The Mind of a Child
Face to Face Media Ltd.
QUEEN’S HARBOUR
VR 92 - LORNA WILLIAMS
BEEP
This is not a finished product. Characters speaking
languages other than English will eventually be subtitled.
For this demonstration video only, you will hear my voice
doing voiceover translations into English.
Good evening and welcome to our evening session. I hope
that you all had an opportunity to read the Rawlin’s article
and I’m sure that if you had, you’ll probably agree with me
that we are going to have to deal with some of those issues
that have, that are are raised in that article. And I know
Margaret indicated to you earlier that, uh, we would be
fortunate in having our First Nations Education Specialist,
Agnes Thomas with us and indeed she has been able to come
and I want to just briefly introduce her to you before I
turn the meeting over to Agnes. Uh, Agnes has had twenty
five years teaching experience and, as, as a teacher and as
a consultant and an advocate for First Nations, ah,
education. She has, um, worked throughout the province as a
consultant and a professional development facilitator
trainer. She is a founder of two learning institutes and
has worked with people from all over the world to develop
unique and highly effective approaches to education on a
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The Mind of a Child
Face to Face Media Ltd.
QUEEN’S HARBOUR
VR 92 - LORNA WILLIAMS
First Nations perspective. Uh, Agnes, we welcome you here
this evening. The floor is yours.
AGNES Thanks. I’d like to thank, um, Mr. Sullivan for
inviting me to come and spend some time with you. I received
the article that, um, that, uh, that you received today.
Um, although, um, this article points to some topics that
need to be, that we need to concern ourselves with, um, one
would be the use of children’s education to make a political
point. The second is, um, the, the funding and what happens
to educational funding for aboriginal children. Um, also,
the, it points out, uh, some of the, uh, the
underachievement and the lack of success of aboriginal
children in, in our schools. Uh, it also, uh, talks about
the displacing of Western culture when in the curriculum,
when we add First Nations culture in history into that
curriculum. Um, and another point, uh, around, um, the
hiring of teachers and other district staff in, um, uh, in
school districts. Um, although in the last, I would say ten
years, there have been many changes in, um, education for
aboriginal chidlren, but I think that it’s, um, it’s very
slow and there is often a lack of willingness to address
some of the issues that have been with us for a long time.
Many of you attended, um, your educational training and you
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The Mind of a Child
Face to Face Media Ltd.
QUEEN’S HARBOUR
VR 92 - LORNA WILLIAMS
attended schools, possibly when, um, there was very little
about aboriginal people in your curriculum as you trained to
be, um, educators. And so (CLEARS THROAT) I thought that,
um, when I was invited I was given an opportunity to plan
this evening, um, and because the assumption that I’m making
is you have very little, um, background, that I thought that
probably it would be best for us to look at these issues but
to look at them against the, um, a ba-, a background.
Against a context within which aboriginal education has
emerged in this province. Um, I decided that we would meet
not at tables, but in a, in a semicircle to, in a way, bring
in the aboriginal context because for the circle is very
important and, um, um, and we use, often, what is now called
a medicine wheel but its, um, it’s become known as that and
you can see a black and white version here. Um, this is
used to organize information and to, um, circles are used
when we’re, when we are needing to come to some kind of an
agreement about something or that something needs to be
discussed. Solutions don’t necessarily, um, uh, present
themselves so nicely and neatly in a circle, but it moves
people towards, towards making, um, to coming to some
understanding. So the time that we’re going to spend
tonight, two hours, is not a very long time and, um, and so
I will, I, what my intention is, is that we’ll begin this
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The Mind of a Child
Face to Face Media Ltd.
QUEEN’S HARBOUR
VR 92 - LORNA WILLIAMS
circle this evening. (CLEARS THROAT) In the middle of
that, the very middle of that circle, there was, um, you saw
this. Um, whenever we’re looking at something that we need
to come to understand, we need to check our perceptions and
you see the word “see” there but it’s not only our visual
perceptions, but the perceptions that we have when we take
information into ourselves. And those perceptions
influence, influence and are influenced by, by our feeling
and our, by our thinking. And those drive what it is that
we do. It drives our action and so what I’m going, so I’m
going to try to, um, to do the first three this evening and
the decisions that you make and the actions that you’ll take
as individuals and as educators will be yours to make.
