Teaching the teachers

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An upcoming education conference will offer teachers unique and effective approaches with which to illustrate math and science principles to Aboriginal students in the classroom.

The workshops will be featured at DreamCatching: Professional Development Opportunities in Montreal from Feb. 19 to 22, hosted by the Native Access to Engineering program (NAEP) at Concordia University.

Well-known Albertan Elmer Ghostkeeper has developed an exciting concept for introducing math lessons to young students, said Corinne Mount Pleasant-Jetti, association professor in the faculty of engineering and computer sciences at Concordia and co-founder of NAEP.

"Elmer will demonstrate techniques which literally make the numbers dance for children."

Ghostkeeper, who was raised at Paddle Prairie, originally trained as a civil engineer and later earned a masters degree in cultural anthropology. He challenges teachers to look at teaching math and science as a series of relationships and cycles, which are part of everyday life, much as they appear in Native culture.

Dr. Jim Barta, associate professor at the University of Utah, demonstrates a similar strategy when he tells participants that they need to remind their Aboriginal students that they are gifted beadworkers and therefore they are already gifted mathematicians. His approach is the use of ethnomathematics, or the relationship of math to culture.

"Jim illustrates basic math rules by utilizing multiplication tables and geometric principles to form the complex and beautiful patterns sewn on hand-crafted garments," explained Mount Pleasant-Jetti. Barta has been involved with multicultural mathematical research and curriculum development for more than a decade and has worked with Aboriginal teachers from northern Alberta.

CBC radio show host Bob McDonald is another welcome addition to the list of conference presenters. The author of two science books for children, McDonald hosted and produced the award-winning children's science television program Wonderstruck for seven years and is a former instructor at the Ontario Science Centre.

Mount Pleasant-Jetti, a member of the Tuscarora First Nation raised on the Six Nations Reserve at Brantford, Ont., said NAEP offers many services in addition to the conference for teachers. Online materials that are inter-active and accessed by students and teachers from all over North America and an Internet chat line are examples, she said.

NAEP also visits career and trade fairs, holds information sessions with guidance and education counsellors, and makes frequent visits to classrooms.

"We bring employment opportunities right home to students by pointing out that the incubator, which allowed their baby brother to live when he was born prematurely, was developed using engineering principles. As another example, we point out that engineering technology developed prosthetics, which can help their neighbor function after losing a limb, or make it possible for grandma to hear again by giving her a hearing aid," said Corrine Mount Pleasant-Jetti.

Even the set-up crews for rock bands have to be electrical engineers to fully understand how to create the lighting effects that are a spectacular addition to the musical show, she said.

"Ten years ago, NAEP was established when Canada's 33 engineering schools entered into an agreement to encourage more Aboriginal people to pursue careers in applied sciences," said Mount Pleasant-Jetti.

When NAEP began in 1993 the focus was on summer camps in Montreal for children.

"But we soon realized that teachers also needed to be educated because they don't always know the full scope of engineering principles and the connection between their lessons and potential careers," she said.

Rewarding career opportunities exist for students of applied science programs in Native communities and reserves and NAEP encourages Aboriginal students to consider them for many reasons.

"If our communities are going to gro into economically-viable, healthy places to live, they need local expertise, and locally-owned construction and business establishments," she explained. They need infrastructure, which includes everything from telecommunications networks, housing, roads, and anything that relates to community growth.

"But we also need local people to handle resources such as forestry, oceans and fisheries. We need geologists and mining engineers. We need people from our own cultural perspective to fill these positions, and to go on to be politicians and decision-makers in these many areas which affect us, and in which we are not properly represented now."Some progress has been made, she said.

"I am beginning to meet more and more bright young Aboriginal people who are grounded in their culture, who are forward-thinking, and who are walking in the academic world with all the confidence needed to be successful," she said.

Not many years ago we didn't see very many examples of this success, she added.

"But today I am optimistic about the future of our youth and I'm encouraged by the initiative they are showing."