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Aboriginal kids need specialized education

`The poor academic performance of Aboriginal students is a problem rooted in the fundamental principles of the education that Aborigines receive.'

A CERTAIN POLITICIAN recently remarked that Aborigines must be educated ("Ma comment sparks Aboriginal fury," Dec. 26, page 3). So let's discuss the problems of Aboriginal education.

In December 2006, a case of corporal punishment was reported at Chungcheng Elementary School in Yuli Township (玉里), Hualien County.

A student from a local Amis Aboriginal community had failed to turn in a homework assignment, and he had not memorized an assigned passage of The Analects.

The teacher then beat the student to the point that it left severe bruising on his buttocks.

However, locals passed on rumors that the teacher had been taken to court because the Aborigines wanted to make hay out of the case and get some money.

A Han Taiwanese teacher at a school in an Aboriginal area once complained to me that Aboriginal children are difficult to teach: They are very active, he said, and not inclined to study.

I responded by asking him whether he had ever asked his students why they didn't do their homework, and whether he had ever witnessed their family environment.

On this point, Hsiao Jau-jiun (蕭昭君), a professor at National Hualien University of Education, has said that certain cultural differences can be difficult to identify.

Of course, many people reject cultural difference as an explanation for differences in learning. But, as Professor Hsiao points out, these factors cannot be concretely outlined; they can only be discovered by an observer with an open mind that is ready to accept diversity.

The poor academic performance of Aboriginal students is a problem rooted in the fundamental principles of the education that Aborigines receive.

The current format of treating Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students in the same way conceals an unequal point of departure at its core.

More than 98 percent of the educational materials used by Aboriginal children are based on a non-Aboriginal viewpoint.

This kind of environment poses a great hurdle for personal and cultural identification, as well as the intellectual development of Aboriginal students.

I have profound doubts as to whether this kind of education can produce intellectuals who are Aboriginal but can also understand their ethnic identity and cultural heritage, or even acknowledge their identity.

The problems that we must resolve are cultural prejudice and the fundamental principles of education as applied to Aboriginal children.

A solution to this problem should come from the Council of Indigenous Peoples and Aboriginal legislators, who must work with the academic community and non-governmental organizations to develop an educational program that truly belongs to Aboriginal people.

Saiviq Kisasa is a research assistant at the Institute of Sociology at Academia Sinica.

TRANSLATED BY ANGELA HONG
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