First Nations Art

One of the classes that my art teacher struggles with the most is her First Nations Art 11/12 class. My sponsor teacher is not First Nations, but all of the students in the class are. There are at least 6 students with IEP's in the class, and luckily two EA's are usually in the class. Behaviour issues are definitely a problem in this class. The interesting thing is, however, that my sponsor teacher was the one who got the course BAA'd at both the high school and the junior high school when she was there! Of course, the students aren't aware of this fact.

As you can imagine, my sponsor teacher struggled with gaining credibility at the beginning of the term. She is a non-First Nations person teaching First Nations kids their own art form, so naturally the students start out being skeptical. There were a lot of attitude issues at the beginning of the year. Many of the students have artists in their family, or family members who are taking FN Art courses at the local college, so it is hard to believe that my sponsor teacher would know any more than they do about the art form.

For me, I am definitely worried about having to teach this course in the future, although I won't have to during my practicum since it is only offered in the first semester. I think my sponsor teacher has handled it as best she can, by saying "this is how I learned how to do this", rather than "this is how you do it". Also she has provided many books on FN Art and is trying really hard to get a First Nations Role Model to come in for some other projects such as carving.