Page 44 - LearningSCAPES 2021

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Rick Joutras, Senior Designer, Q Design
Rick is a multidisciplinary designer with an eye for innovation. He has worked as a chef, an interior designer, a product designer, and a project manager. In fact, he does all of those things today. His skill set continues to expand with every new creative venture. Rick grew up just north of Chicago, IL (where he spent most of his days in a pool or sketching in a notebook) and graduated from the University of Michigan (where he spent more time in the pool and sketching in a notebook). He graduated with joint degrees in industrial design and organizational psychology. Following a brief flirtation with cooking, he was launched back into the world of design where he has loved every creative minute. Rick led the team who developed Artcobell’s NXT MOV Seating.
Friday, October 15, 2021 - 2:15 pm – 3:15 pm
Indigenous Schools – Past, Present, and Future
1 LU / HSW
Indigenous schools in Canada, the USA, Australia, and other colonized lands in the “New World” have charted a dramatic and frequently heartbreaking course that played a central role in the lives of indigenous peoples for two centuries. To the peoples variously styled by the now-dominant colonizing cultures as Indian, Native American/Canadian, Aboriginal, First Nation,
Metis, Inuit, Alaska Native, or other, these government-sponsored schools were for the most part designed to destroy indigenous cultures, languages, and ways of life in order to assimilate. The results of this imposed, inequitable, and highly unjust policy and practice are evident today: graduation rates the lowest of any demographic; incarceration, substance abuse, and fatal encounters with law enforcement the highest. Central to much of this and to much of the transformative healing now underway are schools. This session will examine three models.
The Canadian Residential Boarding School system and its legacy to Indigenous peoples across Canada, as a devastatingly harmful model for the harm caused to generations of learners and entire societies, with lessons that are only just beginning to be acknowledged by the dominant Canadian society.
A contemporary school in Oregon as a model for both educational adequacy and the role of boarding schools for students who must travel great distances to obtain education.
A new Indigenous school for the Frog Lake First Nation in northern Alberta as a future model for its culturally inclusive community-based design process, architecture, operation, and use. Historically, western-based direct-instruction models, foreign attitudes, and supporting architecture were imposed.
Recent reintroduction of traditional, culturally-relevant learning approaches and designs are helping indigenous communities restore their cultures and heal their people. Beyond the architecture, this session will also explore lessons how traditional Indigenous approaches and attitudes towards learning can inform dominant colonizing cultures and mainstream educational systems and approaches.
Learning Objectives:
• Develop awareness of the historical models of schools for Indigenous students.
• Develop awareness of the importance of cultural relevance in school design, in particular for underserved and marginalized
peoples.
• Develop awareness of the differences approaches to learning that are frequently found in Indigenous communities.
• Develop awareness of the lessons of Indigenous learning approaches that can be applied to learning and learning
environments everywhere.