2009 Partnerships in Success Conference

This year's conference was held in Niagara Falls from Feb. 18-20, 2009. The theme was "Leading the circle of change: where do we go from here ?" The keynote address was presented by Kathleen Manderville who is a member of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte and is currently the principal of Quinte Mohawk School. The cultural content was very high in many of the workshops including : Teachings of the Seven Grandfathers, Community based Curriculum, Teaching strategies for native learners, Inspiring our youth to become winners, Motivating ourselves to motivate others, Promoting student leadership using the Clan System, Ojibway Creation claymation, Building your digital spirit bundle and Ojibway Design.

Keynote Address : Kathleen Manderville - One way to look at schools is to take a reading of their cultural profieciency. We need to see if the culture is embedded in all aspects of school life. One way to study this cultural proficiency is to use a scale. At the bottom of the scale is destructiveness, incapacity and blindness. These are schools that have not acknowledged their culture and in some cases are contributing to the destruction of their culture. The next stage of the scale sees pre-competence, competence and proficiency. Pre-competence schools have isolated events, cultural days etc. while competence schools have day to day culture and curriculum activities. At the top of the scale is a school that is culturally proficient. In this type of school every culture is honored. Students and staff embrace who they are so strongly that they can see the other cultures around them as sacred.

Graduating Class of 2022 : The graduating class of 2022 will not be vessels of static information. According to research, the students of the future must be trained in the following areas : critical thinking and problem solving,leadership, ability to work as a team, global citizens who think about world wide environmental issues, tecnologically literate, ethical decision making and skills in dealing with human rights. Our education system needs to provide choices for each child and the ability to customize and create their own path. Collaboration, fun, innovation will become the norms. According to Charles Darwin ; the most responsive to change survives...not the strongest or most intelligent. Does education make us responsive to change ? we need to unhinge our thinking and be responsive to school change. Cultural learning should be experiential, reflective, socially mitigated and multi-modal. We are all different so we as schools need to start where the student is and be responsive to the diverse learners.