their pride, heritage, traditions and family values.   What I see today is a people struggling for an identity lost somewhere between surviving off the land and free spirited kids playing video games at home during school hours, serviced by a public school system unable to meet their needs.

 I will end with one last image.  While working with Statistics Canada 20 years ago I flew up the Athabasca River somewhere between Fort McMurray and Fort Chipewyan. We made a smooth landing beside a Cree summer fishing camp.  My job was to complete a census report.  I saw the elders fishing and drying their catch on racks in the traditional way.  A short distance away a Honda generator hummed and provided the electricity for the children inside the crude log cabin allowing them to play video games at midday.  I thought then as I do now, what is their future?

Marty Rempel