Work on Aboriginal Education in a Social Justice Union Reflections from the Inside

Abstract

With the support of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF), the Task Force on First Nations Education 1998–99 developed and presented fifty-six recommendations for the BCTF Executive committee and the Annual General meeting 1999. Recommendation 1.4 asked that the BCTF hire a person of Aboriginal ancestry to the professional staff, with members of the BCTF of Aboriginal ancestry included in the shortlisting process, recommending who should be hired. The recommendations aimed to set the table for First Nations students, First Nations teachers, First Nations parent, and public education to sit together to create, facilitate, and nurture First Nations children and their families and community. For the first time all involved in public education appeared to acknowledge the devastating impacts colonization has had and continues to have on our children and communities. Union local leaders were to respond, strategize, and accommodate for change, that is, alter, the way they understand Aboriginal First Nations teachers and Aboriginal First Nations children.