Marie battiste biography

  • Marie battiste university of saskatchewan
  • James youngblood henderson

    • Dr. Marie Battiste is a Mi'kmaw educator from Potlotek (pronounced Boht-loh-deck) First Nations, Nova Scotia and full professor in the Department of Educational Foundations at the University of Saskatchewan. Born to Mi’kmaq parents, John and Annie Battiste, both of Potlotek First Nations, she was raised in Houlton, Maine where her parents chose to remain after potato picking harvest. Her parents worked in various labourer work, while they raised three daughters, Eleanor, Geraldine (Gerry), Marie and one son, Thomas, providing them with the core values in education. Marie graduated from Houlton High School in 1967, and following in the tradition of her brother who entered Ricker College, she attended University of Maine at Presque Isle and later transferred to University of Maine at Farmington, where she received a teacher certificate in 1971.

    Her first job after graduation was working with the Maine Indian Education Council in Machias, Maine, introducing and developing a federal funded early childhood program called Head Start in three reservation communities and in an off-reservation population of Micmac in Aroostook County. Later she joined the University of Maine at Farmington in the Program of Basic Studies, a federally funded program to assist Vietnam veterans and underprepared disadvantaged students develop their basic skills in order to enter into university. These years provided a grounding in her working with social justice and culturally responsive language education for students—both children and adults—to improve education outcomes among them. She was recruited in 1973 to attend Harvard University (Ed.M.’74) where she graduated with a master’s degree and then moved to California where she worked for the American Institutes for Research, conducting federal research in bilingual and bicultural education policy. She then worked for University of California at Berkeley in the Native American Studies Program and subsequently applied for and attended Stanf

    In 2021, Dr. Marie Battiste joined Cape Breton University as Special Advisor to the Vice President Academic and to Unama’ki College on decolonizing the academy. She is a Mi’kmaw educator of the Potlotek First Nation in Cape Breton, Professor Emerita at the University of Saskatchewan, a 2019 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellow, and an Honorary Officer of the Order of Canada. Her interests in "decolonizing education, protecting Indigenous knowledge, cognitive justice through balancing diverse knowledge systems and languages" have led to graduate degrees from Harvard and Stanford Universities, as well as four honorary degrees from the University of Ottawa, University of Maine, St. Mary’s University and Thompson Rivers University in B.C.  She partnered with UBC historian Jean Barman to co-edit First Nations Education in Canada: The Circle Unfolds(1994) and later edited Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision(1999) and co-wrote Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage: A Global Challenge(2000) with her husband James Youngblood Henderson, a Harvard-educated law professor who was born to the Bear Clan of the Chickasaw Nation and Cheyenne Tribe in Oklahoma in 1944.



    Dr. Marie Battiste received an Hononary Doctorate from Thompson Rivers University in 2013.

    Professional degrees

    B.S., Elementary and Junior High Education, University of Maine at Farmington, 1971; Ed.M., Administration and Social Policy, Harvard University, 1974; Ed.D., Curriculum and Teacher Education, Stanford University, 1984; Doctoral Dissertation: An Historical Investigation of the Social and Cultural Consequences of Micmac Literacy. Stanford University, Stanford, CA; Professional Teaching License Level TC8, Nova Scotia Department of Education, 1991; D.H.L. (H.C.), Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, University of Maine, Farmington, Maine, 1997; LL.D., Honorary Doctorate, St. Mary's University, 1987

    AWARDS:

    First Nations Publishing Award, Saskatchewan Book Award, 2000 (with J. Youngb

    Marie Battiste

    North American author and educator

    Marie Ann BattisteOC (born 1949) is an author and educator working as a professor in Canada at the University of Saskatchewan in the Department of Educational Foundations.

    Early life and education

    Battiste was born and raised in Houlton, Maine, the daughter of Mi'kmaq parents John and Annie Battiste from the Potlotek First Nation in Nova Scotia. She attended Houlton High School, graduating in 1967. From there she went on to the University of Maine graduating from the Farmington campus in 1971 with her teaching certificate and a bachelor of science in both elementary and junior high education. She went on to attend Harvard University graduating in 1974 with a master of education in administration and social policy as well as Stanford University, where in 1984 she graduated with a doctor of education in curriculum and teacher education.

    Work

    After graduating from the University of Maine in 1971 Battiste went on to work at the Maine Indian Education Council where she introduced and developed an early childhood education program, Head Start, on three reservations and in multiple off reservation communities. Battiste spent twenty-five years in Cape Breton where she worked alongside James (Sakej) Youngblood Henderson with young Mi'kmaq students helping them become teacher and lawyers, as well as fighting for their admittance into universities. The work Battiste and Henderson did together grew the number of Mi'kmaq teachers from a few to sixty, and the addition of ten lawyers where there had previously been none. Battiste has worked in the field of Indian education for over thirty years with her most well known work being the revitalization of Mi'kmaq language in her home community in Chapel Island, Nova Scotia. She credits her doctoral dissertation as one of the many starting po

  • Jaime battiste

    • Marie Ann Battiste

    Education (2008)

    Dr. Marie Ann Battiste has lived her life striving for integrity and dignity.

    She is known as a change agent, a public intellectual and a “guru” of education. As a world-class scholar she reached the summit of education, studying and teaching in some of the world’s top universities. She writes influential books and essays and has been inspiring the renaissance of Indigenous education for the past 30 years.

    Dr. Battiste, along with a few others, set the foundation for Native studies in North America. By developing courses that inspire and respect Aboriginal knowledge, teachings, languages and heritages, her vision of education reform set the standard for scholarship in many universities and institutions across North America.

    Born to Mi’kmaw parents who did not finish primary school, this “guru” of Aboriginal university education and research says it all started with her parents words of encouragement.  “They made me feel good and I liked that. They nourished my learning spirit.” More importantly, her parents passed on Mi’kmaw language and teachings to begin her learning journey. This journey was inspired also by what was going on around her at the time. “Racism, inequality, systemic discrimination, learning from Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement how to make changes — all of these have been inspiring, motivating triggers in my life.”

    Her achievements and commitments to Aboriginal knowledge, learning, anti-racism, and decolonization of conventional education systems have created significant pathways and innovations.  But through all of her intellectual discourses and writings, it is the Mi’kmaw teachings that guided both her parents in their artistry in basket making and her own learning and achievements — “Do the best you can and take pride in all you do.”

      Marie battiste biography
  • Dr. Marie Battiste is a