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Editorial
No full textEditorial for in education, June 2019 special issue in collaboration with the University of Albert
Review of Canadian Curriculum Studies: A Métissage of Inspiration/Imagination/Interconnection
No full textA Review of Canadian Curriculum Studies: A Métissage of Inspiration/Imagination/Interconnectio
Place-Based Readings Toward Disrupting Colonized Literacies: A Métissage
No full textWorking from the premise that learning to live well in our places is quickly becoming a necessity of human survival, in this article we weave together divergent experiences of our shared place, the Wabanaki Confederacy or Eastern Canada, and literatures and literacies of that place. This article is methodologically framed using the concept of “métissage” as it has been taken up in Canadian curriculum studies as a form of intertextual life writing. Through our métissage, we are ultimately concerned with theorizing the idea of reading place—making sense of the ways in which settler colonialism has historically made, and continues to make, itself felt on Land. The idea of reading place, however, also demands that we actively engage in disrupting the normativity of settler colonial presence on Land—particularly as manifest through literature and literacy. Toward speaking back to the normativity of this settler colonial presence, the authors draw on divergent pedagogical and literary practices toward ensuring indigenous futurities. Keywords: settler colonialism; literacies of the land; literac
An Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry Into the Experiences of a Vietnamese Mother: Living Alongside Children in Transition to Canada
No full textSince my family came to Canada, family story nights have become our daily practice. Within such moments, I explore how I, as a mother, have been sustaining the Vietnamese language and traditions in my family and how, when transitioning to a new land, this has become the core of our familiar curriculum making (Huber, Murphy, & Clandinin, 2011). As I share Vietnamese stories with my children, they reply to me in English. Also, they only have a distant understanding of Vietnamese culture and the intergenerational traditions of our great family back home. Acknowledging these transitional processes allows me to nurture their love and understanding of Vietnamese language, culture and traditions. As I inquire into my own experiences as a mother, I trace my ancestral heritage in my homeland, where, in Thúy’s (2012) words, “a country is no longer a place but a lullaby.” Meaningfully, the following questions have shaped my research puzzles: (a) What are possible ways to build our familial curriculum in integration with our homeland language, culture, and traditions; and (b) How could I as a mother sustain these three essential areas in my children’s lives in Canada? I embrace autobiographical narrative inquiry as the methodology for my paper. Narrative inquiry draws attention to story as both the phenomenon under study and narrative as the methodology for the inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 1994). I will be living, telling, retelling, and reliving (Clandinin, 2013) my storied experiences and my children’s in our familial curriculum making through cooking, reading, and painting. By attending to my daughters’ experiences, I inquire into their transitions differently, that is to understand their own transitions narratively (Clandinin, Steeves & Caine, 2013). Significantly, this paper will bring understandings on Vietnamese newcomer mother’s and children’s familial curriculum making as a way to sustain the homeland’s language, culture, and traditions and to support the children in their transition to a new country as well as inform related realities, knowledges, and approaches in education.Keywords: experience; transition; curriculum making; language; culture; tradition
The Iglu and the Tent: Centring the Northern Voice in Mathematics Teaching
No full textThis work was inspired by conversations with a community of practice based at Nunavut Arctic College in Iqaluit, including Andrea Burry, Maryse Cohen, Goota Jaw, Kaviq Kaluraq, and Gloria Uluqsi. The author gratefully acknowledges their contributions, as well as theindispensable contribution of the land itself.We outline the broad epistemic tendencies of Inuit and Qallunaaq[i] teaching, in the context of a faculty member in the Mathematics department of a large, research-oriented Qallunaaq university. We argue that, against the recommendations of academic literature, historical support and personal experience, the South maintains a position of strong cultural assertiveness. Finally, we propose two shifts in position, aimed at protecting the North and learning from it, that centre the Inuit voice.[i] While Qallunaaq simply means “non-Inuit” (the noun is Qallunaat), the implied meaning here, as in common usage, is “settler Canadian” or “settler North American”
"The Event of Place": Teacher Candidates\u27 Experiences of a Northern Practicum
No full textTeacher education programs in Canada—by the nature of their geographic locations and composition of their faculty and students—remain largely urban centric in their values and programs. Yet, teacher education programs are responsible for preparing teachers for rural, remote, and northern teaching experiences. In this study, I explore the experiences of teacher candidates who participated in a northern practicum option developed at a Western Canadian teacher education program. The purpose of this research is to examine teacher candidates’ experiences of the northern practicum option in order to inform our northern practicum option, as well as to contribute to the development of other northern practicum offerings in Canadian teacher education programs. Drawing on place-conscious theorizing, I explore the ways in which the northern practicum experiences have the potential to disrupt settler-colonial narratives, to develop understandings of place-based curriculum and pedagogies, and to support democratic and ethical approaches to education. Keywords: Northern Canada; practicum; teacher education; qualitative research; place-consciousnes
