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CSSE Intersection Scenarios Symposium Preview 10: Cultural Knowledge

Incorporating diverse learners’ cultural knowledge in the classroom

Culture is far deeper than the externally obvious components of celebrations and festivals, food, clothing and language. Culture is how we see, understand and interpret the world around us. Our background knowledge is based on our cultural worldview. Learners often bring knowledge to the classroom that is very different from that represented in the textbook.

For example, you are teaching a unit on modes of transportation in a metropolitan area of North America. Your class is made up of 40% immigrants and 60% locally born students of various ethnicities including mother tongue speakers of English. In preparing the unit on modes of transportation you want to build on the background knowledge of all the learners in the classroom rather than limiting the lesson to the textbook representation of bicycles, motorcycles, cars, buses, trucks, trains, boats, ships and airplanes. Your predominantly Asian learners are also aware of other modes of transportation such as jeepneys, bullock carts, calesas (horse drawn carts), rickshaws, kuligligs (rototiller–turned-tractor with trailer used for transporting people, animals and produce), tantalaks (homemade gravity propelled carts), bangkas (a boat larger than a canoe with outriggers) etc. as well as various animals used for transportation.

To learn more about this scenario, including the author’s own response, please attend the Intersections of Diverse Teachers and Diverse Learners at CSSE 2013, or stay tuned to the DiT website because we will be posting those details in the near future.

Until then, please leave a comment so that we can read your responses to this scenario. Here is a question to consider interacting with each other and the author (Diane Dekker, from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, at the University of Toronto) about:

  1. How could you activate the learners’ prior knowledge, build on background knowledge, and support identity development in this particular unit?

 

 

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CSSE Intersection Scenarios Symposium Preview 9: Communication Conundrum

Mom, I just can’t understand my teacher! 

As an “inclusive” teacher educator I have worked hard within my institution to diversity the teacher candidates admitted to our programs. In addition, I have advocated for new program supports to ensure that this more diverse group of future teachers could be successful. As a result, when each of my three children came home on different days, from different schools and grades announcing they could not understand a particular teacher, I tried to deconstruct the situation. I wanted to find out if their struggle to understand a “new” variety of French or English was really the issue or if it was something else more insidious connected to having a teacher from a cultural, religious,  or racial background different from their own.

In each case, I followed up with a face-to-face meeting with these teachers. I was saddened to discover that in one case, I also struggled to comprehend what the teacher was telling me about my child and the curriculum – and this, in spite of more than 30 years of experience as a language teacher working with students from many language backgrounds.

I felt torn in my role as parent and advocate for my children and my role as teacher educator and advocate for immigrant teachers trying to establish themselves in Canadian schools.

 

To learn more about this scenario, including the author’s own response, please attend the Intersections of Diverse Teachers and Diverse Learners at CSSE 2013, or stay tuned to the DiT website because we will be posting those details in the near future.

Until then, please leave a comment so that we can read your responses to this scenario. Here are some questions to consider interacting with each other and the author (Dr. Antoinette Gagne, from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, at the University of Toronto) about:

  1. How could I ensure my children’s success at school while not endangering the job of an internationally educated teacher?
  2. How could I work with my children to make them aware of the many forms that discrimination can take?
  3. How could I discuss these issues with my colleagues in elementary and secondary schools to ensure a safe and inclusive environment for diverse teachers and learners?

 

 

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CSSE Intersection Scenarios Symposium Preview 8: Religious Discrimination

Pray for my soul!

 

As part of a research study on the impact of participation in religious associations in secondary schools, I interviewed nearly 50 students from Toronto area secondary schools. When I asked the students if they had suffered from discrimination as a result of their involvement in a religious association, several students paused before responding as though to consider a topic they had not previously considered. Interestingly, several students involved in the Christian Alliance at their school had similar responses. They described what they referred to as “teasing” which typically occurred when they announced they were off to a meeting of the Christian Alliance. The comments included: “Enjoy your Bible study! Pray for our souls! Do a good deed! Help save my soul!”

As a researcher, I did not follow up with these students to further discuss the discrimination they had experienced as I did not feel it was my role to do so. In addition, I felt bound by the code of conduct set out for me as a researcher. However, I found it difficult not to follow up.

 

To learn more about this scenario, including the author’s own response, please attend the Intersections of Diverse Teachers and Diverse Learners at CSSE 2013, or stay tuned to the DiT website because we will be posting those details in the near future.

Until then, please leave a comment so that we can read your responses to this scenario. Here is something to consider interacting with each other and the author (Dr. Antoinette Gagne, from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, at the University of Toronto) about:

  1. I wondered how I might address these comments if I were the teacher advisor for the Christian Alliance.  Would I raise the issue among the members of the group or just ignore it?

