[quote=“Butterfly Fear”]
We don’t live in a third world country. “Stark povertyâ€[/quote]
[quote=“Dex”]
No! “stark poverty” is absolute!!! Absolute poverty implies a threshold below the basic needs for survival. EG. Food, safe drinking water, shelter, basic healthcare. [/quote]
Stark poverty also means extreme poverty. Extreme poverty in Canada and extreme poverty in West Africa, for example, do not look the same. The problem with quibbling over semantics like this is that it becomes a potential breeding ground for intolerance and dehumanization of “poorâ€
Yup Dex, according to Princeton University you are right.
However, this is an irrelevant point on semantics and not on the substance of this thread. “Stark” or not, poverty of all sorts plays some sort of role in educational access. Wealth distribution affects what kind of learning opportunities we have in life, which is why George W. Bush can be a royal screw up in life and still grow up to be leader of the free world. Now, being poor in the U.S. is still likely better than being poor in Africa, but being poor in comparison to your local peers is a disadvantage. That’s all that was being said here.
This is a good article that addresses some of the issues brought up here:
I sometimes worry about pontificating but that sharpish remark beats me all to hell. This thread was more interesting when gum was still around. He even prompted me to start looking up George Bernard Shaw quotes, but then he left. You guys are no fun at all.
sorry.
I found this interesting:
[quote]
"students in populations that traditionally have not done as well in school, such as high-poverty and visible minority groups, immigrants, and students attending inner-city schools …. The potential for improvement in learning is even greater for these students than for those whose socio-economic profiles suggest they are likely to do well.â€[/quote]
[quote=“Creaking Door”]
He even prompted me to start looking up George Bernard Shaw quotes, but then he left.[/quote]
Do not waste your time on social questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.
George Bernard Shaw
That’s a good one of many by George Bernard Shaw. I was thinking of a quote that as it turns out did not come from him (also incorrectly attributed to Winston Churchill; it originated from a largely forgotten French president):
“Any man who is not a socialist at 20 has no heart, any man who is still a socialist at 40 has no brains.” To which I would add, any man who is not a socialist by 60 isn’t thinking about his retirement.
The early use of computers might also be a culprit in the troubling statistics:
These authors discussed the recent shift towards the use of the keyboard and away from handwriting instruction for children as young as kindergarten. Previous research shows that practicing the movement of the hand that is required to create the features of alphabetic characters helps to solidify the mental representation of those characters. In order to expand on this issue, the researchers asked 12 adults to practice typing or handwriting 10 unknown characters for an hour a week for three weeks.
The participants were tested on their knowledge of these characters one week and three weeks later. The results indicate that learning the characters through the use of handwriting resulted in higher rates of recall. It was theorized that handwriting provides on-line signals from several sources (e.g., vision, kinesthetic) and helps the participants to orient the characters correctly in space.
Another finding from this study was that the advantage of learning by handwriting did not emerge until three weeks after the training. The authors explain this finding as being a result of motor memory consolidation, a process that happens gradually but is very long lasting after the neural representation has been learned.
Well, the troubling statistics are about kids before they enter school.
If you look at the stats carefully, you’ll find these kids are in the group less likely to have computers at home. I think it would be safe to say they have less of everything, including books.
So your study definitely has some merit, but it’s not really applicable to kids who don’t actually have computers.
[quote=“Gregory”]
Well, the troubling statistics are about kids before they enter school.
If you look at the stats carefully, you’ll find these kids are in the group less likely to have computers at home. I think it would be safe to say they have less of everything, including books.
So your study definitely has some merit, but it’s not really applicable to kids who don’t actually have computers.[/quote]
Shot down again. I’m really not doing too well on here am I? First, excessive TV, unengaged parenting, video games and maladaptive behaviors associated with poverty are all given as possible contributing factors, and these are shot down in one way or another. Next, my overzealous use of the adjective “stark” is dissected and then discarded. In a society that lacks “starkâ€
[quote=“Butterfly Fear”]
Your article seems to be implying this is an Aboriginal issue though, as it euphemistically employs the term “vulnerable familiesâ€[/quote]
And so you know, because I think you are wrong on that point doesn’t mean that I think you have been wrong throughout this thread. Quite the opposite, actually. For the most part I have been in some agreement and you have used some facts to back your position, which is a nice change of pace for the site.
