Promotion of Excellence at Schools with FNMI Students, Part 1

This is the first of five articles on Excellence at Schools with First Nation Métis and Inuit (FNMI) Students. In each article at least two major ideas that promote Excellence are featured.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, we promoted two major trends at our schools. The first trend was a commitment to inject local First Nation content into every aspect of the school program of studies, enrichment activities, and school field trips while we maintained high daily academic standards. In essence we made local student experiences and cyclical cultural and seasonal trends in the area an integral part of our curriculum.As a principal and later first time Superintendent of Education at the Gitksan-Carrier School District, most professional educational and administrative leaders worked with local community authorities and principals at Federal, First Nation and provincial schools to increase the performance levels of our students.

We created new resources for schools with First Nation parents and community activists by tapping into the talents of local elders, cultural and academic leaders in each community. Our school cultural teachers and students became involved with K’san Village artists, artists-at-the-school initiatives, and performance of local dance traditions as well as with the Land Claims Research initiatives in the area. This comprehensive effort at making the curriculum and arts activities relevant to the local and cyclical activities of the communities we served led to elementary school language, cultural and dance programs and the systematic injection of indigenous art forms and local knowledge skills of elders, hunters, food gatherers, artists and specialists at each community. At the Kispiox School, several young artists created the First Gitksan Art Coloring Book in 1979.

The relationship between the school and community it served became a two way vibrant and complex relationship in which each group of stakeholders influenced the others. Some professional staff members were adopted by hereditary chiefs and invited to sit at the potlatch feast table.  Our interests in the salmon cycle contributed to the creation of an on reserve hatchery and other local craft and art activities. Local specialists created booklets on local histories of each community and several linguists cooperated with elders and Gitksan speakers to have the first comprehensive Gitksan Language and Cultural Programs. These efforts were innovative at the time but the real innovation was linking all these efforts to development of the students’ traditional speaking and writing skills into each of the official provincial academic disciplines. In short, we used the students’ heritage language and culture as a basis for developing English language and core academic skills. The predominant focus was in mastery of the BC curriculum but teachers made great efforts to educate themselves about the Gitksan culture, stories, traditions and legends.

By the end of my superintendence in 1983, all the schools were transferred from Federal to First Nation administrative control and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs reported that although we made up only 5% of the FNMI population in BC, our District had almost 33% percent of all FNMI high school student graduates in the province. The principals, school staff, home school coordinators were so focused on raising academic and cultural standards in the delivery of the school curriculum that they had an enormous impact on student achievement as well as maintaining a highly motivated school staff. The excitement of being part of a larger district drive to raise academic and cultural standards made parents, school staff, leaders, elders and local school committees feel that they were members of one team with a single goal. During this period some parents, teacher assistants and cultural workers went on to enter a Teacher Training Program sponsored by the District and the University of Victoria. It was a teacher training program that was located at Hazelton during the school year and on campus at U of Victoria during the summer.

The second major strategy for building excellence for FNMI students is ensuring that each school has a set of prioritized goals that are approved by a local education authority and recommended by the principal. The first administrator to do this in the 1970s in a systematic way was a first time principal, Ben Kawaguchi, at Gitsegukla School. He worked with the education authority members to set annual priorities. He ensured that resources were allocated to major the priorities set for the First Nation school. The problem with all our school systems is that we tend to tackle as many problems or trends as arise during the school year rather than remain focused on key prioritized issues.

A more sophisticated variation of focusing people and resources to major annual priorities was created by Kawaguchi soon after he left Gitsegukla, BC for the Peigan First Nation. As Director of Education in the early 1980s, Kawaguchi persuaded the Peigan Board of Education to focus on a single major priority each year rather than many or a handful of priorities. The strategy of a single major priority each year soon made the Peigan First Nation schools, students and high school graduates the leading First Nation School in Alberta and Canada. Provincial, Federal and First Nation educators came to Brocket to visit the schools and chat with Board, administrators and students to understand the reason for the excellent student performance results. All went home knowing that they had to have an overriding priority for student and staff but few have been able to implement such discipline at their jurisdictions. As Kawaguchi pointed out to his Board members, they can focus on 100 priorities each year and get 1% improvement on a hundred things or they can focus on one priority and try to get 100% improvement. By focusing staff and community effort on selecting several (100) ideas of improvement within a priority plan (for example, “This year our priority is to improve our social studies program with a 100 different ways.”) the school and community were able to communicate their efforts and spread great ideas and practices amongst the entire school population.  “With a clear focus on what part of the curriculum we wanted to improve we also made sure that teachers and staff who worked outside of the curriculum priority, to also align their assignments and professional development to the strategic priority to build consistent themes that would link student learning in unique and innovative ways” according to Kawaguchi.

