More than 400 educators from across the district participated in a professional development day Monday aimed at addressing the needs of aboriginal students.
“This is the biggest workshop we’ve ever had in this district,” said Walter Rogoza, the native studies co-ordinator for the Rainy River District School Board.
Teachers and administrators from the local public board, the Northwest Catholic District School Board, Mine Centre District Authority, and Seven Generations Education Institute attended the event.
“It’s a pretty important day,” Rogoza added. “And it’s about time.”
The day was called “Mawanji’iding Gikinoo’amaading,” or “A Gathering for Teaching and Learning.”
It gave teachers the opportunity to listen to speakers, some local and some from Toronto, as well as participate in workshops to discuss issues such as the importance of story-telling, how to integrate traditional technologies into the curriculum, and how to support children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
“We have all these wonderful different resources here to try to put our Ontario curriculum in a native context, for native children to feel included,” Rogoza noted.
Twenty percent of the population in the Rainy River District is aboriginal, he added.
“They are a presence to be reckoned with. We want to do everything we can to encourage our native children to do well and succeed,” Rogoza stressed.
“It was pretty awesome,” agreed Laura Horton, director of post-secondary education programs at Seven Generations. “It’s time to work together.”
Horton said she received a lot of positive feedback from educators who attended the workshops, including some who asked if another similar event could be held next year.
“Some people said, ‘It was so pleasant to see how well our boards work together,’ and that was nice,” she remarked.
Rogoza said there are many resources available for teachers to learn more about native culture and history, and how to incorporate that into lessons. It’s a matter of pooling those resources and showing teachers where to find them.
To do this, Rogoza has assembled a number of links on the public board’s Web site, where teachers can download various resources related to incorporating native culture in the classroom.
The day’s speakers included a keynote address by Ted Nolan, who talked about his experiences growing up in the Garden River First Nation near Sault Ste. Marie—without electricity or indoor plumbing—to become an NHL player and later earn coach-of-the-year honours.
“I don’t believe in the word ‘can’t,’” Nolan said when talking about the odds against his childhood dream of becoming an NHL player. “You just have to learn how to.”
The topic of Nolan’s address was “Motivating Today’s Students,” and he said the best way to motivate children is to be motivated yourself. “Kids don’t really care how much you know until they know how much you care,” he remarked.
Nolan also stressed the importance of native history to aboriginal children. “You have to know where you came from in order to know where you’re going,” he reasoned.
(Fort Frances Times)
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