Trauma-Sensitive Practice for New Teacher Standards: Addressing the Epidemic of Our Times
No full textIn response to provincial and national calls for whole school approaches, and in the hope to support new teacher competencies aimed at promoting mental health, this paper considers the changing dynamics within the current classroom through elements and implications of a participatory study conducted in an Alberta urban elementary school. Specifics from this research with young “girls,” who engaged in ritual, ceremony, arts-integrated, contemplative, and somatic practices, target the on-going conversation on mental health and best practices in schools. Images of and from their life-size body maps are imbedded into the discussion, promoting the inclusion of body-centred, emotional, and imaginal dynamics to be integrated throughout teaching and learning. The discussion calls for the conscious shift of teachers, counselors, and leaders into more integral and ecological paradigms that understand health through the multifold relations with others and the environment. This argument is supported by trauma literature that calls for affective embodied experience, greater inclusion of right hemispheric activities, relational ethics, and teacher professional learning. Keywords: trauma; mental health; whole school approaches; ritual; ceremony; contemplative, somatic, and arts-based methods; paradig
Sustainable Leadership Supporting Educational Transformation
No full textThe world, influenced by 21st century technologies and ecological challenges, has rapidly changed with more ability to “connect” locally and globally and more opportunities to learn from a range of sources. As a result, our learners and their needs have changed. With such rapid changes, conceptions of educational leadership need to reflect these changes utilizing the complexities of the role in society. As a group of educators who work in a School District, Ministry of Education and University teacher education programs, we ask how educational leaders in school districts and teacher education programs can design spaces that engage everyone, recognize everyone’s expertise and share responsibility for growth and development, and how in teacher education we can begin to move away from the hierarchical, industrialized model of management to one where everyone feels engaged, valued, and heard. In this paper, we draw on sustainable and distributed leadership ideas, termed by Wheatley (2010) as the “new sciences,” informed by tenets from complexity theory. Using a case study approach and narrative insights, this paper elucidates how an ongoing Professional Learning Network (PLN) called Link-to-Practice (L2P) offers an alternative conception of educational leadership. Keywords: case study; narrative, qualitative research, complexity theor
Language, Culture, and Pedagogy: A Response to a Call for Action
No full textThis paper describes a collaborative project between Tsuut’ina Education and St. Mary’s University, Faculty of Education. The project addresses the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) (2015) Calls to Action in reference to language and culture. Our work with the Gunaha instructors of Tsuut’ina Education was carried out with the intent that the collaboration would benefit not only Tsuut’ina Education students but also the Tsuut’ina community. For carrying out our work with Tsuut’ina Education, we identified the following four principles as relevant to our collaboration: The research (a) is relevant to community needs and priorities and increases positive outcomes; (b) provides opportunities for co-creation; (c) honors traditional knowledge and knowledge holders and engage existing knowledge and knowledge keepers; and (d) builds respectful relationships (Riddell, Salamanca, Pepler, Cardinal, & McIvor, 2017). Finally, we discuss three implications from our partnership: reciprocal relationships, shared expertise, and respect for worldviews. Our collaboration with Tsuut’ina Education offered us an opportunity to embrace an alternate way of knowing and to appreciate the responsibility that we have to listen and learn from others.Keywords: language and culture; collaboration; partnership; reciprocal relationships; shared expertise; respect for worldview
Exploring Teachers’ Experiences of Participating in Teacher Inquiry as Professional Learning
No full textTeacher inquiry is the intentional and methodical reflection on one’s praxis that leads to action, and the resulting adjustments to one’s teaching practice. While scholars identify the importance of supports to be in place to sustain engagement in teacher inquiry, the specifics of the supports have remained somewhat unidentified, and there is little documentation about what teachers experience as they engage in teacher inquiry as part of a school-wide professional learning initiative. This paper explores the experiences of three middle school teachers participating in a year-long, guided teacher inquiry as part of a school’s professional learning plans. It is approached from an ethnographic, emic perspective. The challenges and supports teachers experienced when engaging in the inquiry process, as well as what they felt allowed honest dialogue, emerged as important aspects informing the results of this study. Participants identified that feeling safe influenced their ability to engage in teacher inquiry, and their willingness to address challenges associated with conducting research. Keywords: teacher inquiry; teachers as researchers; school-based professional learnin