If you take a look into the history and culture of Aboriginal peoples, the Canadian government’s dealings with them, the “assimilationist” policies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century education system as applied to Natives, you begin to get an idea of why Aboriginal kids face such challenges today. Their culture has had a rough go of it over the last couple centuries, having had the modern world and all its vices very quickly imposed upon them. This in itself would be a huge challenge, and we see the effects of this on indigenous people all over the world, but then you also have the Canadian government, in its desire for control over the Aboriginal population, instituting the band council system in order to subvert the authority of the hereditary chiefs. Many of these band councillors collect 200k/year plus paycheques while their people live in poverty. The rez schools don’t get the best teachers. All the bright people want to leave and see the world, the classic small town scenario. We see this in Rupert as well on a slightly larger scale. Also, Canadian education standards are geared towards European patterns of learning. Different cultures develop different ways of dealing with the world’s challenges over many many generations. This transmission of learning and knowledge is the foundation of what “culture” is. Thus their learning styles can be different from each other, which the education system as it stands does not take into account. There are of course many other factors that influence a kid’s education and aptitudes, and many have already been discussed in this post…I just wanted to add an ethnohistorical aspect. I suspect that the problem in Rupert also has a lot to do with the isolated area which does’nt have a large pool of teachers, the depression that seems to be endemic among many Rupertites, the wider effects of poverty and stressful modern working class lifestyles (thin line between those 2 these days), and of course the mind rotting effects of popular culture. The shitty local economy is also a huge factor, playing into all of the other ones. The education system sure has changed a lot as well since I attended Kindergarten in 1983…the teachers have no authority over the kids anymore, they are afraid of them! So in my opinion, its not just an Aboriginal issue, although there are many Aboriginal-related issues in play here as well.
I agree. I have defined this being an aboriginal issue because of our community pop and all the economic reasons you outlined.
How many of our local lawyers are aboriginal? How many of our doctors? What about our city councillors? How many of our top executives in town are aboriginal outside of Tricorp. What about small biz owners? The answer to all those questions appears to be none.
Not having people in those leadership, or role model, positions is significant. And that is for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is there is little for these kids to aspire to. With fishing in the tank and forestry somewhat dormant, what do these kids do?
That doesn’t mean they all fail. In fact there are some outstanding Ab students in PR and some are doing quite well for themselves after school. Larry Hope, Joanna Chorona and Lauri Leighton’s Ab Entrepreneur class at Hays shows that there are students capable of excelling in PR. All they need is an opportunity. Which brings me back to my original point. Opportunity x Will = success.
And all I want is our education system to reflect this during an economic recession. The best tool in improving our economy is opportunity – and nowadays that is provided through education.
[quote=“Huh?”]
I may have read your post wrong Butterfly, but are you implying that it isn’t an Aboriginal issue? [/quote]
Not at all. What I’m saying is that if this is an Aboriginal issue then it has to be addressed from a First Nations point of view. When dealing with any Aboriginal issue there is a cultural and historical context that cannot be ignored. I think Mr. Kurtz pretty much sums it up with his excellent and insightful post.
It is as the somewhat maligned Gum posted at the beginning of the thread: “So we see poor people neglecting their kids, and think they are neglecting their kids because they are poor, when in fact the cause is deeper than that.â€
I think part of the problem is too that bright students tend to leave and pursue opportunities elsewhere, native and non-native…I’ve seen it in my own small hometown too.
Also, I don’t know about executives, lawyers and doctors, but Councillor James Brown from Port Edward is Aboriginal.
But again, if you go back and look at the historical and economic facts of Aboriginal/Euro-Canadian relations, its not altogether unsurprising that few Native people hold positions of power and prestige nowadays, but I think that will change as time goes by. There are some pretty big companies with Native ownership, like Coast Tsimshian Resources. And the Haida own a 40% stake in the offshore wind farm outfit.
I think so too. And my point about no leaders was a fairly narrow one based on Prince Rupert proper in mind. I had not thought of James Brown, who surely is a prime example.