(CLEARS THROAT)
I want to say that, um, then that it’s often been then
believed but, uh, and again things have changed as I said,
in the last ten years, that aboriginal people did not have
formal learning, um, um ... environments. Or opportunities
for learning. And it’s true we didn’t have schools that we
do, that, that the Western culture does and has developed
but that there were, but each society, each culture, no
matter where it is in the world prepares the next generation
and the future generations in order to be able to, um, for,
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The Mind of a Child
Face to Face Media Ltd.
QUEEN’S HARBOUR
VR 92 - LORNA WILLIAMS
for life. For what, for what they’ll do in society. And
aboriginal people did not and we’re not different from that.
And so there was a lot of, a lot of, um, um ... (CLEARS
THROAT) a lot of time and effort and thought, uh, went into
planning this educational program for aboriginal children.
And often those began, um, at birth and sometimes prior to
that, through storytelling and through, um, the, the
community members and the family members introducing
themselves to me child and, and in introducing themselves to
this coming child, that they would talk about their social
systems, their history, uh, the ter-, the territory, the
land, the changes that, that they’ve seen in their life
times. And possibly what this person would be doing so
there was intention in, um, as each child came into the
community. And, um, you also, some of you have probably
heard that, um, aborginal children were thought to be, um,
that we learned best by, by experience, by doing and that we
observe and then we, then we do things. It’s true. All
children, I think, learn in this way. But, um, but in order
for observation and then, and then practice, and then
independent work to occur there, there needs to be great
thought put into preparing them to know how to observe and
to know how to organize information. And, um, (CLEARS
THROAT) ... and that it’s important for us to remember that
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The Mind of a Child
Face to Face Media Ltd.
QUEEN’S HARBOUR
VR 92 - LORNA WILLIAMS
the power and the source of our ability to make sense of the
unknown, to understand other cultures, to adapt to new
situations, depends on how well we know and understand those
first structures that we come into contact with and those
are our family structures, our social systems, our
traditions and our beliefs. Um, and again this is not
different for aboriginal people. It’s the same in any
culture. This is how we begin to develop our ways of
knowing and that we help our children to prepare for them.
Now the first, um, the, in this article by Don Rowlins, he
talks about, um, Chief Mr. Charles. Um, and his community,
uh, striking or taking their children out of school in order
to be able to make a point. To make some points and to move
things within the, within the educational school system. I
said that it’s not the only time that, that our First
Nations children have been used in, in such a way. The
children, education has been and we know as aborginal
people, the power that education has over people. It’s
probably the, the most powerful institution in any society.
And ... and we, as aboriginal people we probably know this
better than, than any other, um, than any other group. The
education from the time it began in this country in um, in
the 1600’s was, has been a tool that would, to change
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The Mind of a Child
Face to Face Media Ltd.
QUEEN’S HARBOUR
VR 92 - LORNA WILLIAMS
aborginal people, to simulate us, to assimilate us into a
European way of life. And that, um, that from the time the
first schools opened in, in the East, um, by Jesuits and the
Ursalean sisters that, um, that their goal was to, um, to
see if they could civilize aborginal people because the idea
was that, or the belief at the time was that we were not
civilized and um, and, in, in fact, in the, in the hundred
years prior to that there had been a debate as to whether we
were human. And that, um, and this was a debate that went
on in Europe because, because they had to understand how,
um, how to deal wtih the, us, who are here, in Nor-, in
North America when they arrived and, um, so there were two
notions that were put forward. One was that we were, um,
subhuman and the second was that we were, um, that we were
not far, very far along the path towards, on the
evolutionary path. And the second was that the land was an
empty land. That we didn’t, in fact, use the land and so,
in the 1600’s and, um, the, the educational system began but
I’m not going to deal with the educational system there. I
want us to focus on British Columbia even though this place
didn’t exist at, at that time.
Um, and that, um, (CLEARS THORAT) as the, as the colonists
moved across the country, um, the explorers and the traders
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The Mind of a Child
Face to Face Media Ltd.
