FREE ESSAY ON PREVENTING ABORIGINAL SUICIDE

PREVENTING ABORIGINAL SUICIDE

PREVENTING ABORIGINAL SUICIDE: 
DOES A SHIFT IN THE DOMINANT SCHOOLING PARADIGM 
HOLD SOME PROMISE?
by
R. Lloyd Ryan, PhD
R. Lloyd Ryan, Ph.D.
P. O. Box 1072
Lewisporte, NF
Phone: 709 535 8464
email: lloyd_ryan@nf.sympatico.ca? It is with growing alarm, concern and compassion that
we witness the continuing (and growing?) high rate of suicide in Canada's Aboriginal
community. This phenomenon has numerous far-reaching and negative implications and, up to
the present, few satisfactory explanations and fewer proposed solutions.
It is, thus, imperative that aspects of contemporary Aboriginal personal and community
living that have not yet come under sufficient scrutiny be examined and analyzed, not for
anthropological or abstract sociological purposes, but for intensely personal and life
purposes. It must be realized that, sometimes, it is that which is most ubiquitous and
familiar which may be most ignored, the assumption being that what is common is not
significant. An example is parasites borne by the river that has fed us for generations,
or heavy metals in our staple food, both contributing to chronic health problems, and
both ignored because we expect severe dysfunction to have exotic and unfamiliar dress. It
is, thus, proposed that the existing predominant model of schooling, in this case
schooling of Aboriginal children, come under careful scrutiny.
Aboriginals, like most other Canadians, have accepted, now almost without question, the
principle that education is the key to a secure and happy future. This principle may be
as fraught with problems as the one-time equally-accepted principle that the earth was
the centre of the universe and that the sun was just one of earth's satellites. Just as
it was heresy to question the geo-centric universe, it is now similar heresy to question
the principle, the dogma, of the value of education.
It is now being questioned!
This may not be merely a questioning of the value of education (whatever it is we mean by
that). Indeed, Aboriginal communities have recognized that some elements of the schooling
system have potential for negative impact on life and living. Now, having taken over some
control of their educational systems, they have made some significant curricular changes
... and, that is good - as far as it goes.
The major aspect of the problem, however, does not necessarily rest simply with the
content of the curriculum, although that is undoubtedly important, so much as with the
very concept of schooling, and the concomitant and consistent concepts of the nature of
learning and of the child as learner. It may be the fact that the product of the
educational system may not be the expected and hoped for education. In fact, that which
is actually delivered and received may be antithetical to that which is anticipated and
hoped for. Rather than the schooling experience providing the hoped for emancipation, it
may be providing an insidious enslavement and addiction to dysfunctional concepts of what
constitutes learning, and dysfunctional perceptions of personal response to that
learning. In other words, the hoped for education may not be that which is supportive of
Aboriginal communities or of individual Aboriginal youth or adults.
There is no doubt that one could engage in a rather extensive (and possibly stimulating)
philosophical discourse about what constitutes education, without arriving at an answer
that would be satisfactory, either generally, or particularly to the Aboriginal
community. There is, no doubt, a great need to have that debate in the general
population, as well as in the Aboriginal community. To some extent, that debate, however
one-sided and unfinished, has been on-going, giving rise to a number of royal commission
reports and to the growth of a whole new testing industry in Canada, for example.
The solution for Aboriginal communities, and indeed for the general community, does not
lie in that direction, primarily because the crucial questions have been neither asked
nor answered.
The major question has to be How do children learn, naturally? That is, how does a
child's brain learn? How do children learn? What are the implications for schooling? What
are the implications for children's developing self-concept and personal confidence and
conceptualization of personal value and self-worth?
Is the very model of contemporary schooling so out-of-step with natural brain functioning
that it precipitates the destruction of children's self-esteem, so much so that their
personal and social deterioration - and suicide - is an almost inevitable result? The
question is important for schooling in the general population. The question has even more
significance when asked in a context of the schooling of Aboriginal children.
In fact, the accumulated research on the nature of the brain as the organ of learning is
now indicating quite strongly that the predominant model of schooling in today's Canada
is antagonistic to children's natural mode of learning. In the dominant culture this
leads to children becoming alienated from schooling, to low levels of achievement,
however measured, to early drop-out, and to schooling non-completion. It also leads to
some suicide attempts even among the youth of the dominant culture.
Admitted, these suicide attempts are not typically attributed to the schooling
experiences of these young people. However, were a comprehensive research project
undertaken with survivors of suicide attempts, with parents of youth who have attempted
suicide, and with parents of youth who have committed suicide, I am confident that a
causal schooling connection will be found. The topic is taboo, not only respecting
Aboriginal suicide, but youth suicide in the dominant culture. Witness the recent
research into suicide in the Aboriginal communities of Western Ontario (University
Affairs, April, 1995). A group of researchers looked at virtually all aspects of
community life. The one aspect of community life and living NOT examined was the model of
schooling. (Note the emphasis on the model of schooling, the paradigm of schooling,
rather than on the school system).
I recently talked with the mother (White Anglo) of a 15-year old, ninth-grade boy who
committed suicide. Without external prompting, the mother gently and emotionally related
a series of events (frustration with home-work, anger with teachers, a two-day suspension
from school) which preceded the tragic event. These events indicated, to my perception,
an unmistakably distinct school-causal connection. ( I admit that I seem to be the only
person who acknowledges that perception).