I do think that the results are changing and that there are some substantial events taking place to improve the local aboriginal standing in the Community. But what I have seen is also a reluctance on the part of the entire community to accept that we have to rethink education in Prince Rupert. Is the middle school the answer? I don’t know. But the growth of the NWCC is a great start. That would stymie the current of people seeking their post-sec education elsewhere.
And perhaps that is why we need to begin focusing on what opportunities our kids can have on the North Coast. I will be very interested to hear what comes out of the Watson Island sale. The sale won’t lead to direct money for education, but it will end up perhaps leading to jobs that require a certain amount of education. If this is the case, then NWCC and the school board can adjust their programs to fit somewhat into what is being offered as a career on the site. Once you connect education and opportunity for youth, and that connection is local, I would like to think that the interest levels of education will increase.
There will always be a need for parents to be involved. Some will do a better job than others at involving themselves. With that, unfortunately, some kids are going to fall through the cracks. But I think a positive community environment, where education is held with reverence, would actually have an impact on how our children attach themselves to education.
The Broken Window Theory is one where if a window is broken and locals see that the owner does not care for the window’s condition, then the locals will assume no one cares at all about property. So vandalism rises. As vandalism rises, people begin to believe that anything goes with property and soon that transfers to with people. Anarchy then ensues.
I don’t think we are at the point of anarchy in our local education delivery. But there is something there with our four and five year olds not being able to handle school. I believe it is at least one broken window.
Again, how does the community react? What can the community do to emphasize the importance of education in Prince Rupert. Teachers will naturally be asked to do that, but that is already a given. They emphasize education each and every day. What can moms and dads, neighbours and friends, do to improve our life?
In New York, the city started cleaning up the subway system, making it appear safer and appear cleaner. The citizens reacted positively and worked to maintain that sense while crime declined significantly.
In Prince Rupert, we have yet to clean up our sense of education. It’s an old hangup to our resource days where the importance of education was dimmed somewhat by the opportunities in the mill and on the seas. So, how do we encourage our education environment to change? How do we get parents to recognize the opportunities available for our children?
[quote=“Huh?”]But what I have seen is also a reluctance on the part of the entire community to accept that we have to rethink education in Prince Rupert.
But I think a positive community environment, where education is held with reverence, would actually have an impact on how our children attach themselves to education. [/quote]
You hit the proverbial nail on the proverbial head. Education has to be gussied up and Community has to auction her off. Make her look pretty. There was an interesting social experiment done in a hospital setting. It seemed rather hypocritical (depending on your definition of hypocrisy which I won’t get into) that a hospital was promoting a healthy lifestyle, yet its employees were cramming themselves into elevators instead of using the stairs. In addition, a significant percentage of the staff was obese and harbored terrible attitudes about life in general. As a result, they were not very pleasant to be around and compassion took a backseat to annoyance and derision.
To get people to use the stairs instead of the elevators, in addition to creating a buzz through posters, email and word of mouth, the stairwells were painted in pleasing tones, framed artwork was hung up, soft music was played and the lighting was adjusted. It wasn’t long before the stairwells were congested with staff and patient alike. What I found most interesting about this is that people actually started treating each other better.
If you see a broken window, gather up your friends and fix it. If you notice a struggling single parent, offer some practical help. If you find a child being neglected, take a moment to shower some attention on him or her. Sometimes all it takes to change a young person’s life is a single act of generosity and kindness. The important thing is to do it without making the person feel belittled.
Education needs to be a venue for the kind of encouragement and praise that the ego thrives on. If a child feels good because he/she has achieved some degree of academic acclaim, he/she will be more likely to do the necessary work to go further. Disadvantaged children need attention; if a community wants to see their kindergarten children do better then it has to collectively cradle those children and that takes Money Honey. Sorry to say. Show some money and I’m sure we could come up with all kinds of ideas.
I think that the blame is both parents and teachers. Parents do not do much with their children now and teachers have become very lazy and almost untruthful. I knew of a teacher that just picked on a child and would say one thing to my face and deny it when confronted infront of the principle… What kind of people are being hired to guide our children they need a reality check. People who are considered role models should be re-evaluated in my eyes.