A different school of thought

PATRICIA D’SOUZA

Kate McDermott has one of the most difficult jobs in education. But it’s one of the most important jobs in the Nunavut school system.

McDermott teaches a split class of Grades 4 and 5 at Nakasuk School in Iqaluit. Her Grade 4 students enter her classroom each September with little or no English skills, and her job is to provide a foundation for their future in an English world.

McDermott meets the challenge each day with hope and optimism. And her students, she says, do as well. “I have beautiful children, she says. “They challenge me. They’re fun. They’re stimulating.”

But she realizes that the difficulties her students face may ultimately hurt them. “My job is to meet them where they are,” she says. “By people who rate things in terms of English, they seem to be delayed.”

The reality is that the progress of students through the Nunavut school system is rated in terms of English. Though the high-reaching goal of the system since the creation of the territory has always been to foster Inuit language and culture, students in Nunavut receive Inuktitut instruction only from kindergarten to Grade 3.

One way to eliminate the shocking transition-year transfer, some educators suggest, is to eliminate the Inuktitut-only stream altogether, and introduce English — as well as Inuktitut — to all children in kindergarten.

“Years to grow”

“The Inuktitut school system needs years to grow,” McDermott admits. While she is certain her students must keep their traditions and culture, she is equally sure they must eventually move on to the “modern culture.”

It’s not an ideal solution. But Nunavut is far away from the ideal school system the territory’s creators dreamed of. Instead, the system is in crisis — with growing class sizes, little standardization and an incomplete Inuktitut curriculum.

Today’s students in Nunavut face set-backs the territory’s creators never dreamed of, with wide-spread poverty, growing incidences of fetal-alcohol syndrome and a high drop-out rate. Given the situation, many teachers say, perhaps it’s time to stop dreaming of the ideal and start helping students learn.

That’s something the Inuktitut system just can’t do — with an incomplete curriculum and not enough teachers.

Noel McDermott, an instructor with the Nunavut Teacher Education Program at Arctic College, and Kate McDermott’s husband, says the education department should start with the basic building blocks: teachers and teaching materials for the elementary grades.

The two full-time Inuit educators at the department’s curriculum division in Arviat have just produced a set of Grade 10 language arts materials. “That’s great stuff,” he says, “but it’s Grade 10.” A look of incredulousness comes across his face.

“It’s like building an igloo and building the higher levels before the bottom levels. And any dope can figure out it’s not going to stand up,” McDermott said.

Learning to crawl

The main focus should be trying to produce Inuktitut elementary school teachers. “We can’t crawl yet,” he says. But it’s a proposition that requires an influx of cash.

McDermott says the government should pay teacher education students a premium to entice them into the field — just as it does law students.

“I think our teacher education and nursing students are stupid if they don’t quit and go into law — or onto social assistance. Some students with five or six children would actually make more money.”

While the teacher education program at Arctic College has been turning out about 10 graduates a year for the past 20 years, many of those graduates find work outside the education system.

“I don’t know who would want to become a teacher when you can work for the Nunavut government and get better wages and walk home and no one bugs you,” he says.

“Everyone has to realize that education is really costly. We’re trying to create a new system,” he says.

But funding alone is not enough. Any extra cash has to be met with action — and a commitment to Inuit language and culture.

“Education is expensive, but ignorance is going to cost us a lot.”

Next week: Sharing skills