During his Director of Education stewardship, he ensured that the Peigan Board members set one major new academic priority each school year. He ensured that the core subjects and technological innovations were updated in a cyclical manner so that reforms were revisited and refreshed while maintaining a major priority each year. This strategy of focusing on an overriding priority is easier to explain than actually do since at FNMI schools there are so many pressing social, economic and political issues that it is difficult for education authorities, administrators and school staff to have the discipline to have a single overriding academic excellence priority during the school year. However, a focus on academic priority is built on teaching staff strength and can serve to unite staff and school leadership with clear outcomes that the community can see and attribute to school staff and leadership effort.

Karzai, Criminal Syndicates and Terrorists

The Western Powers with over 150,000 military forces in or adjacent to Afghanistan and their network of support and supply bases outside the country need to re-conceptualize the Mission to crush Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Experts admit that a military strategy will only accomplish so much. Essentially, the Afghans must take control in fighting the violence, terrorist raids into their villages and in bringing greater levels of peace, security and prosperity. If national leaders of Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq and other dysfunctional states are seen as heads of a criminal national syndicate with alliances to local syndicates rather than as simply crusaders against Terrorism, then it will be easier to pull out foreign troops, decrease the spending of foreign treasure and create conditions for Afghans and anti-terrorist Muslim movements to take over the fight to bring peace and local security. The military role should be minimized, except for an increase in drone strikes across Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

Here are a few suggestions for speeding up the pullout from Afghan and other states combating terrorist organizations:

First, we should invite, fund and recruit special units of adventurous Muslim retired officers and young or unemployed Muslim soldiers that disagree with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda Ideology of Murder and Mayhem to fight in a pan-Muslim Army equivalent to the old colonial Foreign Legion or African Commando units. Then, embed these units with the elite of the Afghan national army or local police in key valleys along the frontlines bordering Pakistan. Build up the Afghan Army and Police by having a predominance of Arabic and Afghan speaking instructors rather than foreign non-speakers. Downgrade Euro and US military operations, except for the drone strikes, as of July 2011 and dramatically increase the drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The hundreds of billions of dollars to fight the current wars are unsustainable for much longer. More importantly, it is inefficient and extremely wasteful.

Secondly, another anti-terrorist strategy is the active sponsoring of TV, radio and print media operations that promote any and all less extreme Islamic values 24/7 for all men, women and children. There should be accredited cyber K-12 schools, agricultural and trade schools with Afghan trained teachers and religious leaders available for both boys and girls. The proposal includes the giving of every Afghan, among its various minority groups in all areas of the country, media and radio that ensures access to the media 24/7. By a mass media communications strategy, the State can have a presence in all parts of the country and can keep the faces of government leaders and its major terrorists, rapists, and wanted criminals posted in every media, government outlet and post office. In essence, it needs to do what the FBI has done to fight the various criminals and their syndicates across the US since the late 1920s. The media needs to televise the local major jurga forums as well as creative business, sports, religious and arts peoples from all its ethnic communities. This 24/7 strategy should apply to media as well as to all the police and military compounds in the country with a fund at each of these elite military and national police  institutions that can pay for civil informants as to local terrorists. As part of its urban anti-terror strategies, the government should have cameras at and near all major cities and towns as well as compounds and military barracks so that terrorists do not surprise trainees, military or police officials.

Also, the Afghans needs to create distinct Afghan uniforms for both the more elite members of the military and its national police forces as was done with Italy’s Carabenieri and Canada’s RCMP and its distinct red uniforms. These forces need special issue equipment and training so as to trace all its equipment if stolen or traded. Rotate the elite military and police officers as well as their families to lower chances of graft and criminal activities and increase their loyalty to the State. Provide better housing and educational opportunities for all these elite troops and their families. Pay and promotions need to be linked to the accomplishment of local and national performance goals while on duty. Another option is to have liaisons with the local beggar communities in each major town and city as was done in pre-industrial Europe.

