Inside The Circle Inside
Aboriginal Project

About The Project:

The Aboriginal Education Project is a combined effort of the Alberta Correctional Education Association, Department of Justice and Department of Advanced Education. The objective of the Aboriginal Education Project is to help correctional educators better meet the needs of adult Aboriginal offenders. The Project is divided into manageable and complementary components.

The Aboriginal Education Project emerged over a period of several years during which correction educators within the Alberta Correctional Education Association (ACEA) and colleagues in governmental and other agencies became increasingly aware of issues and challenges in working with Aboriginal learners in the correctional environment.

The ACEA is a professional association of teachers, administrators, and support workers from associated professions providing education and related programming to those incarcerated within provincial and federal institutions in the province of Alberta. ACEA created a working committee made up of Kevin Wahl, Barry Wilson, Pat Keye, Garrie Fleet, and Lehi Heath, and chaired by Chuck Andrews. An advisory Steering Committee included Andy Stojak and Racheal Paiget from Alberta Advanced Education and Career Development, and Ruth Hofer from Alberta Justice.

With the support of Alberta Advanced Education and Alberta Justice Departments, resources were made available to the ACEA to develop a staff training package to enhance the effectiveness of correctional educators in working with Native offenders.

Four Native resource people --- Audrey Bastien-Weasel Traveller, Charlene Houle-White, Keith Chiefmoon, and Darrin Keewatin --- all of whom have backgrounds in education and/or corrections, were contracted to contribute to the development of the training package. Over the past two years the steering committee and Native resource team developed "Inside The Circle Inside", a training package consisting of an introductory video, print resource materials, and a folder for community resource material. The video was produced by Sharon Shirt and Geoff material was edited by C. J. Dorsey (designed by Rob Woodbury at Wooden Door Communications).

The intent of the project is to give professionals from the Native community the opportunity to share with all educators, and in particular, correctional educators, knowledge and understandings which will facilitate a more conducive learning environment for incarcerated Natives.

If you are using material as an individual, please watch the video; read the resource material; discuss with colleagues and Native resource persons (e.g. Native liaisons or Elders), and implement some of the strategies presented, drawing upon the material you have read and that listed in the bibliography.

If you are using these materials in a group setting we suggest that you follow a similar format, but also providing for round-table discussion and culminating in the development of a strategy for you specific staff and center's needs.

Please feel free to share this material with your colleagues. Additional copies may be obtained from the Alberta Correctional Education Association.

As president of the Alberta Correctional Education Association (ACEA), it gives me great pleasure to present this educational package developed for instructors of incarcerated Aboriginal peoples. In cooperation with Alberta Advanced Education and Career Development and Alberta Justice, the ACEA struck a committee to develop a training package for educators working with native inmates. The package has incorporated an introductory video accompanied by a handbook focusing on critical issues affecting the relationship between Aboriginal students and their environment. The project focuses on an awareness of specific issues that would enhance the teacher/student relationship in the classroom. This project is innovative in that Native persons from across Alberta developed the text of the package. The blessings of Native Elders further adds credibility to the messages. Special thanks for participation in the development of material must go to Keith Chiefmoon (elder), Audrey Bastien-Weasel Traveller, Charlene Houle-White, and Darrin Keewatin. The cooperation and contribution of the Native community in the development of this material is not only a first, but produced tremendous results. We greatly appreciate the contribution by these resource people toward helping Aboriginal people who may be incarcerated.

I wish to thank members of the committee for the long hours of the Aboriginal Education Project. Special thanks to committee chairman Chuck Andrews for his continued efforts to bring the project to completion.

The trust and financial support of Alberta Advanced Education and Career Development under the direction of Andy Stojak is greatly appreciated. Funds were contributed by the Federal Correction Services of Canada and the Alberta Correctional Education Association to assist in the production and printing costs of the package. This reflects the commitment of the corrections community both federally and provincially in recognizing the need to focus on Native issues in the prison classroom.

I hope that as you read this material you will view it as a beginning, not an end. This material has a wealth of knowledge to help instructors become more effective in teaching not just incarcerated Aboriginal people but all Aboriginal people.

I am proud to have participated in this joint effort of government, instructors, and the Aboriginal community for starting the healing process in the classroom setting.

Lehi John Heath
Past President,
Alberta Correctional Education Association

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