The Native Literacy Source of Medicine

To combat a common misunderstanding created by the title Native literacy, it was necessary to analyze two fields of literacy - Ontario literacy and Native literacy in Ontario and their relationship. Chapter three clarified that Native literacy is only a title and does not embrace Native learning style, worldview or community reality. Chapter four’s concentration on Aboriginal worldview presented compelling grounds to construct a specific definition for Native literacy.   Policies that are created on the basis of urban Anglophone statistics cannot address the needs of Aboriginal individuals who do not have access to the same services as learners in urban centers.  Further, clarity of the true direction of Native literacy is essential if Native literacy is to access sufficient support and funding to carry out its responsibility to Aboriginal learners and communities.  The Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities demands outcomes in response to government driven policy.  Minimum basic funding that is administrated makes those policies appear trivial in that it creates situations of insufficient manpower, supplies, equipment and time.  Sufficient funding is required to allow Native literacy to fully meet the unique needs of the Aboriginal community that will in turn create social justice for the Aboriginal population but the immediate issue is the right and freedom to observe wholistic Native literacy.    

            As pointed out in chapter two, literacy cannot claim a precise definition.  However, the general population accepts literacy as simply learning to read and write while the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU) defines it as reading, writing and numeracy.  In recent years, the definition has unofficially changed again to mean reading, writing and numeracy for employment.  The disconnection between literacy and basic skills and employability has created dissatisfaction and stress in the literacy field in response to the oppression of learners.  Learners endure complete control of their lives at the hands of government services whose only goal is to get them off welfare and into low paying jobs in complete disregard for individuality and family.  Individuals are expected to work or job search and attend literacy despite the fact that they have young families and no money for child care or transportation and often it is a case of a one-parent family. Government’s one-sided economic goals appear to deny poverty and its pervasive effects on lives.             

            Chapter two also discussed the high practitioner turnover rate a repercussion of a single-minded focus on employment and accountability.  Input of front line workers (practitioners) has little or no impact on policy.  As one practitioner pointed out, policy is made and then practitioners get a few weeks to comment.

            In chapter three, Native literacy was clarified as a division of Ontario literacy with no allowance for differentiation from the mainstream. Despite research, documents, articles and books that expose the intergenerational damage of history and residential schools - the foundation of need in Aboriginal communities - Native literacy struggles with the same issues as the Francophone, Anglophone and Deaf streams in terms of guidelines, outcomes and funding.  Francophone, Anglophone and Deaf streams however do not have the intergenerational damage to overcome.  Workforce literacy is now expected to be the main thrust of literacy in Aboriginal communities as it across Ontario.

            However, research cited in chapter four identified the absence of employment opportunities that the majority of Aboriginal communities endure.  Stats Canada and Aboriginal surveys expose a huge unemployed population on reserve a large proportion of which includes individuals with insufficient or incomplete education.  This study proposes that Native literacy efforts to alleviate insufficient general knowledge and skills at two transition points – high-school and postsecondary – would assist Aboriginal individuals to successfully integrate into the mainstream via more appropriate education opportunities - opportunities that would later end in employment.  

            Chapter four presented an argument for a different definition of Native literacy, one that is more effective in the Aboriginal community.