Throughout this year’s PDP journey, my classmates and I have learned a lot about Aboriginal education and the ways we can try to improve education for this growing demographic whom have largely been failed by Canada’s education system. One repeated thing that pops up often is the idea of decolonizing education by shifting our way of thinking to incorporate multiple ways of knowing something and embracing the traditions of non western education.
Decolonizing Education in a Gentle Way; A Critical Book Review of the Novel Fatty Legs
If you are looking for a detailed account that showcases the extreme hardships and negative ramifications faced by native students who were forced to attend residential schools, then Fatty Legs by Margaret Pokiak-Fenton and Christy Jordan-Fenton may not be the book for you. Though the book is well organized and extremely carefully written for its intended audience, this children’s nonfiction novel describes one girl’s self determination, her struggles with resilience, and her exceptionally strong Inuit spirit while avoiding an exhaustive history of the abusive and cruel realities that accompany many of Canada’s residential schools. Moreover, it is a great classroom resource that can be used to decolonize education by incorporating various strategies taken from Indigenous pedagogy.
Fatty Legs is a true story based on the first residential school experiences of one of the authors, Margaret. The story is told from Margaret’s perspective between the ages of eight and ten and is therefore written using simple and generally positive language in short succinct sentences. Because of the writing style, the book could effectively reach an audience between the ages of five and thirteen with a message that showcases Inuit knowledge and pedagogy and the problems that minorities face in education. It uses maps, illustrations, photography and footnotes describing possibly new vocabulary for such an audience.
Fatty Legs begins with an introduction by Olemaun, which is Margaret’s Inuit name, and displays the thesis of the novel as a story of persecution towards the author/main character and how she overcame the mistreatment caused by being singled out by her oppressor, a nun working at the school. The introduction is followed by a brief description of how many Northern Aboriginal youngsters were often taken from their homes to travel across the ocean to study in, “nests [the outsiders] called schools.” (Pokiak-Fenton & Jordan Fenton, 2010, p. 3). Here the audience gets their first direct reference to colonized education before moving on to Margaret’s personal experiences as the word; “school” is presented as a novel idea. The story is set up nicely with connections to the Lewis Carroll novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, when Rosie, Olemaun’s half sister who had attended the residential school for four years, reads and explains the story to her in their family tent. This connection is carried throughout the book as the extreme curiosity that both Alice and Olemaun display leads them down a rabbit hole of trouble.
The first chapter showcases Olemaun’s curiosity and determination by depicting the difficult task of convincing her father to allow her to study and learn English at the residential school. After reluctantly agreeing, we follow the Pokiak family away from the safe shores of Banks Island to the hamlet of Aklavik, where the school is and some Inuit families sold pelts and bought yearly supplies from the Hudson’s Bay Company. Olemaun excitedly arrives at the school to find that it might not be as magnificent as she had once expected. She receives her new name, Margaret, and struggles with her existence at the residential school as she becomes the laughing stock of the other girl residents when she is made to wear an ugly pair of red stockings by a character designated as the Raven. The characters in the book are often referred and compared to different birds which may help the audience visualize their distinct characteristics and displays the Inuit knowledge that Margaret relies on to make sense of her new surroundings.
Margaret overcomes these trials and tribulations by getting rid of her stockings in a bold attempt to defy her oppressor and display her resilience. This resilience is once again tested when Margaret finally reunites with her family after two years away from home. This difficult reunion is well established in the sequel to Fatty Legs in another nonfiction account titled, A Stranger at Home. The authors display a common story among residential school survivors where feelings of loneliness and isolation take over upon return to their home and family due to the loss of language and traditional knowledge. Fatty Legs flows smoothly into A Stranger at Home carrying over the thesis of strength and resilience in the face of many challenges. “Would you believe that at one point I could scarcely remember my own name or even speak the same language as my mother? Well, it’s true. The outsiders had locked my tongue with the spell of their ‘education’,” (Pokiak-Fenton & Jordan-Fenton, 2011, p. 1). This quote acts as a hook for the second novel and smoothes the transition between Fatty Legs and A Stranger at Home.
