SASKATOON – Without the aid of notes, or shoes, Arnold Minors walked around the room trailing a microphone cord urging educators to loosen up.
The Toronto cultural consultant was speaking about opening schools to diversity, at a workshop organized by the Saskatchewan’s human rights commission.
“The subtext of education is obedience … to prepare people for going to work,” said Minors.
“My vision of a classroom is one in which children bring forward their experiences and challenge teachers.”
Minors said opening schools can mean a noisy, messy organization.
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“The tune is sometimes cacophonous, but within the tune people are playing their own parts. It’s all music, that’s creating the music, that’s creating the community for learning.”
Minors said if organizations handle change well, they will be unrecognizable from today’s groups.
His suggestions on how to ensure this happens are: Build an atmosphere for change by taking small but positive steps; then find allies who can help you use power to lever more changes; once the situation is more trusting, be open about your strategies; and find a way to respond to people who feel harmed by what you advocate.
A panelist responding to these ideas said his school division had policies to hire more aboriginal teachers, but even more important than policies was “how we treat people.” Mike Fulton of the Indian Head division said everyone needs to be involved in making changes and this means no hierarchy.
An aboriginal consultant to the La Ronge schools, Earl Cook, said natives and other minorities need a comfort level and schools could assist by hiring not just one native teacher at a time, but two together, so they can support each other.
The president of Saskatchewan’s trustees’ group, Dorothy Fortier, said more people want a say in how schools are run. About 70 percent of those paying education taxes do not have children in school and they should be heeded as well, she said.
