Until recently, content about Aboriginal history began to be incorporated into Canadian school curricula. The Indian Act of 1876 tried to assimilate all the aborigines with large population and different races into the non aboriginal society. Those provisions that continue to be implemented from history to the present have affected several generations. The boarding school system has suppressed 150000 children, making them unable to inherit their own culture. People often turn a blind eye to its impact. The last boarding school in Canada was closed in 1997, further promoting the movement to teach more aboriginal culture and history today.
At the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) in 2015, aboriginal education leaders gathered from all over Canada. AFN displayed a series of cultural relics, maps of boarding schools and other materials to help educators teach Canadian history from the perspective of aborigines. This set of materials was in short supply.
Inspired by this, Apple has promoted the cooperation with AFN to expand educational opportunities for indigenous and non indigenous students. AFN's Language and Teaching Director Renee St. Germain, an aboriginal member of Rama, said: "It is difficult for teachers and students to find reliable information about culture and history." She participated in Apple's current cooperation project, produced available digital resources for aboriginal history, and finally completed a set of practical teaching tools around aboriginal rights, culture and history, which have been downloaded. This set of free "Time is not waiting for me: aboriginal assembly education tool set" (It's Our Time: The AFN Educational Toolkit) 》It contains increasingly rich interactive Apple books, so that both aboriginal and non aboriginal educators can bring new and diverse perspectives to the classroom, and cultivate the spirit of cooperation, mutual understanding and practice.
St. Germain believed that "we should solve major problems and eliminate Institutional Racism and discrimination, education is the fundamental policy. Everyone has a complete education, and the system must be changed so that it can be true Positive support Today's society and culture. "
Apple has helped AFN create 15 Apple books in English and French. Today, thanks to the joint efforts of Apple's outstanding educators, Apple's community education initiative, educational experts, aboriginal education leaders and lobbying organizations, educators can more effectively teach aboriginal history. St. Germain said: "It's never too late to start a dialogue, no matter how old you are." Teachers can finally incorporate knowledge about indigenous people into the curriculum and carry out more discussions around this sensitive history. She said: "Everything AFN does will put fairness first, and this toolkit is developed by aborigines." She also stressed that it is very important for aboriginal students to be treated correctly. "There are aboriginal students in almost every classroom." Institutional changes are surging in Canada, and the toolkit has also continued to help, so that aboriginal students and their descendants can accept more equitable Education.
At present, St. Germain is committed to establishing cooperation with local school boards to make this set of tools benefit more regions. Because of the ethnic diversity of indigenous people, Apple and AFN will continue to work with indigenous education leaders to develop a version of the toolkit for specific regions, so as to better reflect the traditions, languages and Culture.
St. Germain said that there are still many things to do for the majority of indigenous people, from housing, equal rights, to the cultural security of students and teachers, and education is a part of this process. She said, "If there is no fairness in the field of education, where will it be What about it? "