Fatty legs is a fantastic resource for teachers to create a safe place to discuss these issues of personal strength, perseverance, and the effects of residential school in terms of colonized education and the indigenous knowledge and pedagogies of the Inuit people. The information is presented in a gentle way to ease the students into what might be their first understanding of the hardships faced by residential school students. As previously discussed, teachers can start to decolonize education by acknowledging the damaging effects of the colonized education presented in the text. Class activities and discussion can be designed around quotes like this one to explore the ideas of power and privilege shifts in colonized education. “The Raven swooped down and clutched my dress in her claw. ‘This is no place for a wilful child, she hissed’,” (Pokiak-Fenton, & Jordan-Fenton, 2011, p. 50). As suggested by Lawrence (2009), in the article, “Gender, Race, and the Regulation of Native Identity in Canada and the United States of America”, to decolonize education, teachers must adjust and revise how their students perceive Indigenous identity. This can be done by showcasing the many examples of Inuit knowledge and pedagogy that are woven throughout the book like the lessons Olemaun learns from her father about hunting or the story that he tells her which aligns the effects of the school’s education to the wearing down of a rock on the ocean’s edge, “Do you see this rock? It was once jagged and full of sharp, jutting points, but the water of the ocean slapped and slapped at it, carrying away its angles and edges. Now it is nothing but a small pebble. That is what the outsiders will do to you at the school.” (Pokiak-Fenton, & Jordan-Fenton, 2011, p. 13) This also speaks to the effect that colonized education was meant to strip the Indigenous peoples from their traditions in an attempt to assimilate them into the dominant culture. “For Native people, individual identity is always being negotiated in relation to collective identity, and in the face of an external colonizing society. Bodies of law defining and controlling Indianness have for years distorted and disrupted older Indigenous ways of identifying the self in relation not only to collective identity but also to the land” (Lawrence, 2003, p. 4). These ideas are wrapped up nicely in the last section titled, the schools, with a current account of how residential school survivors and their families are healing through relearning their cultural heritage, language, and creating dialogue with books like Fatty Legs.
In doing this, the authors have considered the different perspectives that the audience brings in their interaction with the text. Many of the children who read the book have family members who attended residential school and are still navigating the negative effects of their colonized education. Because of this, it might be difficult for some readers to discuss the realities of residential schools and how they are personally affected. Bombay, Matheson, and Anisman (2011) suggested that, “many survivors returned home with inappropriate behavior patterns, including abusive or neglectful parenting behaviors modeled after the care-giving behaviors witnessed at [Indian residential schools],” (p. 369). It seems as if the authors have taken this into account by steering the story toward personal triumph and away from the negative effects of the residential school experience. This can be seen as a strength of the novel as it demonstrates the careful thought displayed in considering the audience and is in line with the thesis statement of one girl’s spirit and strength. It might be easy to say that the authors didn’t depict the true existence of the children attending the residential school as extremely abusive situations are omitted though this would be imposing one’s thoughts on the intentions of the author.
One thing the audience should be aware of when reading this story is the voices of two authors coming together. Whenever a nonfiction account is retold by two authors, one who experienced the real life situations, Margaret Pokiak-Fenton, and one who did not, Christy Jordan-Fenton, Margaret’s daughter in-law, we must consider whose voice is coming through in the text. Questioning which parts of the text are for literary effects and which are actual past happenings is one way a teacher can bring in the learning outcomes around comprehending literature and its devises. One area in which I question the accuracy of the story and the use of literary devises is the allusion to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The story both begins and ends by aligning Margaret’s curiosity about the outsiders with that of Alice’s when entering the rabbit hole. Perhaps these metaphors were created by the co-author to add literary effect.
When questioning the accuracy of other information presented in the novel, I feel that it aligns with the reality of history. Research by White and Peters (2009) supports, “Children were taken, often forcefully, from their homes their hair was cut, they were clothed in European style of dress, and they were placed in unsanitary living conditions. Students were taught to be ashamed of their culture and to see themselves and their people as inferior and immoral, often facing punishment if they spoke their own language,” (p. 19). Fatty Legs describes these issues in a manageable way for the intended audience to demonstrate what Margaret faced at the All Saints Residential School which was running in Aklavik during the time that she would have attended. Furthermore, the referenced photo documentation at the end of the novel presents real life references to many of the ideas that the authors discuss. Inuktitut Magazine (2000) describes:
By the 1920s, when the earliest of these photographs was taken, they were also meeting southerners there, as Aklavik had become the centre of trapping, trade, and transportation for the Mackenzie Delta. It had a Hudson’s Bay Company store, a police post, and competing Anglican and Roman Catholic missions — each with its own hospital and residential school. (p. 29-34).
After reading the story, I feel that it would be an excellent tool to use in the classroom. It is a magnificent and believable story where the main character struggles to overcome the hardship she experiences in her journey to and within the outsiders’ school. The characters are presented in a realistic way even when being depicted and described as birds. In fact, this depiction embraces multiple ways of knowing and may reach some students more easily than a physical description of the person. Margaret’s strengths and weaknesses are discussed which readers both young and old could easily empathize with. And through a variety of teaching strategies, teachers can display Inuit knowledge and pedagogy while decolonizing their student’s education and introducing the ideas of multicultural and anti-racist education.
