There was a time when I felt that Native students could gain increased academic success simply by learning about themselves and their cultural traditions. My feelings were that low self-esteem played a key part in low academic achievement in Indigenous students. Knowing about their cultural traditions and practices would increase student self-esteem. Therefore, I surmised that increased cultural exposure and indoctrination would invariably lead to increased academic outcomes for Indigenous students.
My opinion on this matter has changed dramatically.
While the value of cultural practices and their transmission is a value in and of itself, self-esteem cannot be ‘handed’ to a student. A student has to earn self-esteem. I have found in my personal experience teaching and leading that the verbal praise and ‘patting oneself on the back’ approach to self-esteem leads to crashes in moral when a challenged is faced unsuccessfully. Self-esteem must be earned through determination and hard work. It is an individual accomplishment that cannot be given out.
I learned this first hand in teaching outdoor education in northern Canada. I began my teachings in the past by exposing students to pipe ceremonies, sweat lodge ceremonies and sun dances. It wasn’t until they actually participated in the arduous aspect of ‘traditional life’ that the students were empowered with esteem that took them beyond their next challenge.
A group of 12 students that I took on an 18 kilometer snowshoe to a trap line in mid February opened my eyes. This motley group of PS3 players could be seen by many as out of shape and lethargic. Some of them did not believe that they could get even a third of the way to the cabins on the trap line … to be honest I had my doubts as well. Never the less we set out early in the morning and trudged on until nightfall. Every one of the group finished the trip - 18 kilometers both ways. I still hear those students express fond memories of their accomplishments.
I still view self-esteem as being critically important to learning, however my views on how best to facilitate that self-esteem growth has changed dramatically.
3 comments:
An Examination of Native Education in BC: K Readiness & Self Image & Academic Achievment of the Grades 4 to 12 conducted by E.R. Atleo 1993 for the Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood Education Committee of British Columbia took a look at the literature in a manner that may support your observations.
"However, as Atleo (1990) found in his study, the prevailing negative conditions for Native people within society have moved towards the positive. This move towards the positive has tended to weaken the conflicting messages of assimilation and exclusion and permitted a growing sense of resurgent pride in culture both in and outside the classroom. Native studies have been created at all levels of the school system while ancient traditions such as the potlatch are practiced in a modern context....(in MB think sweats, sundance, circle work, outdoor programming)...
These positive changes may be assumed to affect the sense of self-worth, the sense of self-esteem, self-regard, and self-image within the Native student in a positive way just as the concomitant former negative context affected the Native student in a negative way. But whatever the current state of self-image held by the Native student a recent work by Covington (1992) on self-worth theory indicates that the assumed relationship between self-esteem and academic performance is not as straight forward or as simple as it has been assumed to be by many educators. Self-esteem, or self-worth, it seems becomes confused and equated with accomplishment and capability which is measured by grade point averages...The argument that is being made here is that the conditions that apply to the majority student may also apply to the minority Native student. If this is so then it may be possible that the confounding of the association between self-esteem and achievement among majority students may also apply to Native students. One indication of this application will be to see if the current survey about Native student work habits shows any similarity to the pattern of work indicated for students from the majority society. Since avoidance strategies begin at about age thirteen for the majority student and if Native students employ the same type of strategies then Native student work habits should diminish at about the grade nine level."
an on line version of the whole report can be found at:
http://aboriginallanguageproject.blogspot.com/2008/05/outline-native-initiative-purpose-and.html
This report was refused funding from various sources for community dissemination but was used to develop ministry level policy in BC. As someone involved in the training of community research partners through workshops, interviewing, developing the code book for the analysis and collating data for this project, lack of resources for dissemination was a major drawback. The research was from a community perspective and needed to be filtered back through the community. Community research that is filtered through bureaucracy distorts the findings institutionally. Of course its best when there is no cultural difference between the "community" and the "bureaucracy" as for example in the ideal of "Indian Control of Indian Education". As long as there is a value transformation required in the classroom to meet the intrapsychic lifeworld needs of the child... there will be difficulties...or not....the movie "The Blind Side" suggests that maybe we need to pawn kids of to rich white families....oh, sorry....that was the 60's and it didn't work...back to the drawing board...
Do you have more recent references on self-esteem?
I did a meta study of articles on well-being, spiritual well-being and exercise years ago. Increased exercise increases well-being scores, and increased outdoor exercise increases spiritual well being scores (indoor exercise does not).
I wonder if this stuff is all related?
Probably about embodiments which is where I come from...not a Cartesean mind/body split but an integrated mind/body.....m
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