Wandering Spirit Survival School:

                               Chapter One: Introduction (continued)

 

 

The precedent for this format of presentation is also set, to some degree, by explorations of the meaning in Australian songlines (Chatwin 1987) or Mayan myth (Tedlock 1993), (4) and by the contemporary call for fresh approaches in both the research and the recording of ethnographic interactions (Clifford & Marcus 1986; Smith 1987; Gluck and Patai 1991, Lather 1992, 1993). (5) I also introduce the elements of an Aboriginal model for public address into the text. For instance, when an interview is quoted, respecting the protocol for turn-taking in speech events that prohibits interruption before the speaker relinquishes her turn (Phillips 1983), I follow the topic through large and lightly edited segments of the speech event.

 

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I want to make it clear what the reader can expect from this work and what will not be found here. This is a narrative history that offers critical analysis to explain a point of view. It does not pretend to offer an objective evaluation of WSSS's success as a school, assuming that such a thing were even possible. While Pauline Shirt established an influential model for Native education with ramifications for communities across Canada, in the USA and in Europe, this is not an account of personal triumph for the school's founder. Nor is it the story of a model school that continued past its first seven years with its founding mandate. While the story of WSSS suggests the solution to issues flowing from the Indian Act's control over Indian education is within reach of those same people, it offers no prescriptions for the design of lesson plans and does not provide a curriculum outline. As a matter of fact, the notion that any one text, or any one school, could ever deliver a prescription for education that would serve the myriad needs of the legion of Aboriginal communities in Canada is entirely rejected. Instead, the primary message of WSSS is that those solutions evolve by attending to the relationship established among a particular student group, its surrounding community, manifestations of the Four Seasons in that specific geographic region, and the history of regional culture groups (while acknowledging both their social allegiances and historical migrations).

 

This is a story some readers will find difficult to read. It asks members of dominant culture to consider - through Native eyes and voice - the historical model for Native education, and, to examine the role our ancestors (and our institutions) have played in disseminating cultural imperialism through educational policy. Yet, woven throughout, there is Pauline's persistent vision of the potential for re-establishing balance and harmony between First Nations and Newcomer positions. This second theme is articulated in the Two Row Wampum belt as an ancient record of an original treaty on this continent. (6) Pauline is fond of explaining the symbolism in that Iroquois pact, those two rows speaking of two nations. The parallel lines mean each nation recognized the sovereignty of the other, and vowed to respect the other in their difference without interference. Aboriginal and Newcomer both pledged to walk their row in peace, without trespass against the other (Alcose CL 1988; Berg & Shirt TC 1997). (7) One nation broke their contract long ago, yet, despite the tumultuous history of Indian-colonizer relations on this continent - even as Canada continues to make trespass against First Nations autonomy through political process - Pauline and other Elders suggest the Two Row Wampum Belt vision can still be...

 

Please see the full Thesis to continue.

 

 

(4) In either of these examples the result reads more like a novel assembled from vignettes than a standard research report.

 

(5) This includes a greater involvement of the research partner in designing the project and reviewing the data collected, and an accounting  of the researchers' impact upon the research process, but it also supports a synthesis of writing genres in creating textual records and can involve text created by the research partner.

 

(6) Wampum Belts are woven from the purple and white shells of Dentellia, a marine creature. They were often created to establish a record of the pledges between nations. In other words, they record the Aboriginal reality.

 

(7) Note that I draw on my prior academic training through an undergraduate degree in Native Studies. I had the privilege of studying with several Aboriginal academics at Laurentian University upon the recommendation of Pauline Shirt) including: Thom Alcoze, Jim Dumont and Joyce Pitiwanaquat. I refer to my notes from their Class Lectures as CL. Also, the collaborative consultations I made with Pauline over this thesis are referenced as thesis consultations indicated by TC 1997 and TC 1998.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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