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345 Bridges Now, to think practically about their educational needs, the Eeyou/Eenou people need to reflect deeply about their present ways of dispensing an education to their young people. We have all heard success stories of how some young people have made it through the system, have achieved sometimes excellent standing in their secondary studies and, in some cases, undertaken and finished post-secondary studies, a very rare few at the ma and doctoral levels. However, we also have all heard very disquieting stories of how many pupils and older students, throughout the Eeyou territory, go through their formal schooling very painfully and often in acute despair. No conscious educator would disagree that we are seeing a great, tragic waste of human potential, most especially if we look at this situation of the youth through the eyes of the Elders. Let us ask ourselves why so many of these returning spirits decide to end their life and go back to the Land of Souls, and why so many others decide to go through their young life dulling their extreme pain by using alcohol, drugs and other substances. I personally believe we have to create, or rather recreate , a system of learning that accords with and respects the deep, wonderful belief in and love for the land that lies deep within the heart of every Eeyou, young and old. I am not the first to say that it is entirely unacceptable and shameful to see the grossly high numbers of Eenou youth not finishing a secondary level of formal education. To me and to many others, it is absolutely unfair, even inhumane , to coldly expect these youth to succeed in an educational system that has no or very little regard for the cultural, intellectual and spiritual heritage of the children of a people possessing such an old and rich civilization as the Eeyou and to feel satisfied that two or three percent of these young people end up making it through. Essentially, I am suggesting that in the quite momentous exercise of reflecting on and laying down the principles of their governance, the Eeyou people will be inspired to centre their thinking on the ancient, sacred belief in the unique worth of their civilization which, as I have intimated, is their most important possession.This is where every member of every community, especially the Elders, has to be invited to speak from his or her heart about the pain, the joy, the hope they have concerning their children and concerning the future of A Reflection on Eeyou/Eenou Education 346 their people, the Eenou people. But the focus of the collective reflection has to be the (re)creation of the Eeyou way of forming,training,preparing their youth for a life sustained by Eeyou values. The First Principle of Eeyou/Eenou Learning Wise people everywhere have said that a human being gets formed,as a person, in the first seven to eight years of life, especially in the first three.This is when an Eenou child should be most consistently exposed to nature. At that stage, the Eeyou Ayimuwun (language) should be imprinted in the child’s whole being, for true traditional learning is organically inscribed in the language.The use of Elders’ knowledge must be systematic and pervasive at this stage, both at school and in the home. During this whole period of life, including upon the child’s attaining conventional schooling age, an Eeyou child should be put in intense contact with the philosophy of his or her people, community, family. This can be effected by means of legends, stories, songs, dances, as well as by learning about family, community and national history. At this stage in their lives,children should also receive some knowledge about the non-Eeyou world, beginning with the world view and the life of other Aboriginal peoples. The goal of learning at this elementary stage is to give the children the critical capacity of perceiving and acknowledging the relationships that exist between and among all beings that make up the natural universe; in other words, children, upon attaining the second stage, have to be imbued with the reality of the Law of Universal Interdependence, the first and foremost natural law known to and observed by their Eenou ancestors from time immemorial. Also, very importantly, this stage in learning is the one during which families and communities can and do, through the observation of their new generations, begin to...

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