First Nations in the Twenty-First Century: Contemporary Educational Frontiers

John Steckley teaches in the Human Studies Program at Humber College in
Toronto. He is the author of Beyond Their Years: Five Native Women’s
Stories.

John W. Friesen is a minister, educator, and prolific writer. In this
collaboration with fellow University of Calgary faculty member Virginia
Lyons Friesen, he explores the main subject areas of their other books:
religion, education, and Aboriginal people.

To achieve greater equality with mainstream Canadians, First Nations
people need to make bold advances in the following educational areas, or
frontiers: spirituality, eldership, language, self-identity, curriculum,
and quality of teacher education. The failures of education both about
and of Aboriginal people in Canada revolve around these areas.

The authors know their subject well, and their advocacy of improvements
in Aboriginal education is admirable. Unfortunately, their message is
undermined by the fact that their book is riddled with errors and would
have benefited from a stronger editorial hand. Further, much of the
material is dated; there are few new references and too many quotations
and citations are from the 1970s. Finally, as in many of their previous
works, the authors place far too much emphasis on the Prairie Native
experience.