There's no real secret that Nunavut's education system
lags way behind other jurisdictions in Canada. While
75% of students in the rest of Canada graduate, in
Nunavut this number is closer to 25%. YES 25%!
Now you would think that one of the ways the GN would
address this would be to ensure that all classrooms in
Nunavut are staffed with qualified teachers. However,
this is definitely not the case here. The GN puts
Inuit teachers into classes in the interest of raising
the number of Inuit in the education system. Sadly,
it does this at the expense of ensuring they have a
B.Ed. I've even taught in one school where the
Kindergarten teacher only had a grade 8 education! Is
this any way to raise academic levels or improve upon
our sorry graduation rate?!
Reading and writing skills are actually worse now then
they were 20-30 years ago under the residential school
system. Yes, for the first time we have a generation
of students that are more poorly educated than their
parents' generation.
The Department of Education likes to trumpet that any
teacher in Nunavut is qualified to teach any grade
from K to 12. This is nonsense. I have 3
undergraduate degrees from an Ontario university but I
am most definitely not qualified to teach say high
school math or science because I do not have a math or
science degree. However, according to the powers that
be, I or any teacher is qualified to teach these
courses.
As I understand it, the new Education Act sets a
deadline by which time teachers lacking a B.Ed. must
finish course work so that they will be fully
qualified. This is all well and good I suppose for
future students but I fail to see how this helps
students that are currently in the system. Would you
or anyone go visit a doctor, lawyer, surgeon etc. that
is not fully qualified? Obviously not, but Nunavut's
Dept. of Ed. apparently has no problem with kids being
taught by unqualified teachers.
In a majority of schools, K-6 classes are taught by
local teachers while upper grades (with the exception
of Inuktitut for the most part) have southern
teachers. The system simply is not producing enough
qualified Inuk teachers to take on the higher grades.
The Education Minister may say that any graduate of
the NTEP Program (Northern Teacher Education Program)
is qualified to teach up to high school, but the
reality is that the few teachers this program turn out
teacher only at the primary level.
The easiest way for the GN to fix the problem with
qualified teachers would be to ensure all teachers
have a B.Ed. NOW, not within 4,5 or 10 years from now.
However, this is not going to happen. It must
instead follow a Land Claim Agreement that ensures
people are given employment no matter how unqualified
they may be. Given that it's taken 9 years and we
still do not have an Education Act, one can only guess
at how long it will take to address this nightmare.
The GN points out that language of instruction is a
big issue and rightly so. Students must become
proficient in both Inuktitut and English in order to
succeed in the future. However, if classes do not
have qualified professionals than it matter little
what language students are being taught in. It could
be French, Chinese, Russian or Swahili. It matters
not. When you put teachers in your classrooms that
are themselves uneducated, you are only inviting
failure.
Worries though, its all good. A fully bilingual
curriculum will eventually be in place in Nunavut
by......2019.....YES 2019!! (Just in time for my
retirement - provided I haven't left here sooner out
of sheer frustration.)
signed
disgruntled teacher
13 comments:
dont know whats the issue with the whole bilingual thing. i came from a bilingual background and the govt wanted to make sure we all learned the country's national language so they had english as a 2nd language but then found out it wasnt doing any good since when we get to Uni, everything is in english so they now changed it to other subjects in the national language while english still as a 2nd language but science and maths to be taught in english.
children learn their native tongue from home that is unless the parents here in nunavut talks to them in english which i HIGHLY doubt so. since nunavut is part of Canada, i dont know what is the issue of just having the primary language in english and have inuktitut as a secondary or more of a 2nd language program.
Good post.
When my kids did their early education here (it was still NWT at that time, but things have gotten worse, not better since then), we were told that the education they were receiving was at the same standard as the south.
Funny, though, that I noticed that any southern teachers with young children always made sure they were out of the north before their kids had to start school!
I deal with youngsters in a different capacity than teachers do, but I'm always amazed that they seem to move from grade to grade in high school without doing any homework and even if they miss 25 to 50 percent of their school days. No wonder they can't graduate, or have difficulty moving to higher education where they are actually expected to perform.
I'll bet there are 30 or 40 kids in this community who don't go to school at all and no real attempt is made to censure the parents. I guess that would be "culturally insensitive"!
