True Story 4.04
Non-Inuit teachers undermine their Inuit pupils’ learning
The setting for this story
At a school for indigenous Inuit children in Quebec, all pupils spoke fluent Inuktitut, as did their Native Inuit teachers. Other teachers spoke only English or French. A team of McGill University researchers visited the school to study the teachers’ tolerance for pupil-to-pupil classroom interactions. Martha, the team’s leader, discusses some of her team’s findings below.
A story of misaligned minds4
We found that the Native Inuit teachers accepted, or even encouraged, verbal and nonverbal pupil interactions during lessons. English- and French-speaking teachers rarely tolerated such behavior; they believed it was either off-topic or possibly critical of them. So we recorded and analyzed several lessons. Inuit pupils’ interactions were rarely off-topic and their comments never were critical their teacher. Often, they encouraged or prompted their fellow pupil. Consider this excerpt. The teacher is trying to get Richard to recognize that one feature of a person’s face is a “nose.” Classmates Mary and Johnny become involved:
Teacher: Richard, what is it?
Richard: (Sits unsmiling and looks at the teacher.)
Teacher: (Points to her own nose.) Try.
Mary: (to Richard, quietly) Attituinnaq [“Try to say it!”]
Teacher: SHHH! (Voiced sharply while holding finger to lips)
Teacher: It’s a …
Richard: (Hides his face in his arms.)
Johnny: (to Richard, quietly) Sappilisuur [“Don’t give up!]
Teacher: SHHH! (Voiced sharply while holding finger to lips)
Teacher: (to Richard in an annoyed voice) Come on, your team needs your help.
Teacher: What is this? Nnnn … (Rubs her nose)
Richard: Nose.
Teacher: Nose! Good, Richard.
Martha’s question
Is the intolerance of the English- and French-speaking teachers for pupil-to-pupil interactions undermining the Inuit children’s learning?
Critique of story 4.04
The pupils’ behavior expressed their home culture’s strong preference for collaboration. Inuit children are taught to avoid acting unilaterally or becoming the center of attention; instead, their society prioritizes collaboration and mutual support, characteristics of a communitarian mindset.
When Inuit pupils are working on written assignments, they often walk around to examine the work of peers. Occasionally, one will write on the paper of another. Inuit teachers regard such behavior as “helping each other learn.” Non-Inuit teachers regard such behavior as “cheating.”
The pupils’ behavior is a group effort to learn whatever is being taught. “Helping each other learn” is exactly what’s going on. This behavior expresses the Inuits’ communitarian values, in which the children are immersed from their first day of life. By the time they enter school, they have thoroughly adopted communitarian behaviors. It’s how they have learned how to learn. If these patterns of behavior are disallowed, their ability to learn could easily be undermined.
For thought
Learning collaboratively as a group is an effective way to learn. But it’s not the individualistic way of learning characteristic of Western schooling. That’s what the minds in this story are misaligned about.
Such misalignments occur in our schools because a high proportion of our nation’s immigrants and temporary sojourners (e.g., older students on visas) come from world regions where individualistic values are not prioritized and communitarian values have long predominated.
Related stories
Story 10.12 tells a similar story about Inuit pupils’ learning process being inhibited. Stories 4.01 and 10.19 discuss learners from other societies collaboratively helping each other learn.
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Endnotes:
4 Benjamin, G.R., 45.
Full citations are available at misalignedminds.info/References.