Karzai Family Criminal Syndicate has the protection of all the Western powers in Afghanistan. This Family syndicate may be exposed for short periods of time, a case in point is the activities of his brother the banker, but the Karzai criminal syndicate will remain in power since it is the key national group binding the national criminal network for most of the drug and land-based lords in Afghanistan’s twenty-eight provinces. As Peter Galbraith pointed out, while investigating corruption and Karzai government election practices, all but one of Karzai’s Ministers and their Departments are actively involved in corrupt practices. As the New York Times and other media outlets have documented, each week officials are leaving the country with suitcases of foreign funds or using the development money and contracts to build palatial residences or the palaces and fortresses of local warlords. Especially telling is the Karzai control of a province adjacent to Iran since that country is a key transit route in the drug and money trade. Karzai is frank that he receives sacks, bags, suitcases of funds from the Iranians as well as other foreign States. The Karzai syndicate and most of the drug lords will remain in power until such time as another crime syndicate leader is found in Afghanistan.

If any Euro or other countries were serious about cleaning up corruption in Afghanistan or Yemen or even Pakistan, they would indict any Afghan or other officials that have dual citizenship, much as the US did to Karzai’s brother, who is a US citizen and a syndicate front banker that controlled the money laundering operations for the Karzai family, government and its drug lord allies. As with Iraq, those that oppose the government criminal syndicates in power are no different. However, those with less power should be monitored and encouraged to call for an end to corruption so that those in power can be kept on their toes.

The US, Euro States and even Russia are all agreed that they need to stay the course in Afghanistan since it is a resource rich country and also a transit country for potential oil and gas pipelines to Pakistan and energy hungry India. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban need to be crushed or marginalized enough for the pipeline and mining activities to take place in and through Afghanistan.

Perhaps, if we re-conceptualize the current anti-terror strategy as one of dealing with criminal syndicates, we could make greater impact in neutralizing the threats in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. We need to give these criminal bosses of networks deals and incentive they can’t refuse while rooting out the terrorists in their territories, using the media to expose both their terrorist enemies and when the time comes even them.

Wiki Leaks, Accountability & Age of Cyber Wars

American government officials have a right to be embarrassed and upset about the latest set of Wiki revelations. However, they need to share the blame for creating the conditions that a Private soldier in Iraq had access to such vast amounts of confidential data and the means to copy it with relative ease. Where were the supervisors and the checks and balances? In the past when other individuals and governments had access to secrets they would sell them without notifying other governments. How times have changed in the Age of Accountability.

The recent leaks will force all governments to lift up their socks and ensure greater checks and balances and more accountability on everyone’s part. The leaks have given us a peak into what diplomats do during their workday to protect the interests of their countries. The leaks reveal that often duplicitous nature of diplomacy.  Our leaders and officials still subject to deep prejudices and the urge to double-speak. It is this tendency to be less than truthful to friends and adversaries that keeps getting governments and nations into battles or international incidents.

 The assault on Julien Assange and his group disguises the fact that the Americans dropped the ball. The final decision as to what is made public still rests with the traditional major newspapers and media groups in the West. The New York Times and The Guardian are world class outlets with extremely competent reporters. At any rate, the cyber hackers among the Wiki Groups and governments Cyber experts have begun a war that will get nastier and nastier. The one result is that governments will learn how to deal with sabotaging not only the Freedom of Speech and Transparency Groups but other governments that they do not like. Expect more cyber wars and unexplained computer and internet failures in the near future. The revelations are still rather petty and insignificant to officials of most governments but the embarrassments at higher levels of the military and diplomatic corps are not as easy to hide.

Assange is in the sights of not only the Swedes and Americans but other governments. If he manages to escape the sexual allegations there will be other trials, woes or accidents ready to occupy him. If some of those exposed in the Wiki Leaks are killed or imprisoned there may be even further law suits and troubles awaiting Assange.  The one comfort and confirmation of dedication on the part of America’s diplomatic corps is that these officials actually have the stomach to watch and monitor our CBC dramas!! What fortitude! The best way to punish Assange would be to make him watch CBC 24/7 during his upcoming trials.