Great post. I am a teacher in Nunavut and would not want my child to go through the education system here. Not only because her classmates would be about 2 years academically behind her southern peers, but because of all the stress in the classroom.
On any given day in my classroom, I could have a student throw a desk because another student said his name. I could see a student burst into a rage because he lost his pencil. I could be told I was boring, stupid, could be told to fuck off. What problems exist at home (drunk parents, absent parents, no food in the cupboard, etc) present themselves in the classroom for the teacher and other students to deal with.
Students are aggressive, sorely undisciplined, and rude. Most of my day is spent on keeping order. There is precious little time left in the day to actually teach.
While teaching in the south, when I encountered students like this it was a team effort between admin, teacher and parents to get the student on track. I could call the parents and tell them what was happening and get a response like "okay, we'll have a chat with her" and from then on she would be better. The parents would call me to ask how things were going with the behaviour. We would have regular meetings to create behavioural or academic goals and celebrate improvements. Parents would drop by to say hello or send me notes to update me on home situations so that I would be aware of and sensitive to changes in the student's behaviour.
Up here, I might run into a parent at the store and mention that their child's behaviour had been "off" for a few days. The parent would say "ya, his brother just committed suicide". Wow, would have been helpful for me to know that!
Up here if a student is having a hard time with a specific subject or if his behaviour was out of hand I can call home and not know what kind of response I'm going to get. I MIGHT get "Okay, I'll have a chat with him" but I'm just as likely to get "Ya, so? You're the teacher - you deal with it".
I've even been yelled at for calling to tell a mother that I was having a hard time getting her daughter to stop talking while I was trying to teach. It didn't matter how I tried to explain it, this woman was angry at me for suggesting that her daughter wasn't allowed to talk. Ever. She didn't understand what I was saying. Language barrier? Cultural difference? Either way, she called me all sorts of names and threatening to get me fired. I hung up feeling defeated and in tears. The student only got worse.
I have also had a parent show up at my class, yank his son out of the room and tell me I shouldn't be teaching him because I'm not Inuk. My thought was, "hey, if there were enough Inuit interested in doing the job I wouldn't be here".
Then there's the attendance issue, as mentioned. When I've asked parents why their child isn't at school in the mornings I've gotten "Cause I stay up late and sleep all morning." The child told me he was afraid to get up in the morning because his dad is always hung over and gets mad when people make noise in the house in the morning. So the boy stays in his bed instead of going to school.
So, boo hoo. I'm not trying to stir up sympathy. I'm just sharing my take on other reasons (there are SO many) the current system isn't working:
*Lack of support and discipline from parents.
*Poor examples set at home for how to treat each other and deal with emotions.
*Children dealing with stuff at home WAY beyond their capacity to deal.
*Parents not making efforts or even hindering their child's efforts to get to school.
I too would not want my child to grow up in this system. It's hard enough for an adult to deal with all this shit.
Elaine,
Thanks for the heat-felt comment.
I'm sure that being a teacher is a tough job anywhere, but here in Nunavut it's a job that very few people would even think about taking on, if they knew the truth.
Sadly, for many of the reasons that you mention, most of the good teachers just can't stick it out for very long.
Fortunately for the system (that would otherwise collapse!), there's always a new crop of young teachers willing to come north and without a clue as to what they are getting into.
My hat's off to all Nunavut teachers.
Larry, I have to disagree to some extent that this "new young crop" of teachers willing to come to the north don't know what they are getting into.
I knew what I would potentially be faced with before moving up North - to what degree was the question. So far, as I teach k-4 and high school, there isn't too many issues with students telling me off, things being thrown all over the classroom or at me. There are some behavior issues, but none that are any more extreme than what I would have faced in a school back home.
Was I fully prepared for some of the challenges that I would face up here? (FASD, extreme anxiety, emotional / behavioral issues, home life and things that are some times out of the child's control?) No, I will admit that I wasn't, but I also was not naive to the issues up North either. I did my "homework". I talked with current Northern teachers. I talked with the mental health / community counsellors that I could contact. I talked with the principals of the schools I was being interviewed at outside of interview time to get a more full picture of what I would be faced with.
I am lucky, as many parents here do want to know what is going on in the classroom and how their child is doing. I am grateful when I have parent / elder volunteers come into my class to help with a lesson, or even just to provide some additional translation support.