In the dominant culture, if a student doesn't do well at school, there are still many
other aspects of society and culture that provides personal support (more-or-less
successful friends who are just like me, cultural activities, TV, employment - even if
part time and minimum wage, general acceptance, being able to blend in, a society that
continues to function, at least one parent who works, an allowance, and so on), so much
so that the student is not challenged or his integrity not breached at a sufficiently
fundamental personal and cultural level that suicide is a perceived option. It should be
noted, however, that even in the dominant culture, the cohort most at risk of suicide is
15 - 25 year olds, which should raise concern about schooling-related causation.
It should also be noted that even in the dominant culture that many people are not
successful in school, and even as adults they live with the continuing pain of the belief
that they are stupid, can't learn, and the damage to personal value and self-esteem that
implies.
The predominant model of schooling in Canada, much like that of the United States, is so
entrenched in our psyches that it is hardly questioned. Although it is true that an
occasional dispute arises concerning approaches such as Whole Language vs wholesale
phonics, the paradigm of schooling has hardly changed, if at all, since we adopted the
model from Horace Mann who brought it back to Massachusetts from Prussia in 1840. That
is, our basic paradigm of schooling has not changed fundamentally or significantly in 150
years. It was based on a Prussian militaristic approach to schooling, reinforced by
Skinnerian behaviourist psychology which perceives learning as simply a conditioned
response to an external stimulus, epitomized by the memorization of stuff to be
regurgitated on demand, usually for a test on which students will be judged.
In the early years of European discovery of North America, the newcomers brought with
them scourges such as small pox and measles which took a terrible toll among the
Aboriginal population. The Europeans were carriers and didn't know that they hosted the
diseases which were deadly to the Aboriginal population.
In a somewhat similar manner, the extant predominant paradigm of schooling has been
transmitted to the Aboriginal population. This has occurred specifically and deliberately
by government in its desire to educate the Aboriginals in order to make them more like
us. That infection has continued and been spread by a flood of White teachers who have
carried that schooling model enthusiastically and unquestioningly. It's the AIDS virus of
education! Furthermore, Aboriginal youth who have survived their schooling experiences
relatively unscathed (at least in terms of the dominant culture, but likely at tremendous
cost to their Aboriginal identity) have gone to teacher training institutions and have
become infected from the source.
It is imperative to note that teachers are those who have been most successful in school,
have even thrived, in the fascist model of schooling that obtains in contemporary
culture. They are the people who have sold their souls to the system and are those least
likely to perceive problems with it.
It is also important to note that at not a single teacher training institution in Canada
(and, as far as I have determined, thus far, only one in the US), is there a course on
the nature of the learning brain, nor do teacher training courses contain elements of
that area of knowledge. It also appears that there are no teacher training faculties who
have even exhibited interest in that area of knowledge. In other words, the infection is
firmly entrenched at the teacher training institutions and since it is not recognized as
an important issue (In fact it is not recognized at all!) the situation is unlikely to
soon change.
Consider the Aboriginal child from what may be a dysfunctional family in a dysfunctional
community having inflicted on him the contemporary dominant model of schooling. Consider,
even, a healthy Aboriginal child from a functional family in a functioning community
being forced to attend the dysfunctional and brain-antagonistic school.
The model, utilizing various kinds of severe judgments, including percentages and other
kinds of judging methods, the language of success and failure, passing and failing,
memorization for testing, where the model of the good student is a quiet and passive one,
where discussion is discouraged, questions perceived as challenges to the person of the
teacher, and initiative and creativity ridiculed and undermined, and the result is almost
predictable. The typical child has experienced so much pain that by age 12 he is already
alienated from school, desperately hanging on until age 15 or 16 so that he can drop out
legally. The drop out rate in Canada is still 30%!
Aboriginal youth, like Aboriginal adults, have now accepted the propaganda that education
is the key to future success and happiness and acceptance. It is the standard of worth in
the dominant culture, and Aboriginals seem to perceive almost all functioning adults in
the dominant culture as possessing it. They go to school, and send their children to
school, with enormous anticipation, expectation and hope. Then, children begin to do less
and less well - they don't measure up to that artificial and dysfunctional and foreign
standard that embodies the concept of personal value and worth in Canadian society. Thus,
they come to see themselves as not measuring up either as individual people or as a
culture to that foreign standard which they have accepted and applied to themselves.
The Aboriginal dropout has few or no supports at his community or village level and may
drift to Toronto or Winnipeg or Montreal or Vancouver, where he quickly perceives himself
as one of a small, despised, and unrespected minority, with no skills of value to the
dominant culture. Alcohol becomes a refuge and a relief.
Is it any wonder that along that path suicide becomes an option - an option for someone
who perceives himself as having no value, whose culture has lost its value, and who has
neither the social, educational, or employment skills which have currency and value in
the dominant culture?
The model of schooling must change - to one which is non-judgmental, one which supports
the development of a strong self-esteem, confidence and competence, based on activities
which are meaningful and enjoyable for the Aboriginal children and firmly entrenched in a
culture-positive and culture-enhancing ethos.
This calls for radical change in the model of schooling in Aboriginal communities. It is
amply documented that "Education" (read: trustees, superintendents, principals, teachers,
teacher trainers) has exhibited remarkable inability or unwillingness to make
significant, substantial, or long-lasting changes to the predominant (archaic and
inappropriate) schooling paradigm. Thus, it may be incumbent upon Aboriginal community
leaders and elders to insist on, and maybe initiate, the needed changes if there is to be
hope for the viability of Aboriginal culture and for Aboriginals as a continuing viable
people.