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Education in north 'watered down:' ex-student

By: Nick Martin

Friday, Jun. 15, 2012 at 7:51 AM | Comments: 0

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 watered-down 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

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