 

 

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CSSE Intersection Scenarios Symposium Preview 7: Ontario Teacher Orientation

An Orientation to Diversity

“An orientation to Ontario is all well and good…but what does Ontario know of me?”

The words resonated in the meeting room in which 20 recently certified teachers from various countries were assembled. They had come to the information session to understand their Ontario teaching certificate but mostly to gather any leads on possible employment.

Each of the participants in the session, many of whom waited several months for their credential assessment by the College to be completed, was finally certified to continue their teaching career in Ontario and was facing the same daunting task of finding employment in Ontario.

They listened attentively and took copious notes as the College presenters explained what it meant to be an Ontario certified teacher, the various entries on a certificate of qualification, how to access additional qualification courses and the ways the public could be assured of the qualifications and competence of Ontario certified teachers.

As the presenter began to speak about the additional qualification course “An orientation to teaching in Ontario”, I could see some participants beginning to shift in their seats, slowly putting their pens and looking somewhat more quizzically at the presenter.

The presenter spoke about the value in understanding the Ontario context, classroom management techniques, expectations of teachers with respect to communication with parents. As an experienced teacher and school leader myself, I nodded as I affirmed each of the elements of the orientation program designed to help internationally educated teachers (IETs) integrate themselves into the Ontario context. I felt proud of the work that the College was doing to assist IETs in understanding the Ontario context and adapting their practice to our context.

As the presenter began to provide specific examples of differences between Ontario classrooms and the teaching context in other countries and as she began to describe the shift the participants would need to make in their practice, a quiet murmur began in the back row. The presenter continued and the murmur grew louder and it was clear that the participants were reacting, and not in a favourable way, to this part of the presentation.

To learn more about this scenario, including the author’s own response, please attend the Intersections of Diverse Teachers and Diverse Learners at CSSE 2013, or stay tuned to the DiT website because we will be posting those details in the near future.

Until then, please leave a comment so that we can read your responses to this scenario. Here are some questions to consider interacting with each other and the author (Dr. Michael Salvatori, from the Ontario College of Teachers) about:

  1. From your perspective, what might have caused this shift in the reaction among the participants to the presentation?
  2. How do you feel about this reaction and to what extent do you feel it is reasonable or to be expected?

 

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CSSE Intersection Scenarios Symposium Preview 6: Poverty and Schooling

Leading and Teaching Against Storied Assumptions

Poverty is not just a statistic, and statistics do not get to the poverty phenomenon in ways that illustrate how it plays out in school milieus. Take this storied snippet as an example:

Peters Street School has been in existence from the historical time of the Irish Famine of the 1840’s. Famine ships from Ireland brought immigrants in the thousands and, in under one year, the city of Toronto during that time rose from a population of 20,000 to 60, 000. The culture and tradition was to care for the sick and dying, especially the children. Fast forward to present day and Peter Street School is described by Principal Bradley as a school that has continuity from its historical past: a neighbourhood that has been quite Irish until the mid 20th century still gives back. Principal Bradley explains, “When you think about it, for a lot of kids, they fit into what’s happened before. They came to escape poverty, they don’t speak English, their parents came here to give them a new life, and so it’s like the tradition continues, except now we have kids from all over the world. So the Irish organization raised money and bought tin whistles for all our students at Peters Street School. I remember I was riding my bike through the park and one day I heard a tin whistle. It was Shelley up in her balcony! She was playing the polka and I thought, ‘Okay, this is a good program because these kids feel good about themselves.’ So it’s influencing the whole neighbourhood. There’s music in the neighbourhood – it’s alive with music. The metaphor is a lovely one.”

Principal Bradley leads with a philosophy that builds on the strength of tradition and on success in the historical context. The tradition of care and collaboration exists at a high poverty school such as Peter Street. In contrast, there are many schools whose climate and attitude about children and families living in poverty is to focus  only on what is missing in these diverse contexts. For example, consider these statements that have been shared by educators in high poverty schools:

  • Those kinds of kids will never learn how to read anyway, what’s the use?”
  • “We’re parenting parents, and they’re losers. That’s why their kids are losers too.”

Principal Bradley and the teachers at Peter Street School respond to such comments by teaching and leading against storied assumptions.

 

To learn more about this scenario, including the author’s own response, please attend the Intersections of Diverse Teachers and Diverse Learners at CSSE 2013, or stay tuned to the DiT website because we will be posting those details in the near future.

Until then, please leave a comment so that we can read your responses to this scenario. Here are some questions to consider interacting with each other and the author (Dr. Darlene Ciuffetelli Parker, from Brock University) about:

  1. How would you respond to this scenario?
  2. How do you lead against storied assumptions of children and families affected by poverty?
  3. As an educator, how might you respond to educators in your place of work that say:
  • “Those kinds of kids will never learn how to read anyway, what’s the use?”
  • “We’re parenting parents, and they’re losers. That’s why their kids are losers too.”
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