Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 15, 2012, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A11 winnipegfreepress. com MANITOBA WINNIPEG FREE PRESS, FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 2012 A 11 T H E B A Y . C O M twitter. com/ thehudsonsbayco facebook. com/ hudsonsbaycompany 15% and 25% offers exclude: Polo Ralph Lauren, Diesel, UGG � Australia, The Room, Not Your Daughter's Jeans, Hugo Boss Black, Burberry, Saeco, West End Shop/ Boutique le President, Energie, Wacoal, Swarovski jewellery and watches, Amor, Tous, cosmetics, fragrances, furniture, mattresses, patio, electronics, vacuums, major appliances, small kitchen electrics, HBC gift cards and pharmacy. 10% offer excludes: Saeco. 10%, 15% and 25% discounts are mutually exclusive and neither can be combined with New Account discount. No price adjustments on purchases made prior to June 15, 2012. One coupon per transaction. Other exclusions apply. See store for complete listing. Offer cannot be combined with any other coupon( s). ? 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Regular, sale and clearance- priced merchandise with any other tender POS Procedures: If paying with HBC MasterCard or HBC Credit card, process savings using transaction level discount code 5 ( refer to page 20 QRC). If paying with any other tender. Process savings using transaction level discount code 3 ( refer to page 20 of QRC). Scan coupon bar code and tender transaction as normal. Take the Bite Out of Summer 601 Washington Ave. 925- 1030 www. slimlinesunrooms. net SHOWROOM A NATIONAL conference on aboriginal education, opening in Calgary today, is looking at the experience of overseas schools for clues to boost Canada's poor education rates on reserves. The Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a Prairie- based think- tank, is bringing together experts from Hawaii and Canada's only indigenous charter school near Edmonton, among others, to look at opening more charter schools. For Manitoba, the conference, Expanding Choices in Aboriginal Education, offers a key to flip a poor education system into a great one, said commissioner James Wilson of the Treaty Relations Commission of Manitoba, who is opening the conference. " What the research around the world is showing more and more is that you have to have exceptionally high expectations. And you have to recognize the culture and language of the students. Those three things combined end up increasing literacy and ( science skills) among indigenous students," Wilson said Thursday. That's really no different from public schools, only the focus won't be mainstream culture and English or French as the only languages. For indigenous students, the emphasis shifts away from a mainstream focus to an indigenous one. The approach could be based on projects that use applied math, science, history and language to teach concepts kids haven't picked up in classrooms. In the United States, charter schools have state funding for Latino and African- American students with a focus on themes such arts or science, Wilson said. In Canada, charter schools would have to take into account labour unions ( most American charter schools shut out unions) but they offer something public schools don't: adaptability, Wilson said. " We're not doing a good job now, so let's look at what they're doing in Hawaii, in New Zealand, in South Korea. Let's try things," Wilson said. In February, a national panel concluded education was failing students in Canada's 633 First Nations. The graduation rate on reserves is less than half that of kids off reserve, the panel reported, and kids without a high school diploma are twice as likely to be unemployed and more likely to end up in trouble with the law. In Manitoba, the statistics are even worse, Wilson said. " I know in Manitoba the grad rate is 28 per cent on reserves. The provincial average is ( more than) 86 per cent. That's a huge difference," Wilson said. The national panel called for a First Nations education act to be in place by 2014 along with funding parity: Reserve schools limp along with half to one- third the funding of provincial schools. alexandra. paul@ freepress. mb. ca NORTHERN high school students get a " watered- down" and " babied" curriculum compared to students in the city, says Matthew Cook- Contois. And he should know what a lot of schools are like. The member of Misipawistik Cree Nation attended Strathcona, St. John's High School and Maples Collegiate in Winnipeg, as well as schools in Grand Rapids, Norway House and Crane River - sometimes returning to some of those schools two or more times, as his family moved around. On Thursday, he told a national conference of aboriginal school trustees it was in city schools he saw the curriculum appropriate to his grade. " Up north, we were given a watereddown curriculum. It was a bit babied," Cook- Contois said. " I was going to Grade 11, but I didn't feel like I was going to Grade 11." Grade 11 in the north was on the level of Grade 9 in the city, said Cook- Contois, who's in his final year of commerce at the I. H. Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba. He said teachers often let the entire class get behind while they worked with students who couldn't keep up. " We were getting slowed down because of the classroom mentality." Not that the city schools weren't full of challenges, he said. He was the lone aboriginal male chosen for enrichment classes at St. John's, he recalled. His cousin, who was just as smart, was kept with other aboriginal students. " Did that help him grow? Not a bit." Cook- Contois urged schools to assume aboriginal students can succeed just as well as anyone else in the school. He was urged by teachers not to go to the U of M because it was too big, and was told he would get the help he needed in a smaller school. " I got on the dean's list my first year," Cook- Contois said. " It's still rare for an aboriginal person to go to university." His mother is working on her PhD in nursing, Cook- Contois pointed out. " My parents always constantly reminded me that I was going to some form of post- secondary education - there was no choice." Cook- Contois said many of his business- school classmates are grads of St. John's- Ravenscourt School, but he's " living proof" public school and northern students can do just as well. But, Cook- Contois emphasized, SJR teaches students to debate, to express themselves in class and to be extroverted. " There's a culture of introversion in the public- schools system: Keep your opinions to yourself, write your test," he said. Cook- Contois said far too little is done in high school to steer aboriginal students into further schooling. " Half the scholarships and bursaries I get are just because there aren't enough applicants. I had no clue those things existed when I was in high school," he said. Nicole Keeper, a Grade 11 student from Split Lake attending R. B. Russell High School, said it's crucial parents recognize the value of education, and schools be aware students have different styles of learning. The conference, organized by the Manitoba School Boards Association, concludes today. nick. martin@ freepress. mb. ca Education in north ' watered down:' ex- student By Nick Martin Native charter schools eyed Experts seek ways to improve education By Alexandra Paul ' We're not doing a good job now... Let's try things' - James Wilson ( above) A_ 13_ Jun- 15- 12_ FP_ 01. indd A11 6/ 14/ 12 7: 41: 07 PM ;