Classroom Methods
In this section, I will examine specific teaching strategies that could be used in conjunction with the text to create a safe place for discussions around difficult topics and to begin the process of decolonizing education. Depending on the age, grade level and subject of the students, some activities may need to be modified but for the purposes of this paper, I will conduct the classroom methods section in respect to a grade 8 drama class.
Decolonizing education can be a difficult idea for someone to embrace if they have only experienced a colonized education. As suggested by Marie Battiste (2002) in her literature review, the act of decolonizing education requires giving power and space for the varied voices of Indigenous peoples. This can be done by first revealing the past and current injustices in Canada’s colonial existence and deconstructing the past to reconstruct the future by analyzing the political, social, emotional and economic reasons for taking away the voices of Aboriginals in history. Curriculum should be designed to legitimize the experiences and knowledge of Aboriginal peoples while understanding it as an influential and powerful form of knowing, insight and education.
One way to begin the decolonization process would be to have the students read the novel Fatty Legs. This could be done by using a talking circle process where the teacher and students take turns reading from the text. Before beginning the reading process though, some front loading or scaffolding should take place to explain the significance of storytelling to Indigenous knowledge and pedagogies. As Thomas King (2003) suggests, in the absence of stories, one can’t gain an accurate understanding of the world, (p. 32).
Storytelling and oral tradition require active participation by both the storyteller and the listeners. To assess the active participation of the students’ listening skills, the students could develop a dramatic work that explores solutions to some of the problems that characters in the book face. These performances should also promote acceptance of cultural differences. This aligns directly to the following prescribed learning outcomes in the grade 8 Integrated Resource Package (1995); “demonstrate the unique ability of drama to unify a group and demonstrate an appreciation of the diversity of others and their various perspectives” (p. 6). After reading the novel, the teacher should conduct a discussion about the history of education in Canada while guiding the topic to cover the political, social, emotional, and economic reasons for assimilation. This discussion can be introduced by using popular media like the CBC series titled, the 8th Fire or the music video by hip hop duo Rapsure Risin in which the two singer/song writers roam the halls of an empty residential school. Using popular media is a great way to access the students’ previous knowledge about residential schools to make comparisons with the novel. Following this discussion, students can create a scene related to their new understanding of the history of education using the developed characters from the novel or developing their own unique characters.
To explore the ideas of power and privilege embedded in colonization, one strategy that could be used is to have students create or act out scenes from the novel which demonstrate power struggles between characters like Margaret and The Raven. Students can then reflect on their experience in and out of the role to gain a better understanding of how power relates to personal feelings.
Other pedagogical strategies embraced by Indigenous knowledge are the use of, “participant observations, experiential learning, modeling, mediation, prayer, ceremonies, or story telling as ways of knowing and learning,” (Battiste, 2002). Drama teachers have a somewhat unique ability to deviate from the Eurocentric educational strategy of testing and writing and can base their assessment of student work on a much broader set of strategies like teacher observation, student/teacher conferences, and peer or self assessment. In doing this the teacher is modeling the strategies used in Indigenous knowledge and pedagogy.
The authors of Fatty Legs have done a great job using the life experiences of one strong willed Inuit girl to retell the often brutal history of Canada’s colonized education in a gentle way. This can ease the young readers into an understanding of the hardships faced by residential school survivors and can open up a safe dialogue to discuss these sometimes difficult topics. By exploring this novel, teachers can begin to decolonize education using Indigenous knowledge and pedagogy as a framework to assess Canada’s history, encourage acceptance of multiple ways of knowing, and assess student work in a less Eurocentric way.
References
Battiste, M. (2002). Indigenous knowledge and pedagogy in First Nations education: A literature review with recommendations. Retrieved from http://www.usask.ca/education/people/battistem/ikp_e.pdf
Bombay, A., Matheson, K., & Anisman, H. (2011). The impact of stressors on second generation Indian residential school survivors, Transcultural Psychology, 48 (4), 367-391.
Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, (2000). A look back at Aklavik, Inuktitut, 86, (29-34).
King, T. (2003). The truth about stories. Toronto, ON: House of Anansi Press.
Lawrence, B. (2003). Gender, race, and the regulation of Native identity in Canada and the United States of America: An overview, Hypatia, 18 (2), 3-31.
Ministry of Education, (1995). Drama 8-10: Integrated resource package. (IRP 017) Province of British Columbia.
Pokiak-Fenton, M., & Jordan-Fenton, C. (2011). A stranger at home. Buffalo, NY: Annick Press.
Pokiak-Fenton, M., & Jordan-Fenton, C. (2010). Fatty legs. Buffalo, NY: Annick Press.
White, J.P., Peters, J., Beavon, D., & Spence, N., (2009) Aboriginal education: Current crisis and future alternatives. J. P. White & J Peters (Ed.) . Toronto, ON: Thompson Educational Publishing, Inc.
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