Upcoming Conferences

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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CSSE Intersection Scenarios Symposium Preview 5: Trusting Students

A Question about Trust

Nadia is an occasional teacher in GTA mostly teaching primary level; whenever she goes to school ‘A’ she receives a warm welcome from students.

In class,  Nadia tries to follow guidelines provided by the teacher to the best of her abilities. She thinks and sometimes is told by teacher-assistants present in some of her classes that she is doing great job as good as a regular teacher in that class making use of every teachable moment. However, Nadia is concerned, sometimes,  if she is taking too much risk when she allows a certain student in her class to use equipment such as a computer while the rest of the class warns her against doing that, telling her that the student doesn’t have the privilege to use it. At other times she allows the student to be part of groups and she is told by other students that this student is only allowed to sit with the teacher.

After hearing such comments Nadia casually mentions to the class that she has not received any such instructions from their teacher and is sure that the student would not let her down by doing something irresponsible. She says no untoward incident has happened so far in any of her classes. Nadia adds that she has never experienced any discipline issue that she can’t handle during the past year and half since she started supply teaching.

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 (Syeda Rufeeda Bukhari, from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, at the University of Toronto) about:

  1. Is Nadia doing the right thing by including all students in all activities, teaching them to behave responsibly because she trusts them?  She fears sometimes if this may result in an unexpected outcome at other times she feels confident of her abilities to handle situations thinking if it was necessary the teacher would have left instructions in the best interest of the given student.

 

 

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CSSE Intersection Scenarios Symposium Preview 4: Educator’s Dillema

Sexuality [?] and Anti-Homophobia Education in the Early Elementary School

Sam and I have been friends for over 20 years. I am also her MEd advisor, and in her project proposal, she shared the following story from her classroom of six to nine year olds:

One day last fall while the children in my room were cleaning up after a writing workshop, I noticed a child walking around the room with a picture she’d drawn.  She was being very secretive as she showed it to several individual children, and obviously didn’t want me to see what she was doing.  The verbal reactions she was getting went something like this: “ewww!” “gross!”  “yuck!” and “don’t”—as the viewers pushed the picture away.  I was intrigued of course.  When I asked the child to bring me the picture, she looked sheepish as she reluctantly handed it to me. I opened the folded page to find a picture of two female characters kissing, with a heart drawn above where their lips met.

The body language and emotional responses of this child and of those to whom she had shown her picture were very telling.  They confirmed for me that: “sexuality is already present in the lives” of the children in my class and that it is “outdated” to suppose that they are sexually unaware (Hanlon, 2009, p. 35); “children are constantly exposed to sexuality in public and private spaces (through media, family, friends, etc.)” (Hanlon, p. 35); many elementary age children today, like those in my classroom, are also “aware of homosexuality,” but are unfortunately left to “generate their own ideas” about what it means to be gay or lesbian (Hanlon, p. 35).  Understandably, these ideas are most frequently misconceptions.  Left unchecked these misconceptions can lead to denigrating comments in the early grades and to potentially abusive and dangerous situations in middle and high school.  Indeed the price in terms of students’ safety and well-being as a consequence of homophobic and gender-based bullying has been well documented in a recent Egale (LGBTQ human rights organization) national survey conducted by local researchers (Taylor, C. & Peter, T., with McMinn, T.L., Schachter, K., Beldom, S., Ferry, A., Gross, Z., & Paquin, S., 2011).  (Sam, personal communication, March 2013)

As a teacher educator I completely embrace Sam’s anti-oppressive educational commitments.  I too am always trying to learn more about and to teach from a pro-diversity, equity, social justice, and human rights stance.  But, as a professor in early years education, Sam’s use of the word “sexual” in relation to six to nine year olds’ lives set off my “spidey sense”.

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. Wayne Serebrin, from the University of Manitoba) about:

  1. Are my views “outdated”?
  2. Was I worried Sam would be placing the weight of “adult”—or at least older children’s and adolescents’ concerns—on the shoulders of young children, who in my view should be living their childhoods as fully as possible without adult constraints (Dunne, 2011)?
  3. Wouldn’t they, as young children, be just as “repulsed” by a drawing of a female and a male character kissing?  
  4. Or was I really more worried about Sam? Did I fear for her that the highly “school-involved” parents in her community would revolt against her intentions to take risky pedagogical steps that would go further than a critical exploration of gender roles, discourse, and diverse family compositions?  In the context of her early years classroom, what did Sam actually mean by children’s sexual conceptions and misconceptions?
  5. How would you respond to this scenario?

 

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