Research grant named after Eskasoni man
He loves his family, his boat and his wife’s meatloaf. But John Jerome Paul doesn’t “love” math, although he is the namesake of a new $300,000 math research grant at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish.
“When they first came and approached me about it, I was apprehensive. People said to me, ‘What the hell, John, you’re not math genius,’” he admitted, sitting at his desk in his office, located in the Veterans Building in Membertou.
“The other interesting thing, I told my friend the other day, is usually they save these awards and say these things about you when you are dead,” Paul said with a laugh.
Humour is important to Paul, whose career started as a teacher in Eskasoni. It is evident in his personality and he calls it an important tool.
“It loosens everything up. One of the things I find, especially dealing with university people, is that they are so intense, you know, they are like God walking on water,” Paul, who has sat on the provincial advisory Council on Mi’kmaq Education since the 1990s, said.
“It’s really hard to get them away from it and start thinking differently. At least if you can make them laugh they’ll loosen up and say this has possibilities.”
Paul, who is passionate about increasing math and science skills in Mi’kmaq students, has lots of experience working with universities. Over the past 20 years, he has worked at Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey, an organization that administers and establishes standards for Mi’kmaq education in Nova Scotia and helps provide funding to 12 of the 13 Mi’kmaq communities in the province.
As director of program services, Paul’s been an important part of developing Mi’kmaq courses and programs at Cape Breton University and St. FX. In
fact, he was a driving force behind the establishment of the new math grant in his name, something he said took roughly 20 years to accomplish.
It is this dedication to education that led to his name being the one associated with the research grant, called the John Jerome Paul Chair for Equity in Mathematics Education.
“We need teachers with the math background and science. That’s what we’ve been pushing for since I got here,” Paul said, explaining why he thinks this research grant is important.
This research chair, created through the Deveau Fund, has been awarded to St. FX professor Dr. Lisa Lunney Borden. Worth $300,000, it is distributed over a five-year period. Currently, there are not plans to renew it but that could change.
For Paul, the grant is only the first part of the initiative. The aim is to use the research to help improve teacher understanding of math so they can teach it better in the classroom.
“The most important part is beyond the research. It is to put that research in the hands of our teachers. In our MK (Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey) school system
and even in the public school system,” he explained.
Paul seems to be a born educator, passionate about taking every opportunity to educate about Mi’kmaq history, stories about elders and Mi’kmaq ancestral connection to math.
Over the years, he has spent time as a teacher, a principal and a benefits counsellor for war veterans.
The announcement was made Sept. 7 during a ceremony that saw the Mi’kmaq flag permanently installed on the St. FX campus.
“It took a while, a bit of convincing, for me to put my name on it,” he said, humbly, about the honour of having his name on the grant.
“I am proud.”