QUEEN’S HARBOUR
VR 92 - LORNA WILLIAMS
um, came along and the third wave was always the
Missionaries. And the Missionaries purpose was to educate,
um, to educate us. And so for many of them, they learned
our languages very fluently, and um, and they fit themselves
into, into community, community life. And in many places in
British Columbia, um, they arrived often in the communities
in the summer places of the pepole. Because, of course,
they, it was difficult to travel in the winter time. In the
winter time. And, um, or in those places where winter
travel was easier, they went and they, and they met the
people in their winter locations. And, they began to bring
this notion of education into the community. And, um, um,
but what they started to do was they, they began to see
that, um, that it was, that they were not able to separate
the children who they felt that they could save, um, by, uh,
educating people in the community. And so they worked often
with, um, the chiefs or the leaders in the community to
first of all, to try to get them to, um, let go of some of
the so called heathen ways. And, um, and to change. So for
example in my community, um, polygamy was practiced and, um,
and there are still jokes that people tell about the priest
who was trying to convince the chief to give up his, uh,
give up three of his wives and, um, and they had lived, they
all lived in the same place and, um, (CLEARS THROAT) and so,
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The Mind of a Child
Face to Face Media Ltd.
QUEEN’S HARBOUR
VR 92 - LORNA WILLIAMS
the, the Missionaries then felt that they were, they were
really fighting a losing battle and so um, and so they, um,
began, they, they began to build schools, um, in certain
places in the province and they, and they divided the
province mainly into three groups. Um, the first group, um,
well one group was Roman Catholics and then the Anglicans
and the, the Methodists. And, um, and they began to do
their work and, um, in 19-, 1863, this is what Father Renot
said in, um, in one of his reports.
So what is this, what does this imply to you? What does
this say to you?
WOMAN There was no faith. There was no ____. There was no
order.
AGNES That it didn’t exist within, within our society.
And this, so this was in 1863 and this decade was in a,
was a very important one, um, in our history. Because
it was also in this decade that, um, that the British
North America Act was passed and what the, this Act did
was it gave administrative rights to Canada for
aboriginal people so it was only administrative rights.
Because all of the agreements that had beeen made, uh,
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The Mind of a Child
Face to Face Media Ltd.
QUEEN’S HARBOUR
VR 92 - LORNA WILLIAMS
up until this, at this point, to this point where made
with European governments, nation to nation. And so,
by assuming administrative rights, they were be for,
um, for the land question, uh, for, um, education, for
health, for social services. And so from this point on
all of those services for aboriginal people were a
Federal responsibility and so, by in Canada, um,
education, the health and social services are
Provincial responsibilites. And this will come up
again later because it comes up in this article about
funding in this Rawlin’s report. And so, the, the
Canadian Government then, of the, at the time began to
develop, began to carry out its responsibilites and
they, they saw that the Missionaries had already built
schools and that they had teachers in those schools and
so they decided that they would support the Missionary
work that had already started and that, um, and, but
that they would, um, increase the number of students
and the length of time that children would be sent to
these schools so they, they built the schools, the
residential schools bigger than they were so that they
could take more children. And, um ...
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Production material relates to a short documentary entitled “First Nations Education, 1860-1970” for the Vancouver School Board’s Queen's Harbour Institute project, a multi-day series of workshops and discussions on current issues in education centred around the fictional Queen’s Harbour School Board.
The documentary focuses on the history of education and education policy as it has impacted Indigenous peoples in British Columbia. It centres around a presentation given by Lorna Wanosts’a7 Williams in Cowichan Bay as part of the Queen’s Harbour project interspersed with archival photographs and moving image material, as well as material also used in "The Mind of a Child” documentary.
Part of the original recording of Wanosts’a7’s presentation is also included. Wanosts’a7 is referred to as Agnes Thomas at various points in the presentation. This is likely related to the format of the Queen's Harbour project for which the documentary was being prepared.
The presentation runs from 10:34 on tape VR92, and continues until the end of tape VR94. While the Archives retains the tape intended to have the second part, VR93 [2017-057-004-062], it appears to have been altered prior to being transferred to the Archives and thus no longer contain this segment of the presentation. The content of the missing segment can be found by consulting the transcript.
Additional material featuring David Tzuriel talking with Clarissa and Alida Pascal at the Variety Learning Centre proceeds the beginning of the presentation. This material relates more closely with “The Mind of A Child” documentary.