Would I have still moved all the way up North knowing what I know now? Yes, I still would have, although, I would have brought up different resources and taken several additional classes on aboriginal education and special education.
Will my experience teaching in the North make me a better teacher for when and if I move back down South? It sure as hell will. I don't think I would trade this experience for any classroom down the south. This is how some of the best teachers are made. We are beaten down (at times) and forced to reevaluate how we teach, to break from the mold and find (or invent) ways of connecting with our students to educate them.
You made some good points, Kennie. You get volunteers!!??? In our community, parents and elders alike will only come to the school to help out if they are paid.
Although it is true that some teachers are able to figure out a way to survive, the fact is that the overwhelming majority of teachers in Nunavut are not here long-term. Those of use who have been here awhile know this and the facts bear it out. Nunavut-wide there was a 25% turnover of teachers following the 2006-2007 school year and about a 30% turnover in principals.
Larry raises a good point about the GN attracting teachers who don't know what they are getting into. I can only speak for the smaller communities but I know that the average new-hire stays only for an average of 2-3 years before moving on.
Perhaps these numbers are a bit higher in some of the larger communities but this all seems to add weight to what one experienced northern teacher told me when I first came North. "The government is very good at attracting young teachers to the North but does a piss-poor job when it comes to getting them to stick around. "
When you think about it, it really takes 2-3 to implement any kind of long range planning or goals. If such a high percentage of teachers and administrators are calling it quits after such a short sting than its little wonder little change or any anything of any significance is accomplished.
From what I've seen in my own experience of 5 years in Nunavut, it looks like the GN has a long way to go.
If you have an NTEP degree, you are only allowed to teach grades K-8 (not K-12 as the original post reads).
If you can only teach K-8 after competing the NTEP program someone, I hope someone tells the Education Minister that. I heard it from the Man myself.
The problem with education in Nunavut is the actual physical lack of it.
In any given year you have the following:
Personnel Development Day.
(My favorite, this screws up the whole community as most people work for a living)
Storm Days.
Cultural trips on the land.
Student Exchange Trips
Deaths in the Community.
School breakdowns or break ins.
Visitors( Rap groups)
Civil holidays.
Add that all up and it's no wonder my kid can't spell
First of all - Kennie, I salute you! It's teachers like you that really helped and made a difference in my high school.
There's no question that education is a mess in the north. What boggles my mind is how some can bitch and complain about it, when even teachers on this forum can point out that to be a sucessful teacher you have to take the crap and persevere, and stay longer than 2 or 3 years.
I'll tell you that as a student I had little respect for teachers who came to the north knowing nothing about our communities, our culture, and the problems we all knew faced citizens of Nunavut. We knew that most of the teachers were there to pay off a student loan or get some experience on their resume.
We knew most of our teachers we would never see again, and like it or not students just would not connect with those kinds of teachers.
However, 2 of my best teachers in high school were southerners who had moved to the north and lived there for 10 years in one case, and 23 years in another case.
They were my favorite teachers because they understood the problems that faced us as students, understood that most of their students would not graduate or do well in general, understood that they were there to do a job regardless of the obstacles they faced, and understood that to earn the students respect they had to prove they were there for the long haul.
I had many Inuit teachers in school, and I appreciated what they taught me as well, but my favorite teachers will always be those 2 from the south, who earned the respect of every single student they had because they essentially became part of the community.
I attended all of high school in Nunavut, and I can read, write, and count just as good as any other student in Canada. I studied Chemistry, Physics, Calculus, Social Studies, Drama, English, and every other class (All 30-stream) available to me - in Nunavut.
There's no point in assigning blame to everyone for everything - even if it's assigned fairly. My teachers proved that to make a difference they had to be committed, and for that I will be forever grateful.
Indeed it is important not to blame. No one stakeholder is responsible for every single problem. This is a mantra I am told over and over ad nauseam but it seems other stakeholders (DEA, community members, some parents etc.) haven't got this message yet.
It is important that stakeholders know their responsibilities and the expectations placed on them. It is when stakeholders focus on what OTHERS are doing and not on what THEY should be doing, that the whole system just starts spinning its wheels and not functioning as it should. Blaming is useless, but the bottom line is that everyone needs to step up to the plate here and take on responsibility for those things over which they do have control - government, DEA's, teachers, parents and students.
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