What did I really learn?
Well, this was definitely not the hardest question to answer because I have learned an incredible amount throughout the semester. I could type it out for you but instead Payton Kuster and I teamed up to be interviewed by the amazing Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey!!!
ENJOY!
Let me be the first one to point out that I learned a lot in ECS 210. I learned:
But the one thing I really learned the most was that apparently I am a racist bastard. I don’t know about anyone else, but I was highly, highly offended when I was called this in one of the lectures. Although I was offended, I learned something from Mike’s inspirational story as well as his comment to the class. I realized that I have the same mindset about aboriginal people much like Mike did when he first started teaching his all aboriginal class. My perceptions of myself became heighten after Mike shared his story, and I started to realize that he was right. I probably am a racist bastard. Actually I am to say the least. I was walking with my boyfriend from my house (which is North of Dewdney) to the Milky Way, which is by far not the greatest of neighbourhoods. It was close to half past seven, so it was getting dark outside. We had just hit the intersection of Arcola and Victoria when I started to feel very uncomfortable. I saw ahead, two first nation men waiting inside one of those bus stop cubicles. I said to Travis, “can you switch me sides,” and we subtly switched ways on the side walk. A perfect example of what a racist bastard looks like.
I am proud of myself for coming to the realization that behaving like that, will never change the perspective I have towards aboriginal people. I wasn’t in any danger, so why did I make Travis walk closer to them? But I am proud for realizing this on MY own, not because somebody told me I was. I believe that not a single one of my classmates deserved to be called racist or bastards. I can’t speak for anyone else but I can say that I do not know Mike personally and he does not know me, so how can one draw conclusions as big as he did. I found his story very inspirational and helpful. Maybe one day, I will be in the same position, and I will be able to look back and remember how helpful Mike’s story was. On the other hand, I strongly believe that people need to realize for themselves, that maybe they are racist and maybe they aren’t. It is not anyone else’s job to put a label on others. Isn’t that what we have been taught as future teachers?
Lastly, I believe the first step to reconciliation is realizing how one feels towards racism and colonization. It is MY responsibly to come forward and admit how I feel. I thank Mike for his inspirational and touching story, but I also thank him for allowing me to realize it is not appropriate to place assumption on others.
If I am being completely honest, the picture above is precisely what my reaction was when my teacher announced “we are learning about treaties today. “Reason #1 why my reaction was like this: because only one class was dedicated to learning EVERYTHING about treaties, trying to jam all the history into an hour and reason #2: my teacher’s reaction to teaching treaty education was similar to the picture above as well. I strongly believe how the classroom teacher feels towards treaty education is exactly how the class will react as well.
As a student learning and growing about treaty education, I have gained valuable insight through Claire’s presentation on how to interact and teach treaty Ed in an engaging and fun way. What kid wouldn’t want to make a video and chant songs and draw pictures? I hope that my future students will not have the same reaction that I did when I was in elementary school because I know I will try my best to teach treaty education in the most fun and engaging ways possible. If there is one thing I have learned it is that I have many many resources available to me, but it is my responsibility to go out and find them.
Why is it important to teach treaty education to a non-aboriginal classroom?
In my opinion, the obvious answer to this question is so students do not grow up believing certain misconceptions about the First Nation culture. While I was growing up, I did not have any aboriginal students in my class. I was given the opportunity to learn some what about treaty education (not much, but some). Unfortunately, it was not enough education to conquer my stereotypical thoughts and beliefs about First Nation individuals. Much like my classmates and colleagues, the most I have learned about aboriginal people have been in my university classes. Because of this new knowledge, I can now understand the importance of teaching treaty education.
Truthfully, I have never heard the saying “we are all treaty people” before Claire’s presentation. So the concept behind this saying is still very fuzzy for me however I do believe that Treaty history does not just include aboriginal people but it includes everyone currently living on treaties. This is OUR history and I do believe we are all treaty people.
The picture below is what I hope my students will feel during and after learning about treaty education!!!!
Throughout the article, decolonization and reinhabitation is demonstrated by connecting elders and youth through a canoe trip, learning about the land and coming together to learn more about each other and ones self. In my opinion, the youth in the were very influenced by the elders in creating a deeper understanding of the land and survival.
I remember in my elementary school the ‘typical’ field trip was making the long trek (1 hour) to the Regina Science Centre and finishing the day off with an Imax movie. However, there was one particular year we decide to take a trip to the buffalo pound. While at the buffalo pound I can remember we were invited to watch a one man powwow. I can vaguely remember this particular field trip only because it happened once. I do however remember how fascinating it was and how I was so intrigued with the aboriginal dancing and all the colours, beads and features that were flying around the room. As a future teacher, I hope to have the opportunity to branch out of the classroom and take my students to experience something similar to what I had.
I also firmly believe that bringing in elders has nothing but positive impacts on students. Even being a university student, bringing in Joseph and participating in games was so eye opening and informative for me. I loved learning from an elders perspective, I was amazed with how inspirational and wise Joseph was and how much I learned from one class. Because of my amazing experiences I have had on field trips and having an elder invited into the class, I will definitely use these resources in my future classes.
My previous experiences in school, with teachers, my peers, sports, and pretty much everything else has impacted how I will teach and who I want to become as a teacher. To be completely honest, I had an amazing upbringing. I come from a family that always supported me and always encouraged me to do my best in all my endeavours. However, as a future educator I need to be aware that this may not be the case for all my future students. I have to put my personal experiences a side for a minute and focus my attention on how I can teach and support all of my students.
On the other hand, because I was blessed with positive experiences growing up in school, I believe I can be influential and create a positive experience for future students. My goal as a teacher is to be influential to all my students. Furthermore, I believe curriculum has played a huge part in my development becoming a teacher. I can put on my teacher hat and perceive curriculum not just as a student anymore. I can feel myself growing into a future educator more and more each day. Which makes me extremely excited to keep growing and learning so I can be the teacher I have always aspired to be.
Given the complex relationships between formal curricula, political power, and the social order, what agency do classroom teachers have in enacting curriculum?
In my opinion, this is a very interesting question. On one hand, some people may say that teachers have all the control and on the other hand, some may believe that teachers have no control. To me, its a mixture of both. Obviously, teachers aren’t gathering together to form the curriculum but they do gather together to discuss it. As a future teacher, I have realized that no I don’t have the power to develop my own curriculum but I have the power and control over myself and how I want to teach the curriculum. To me, the most important aspect of being a teacher is that I get to share my creativity and imagination with my students and in turn they will share their creativity and imaginations with me.
Some educators may believe that teachers should have more say in developing the curriculum, and I don’t disagree. But as long as I know, teachers were never allowed to develop curriculum and I believe it will stay this way. Instead of feeling angry or upset that I can’t develop my own curriculum, I will take the curriculum and run with it. After all, its only a guide anyways!
After reading Kumashiro’s article on what it means to be a student I searched into google images “a good student” and this was one of the first pictures that popped out to me. These top ten ways to be a good student is exactly what people would think a good student should look like. This picture really rubs me the wrong way because thinking back to my schooling years, I definitely didn’t follow all these ways to be a good student. And I know in today’s classrooms, there are students that wouldn’t be considered a good student according to this picture and also according to common sense.
As a future educator, I realize that my students will all be different and learn in many different ways. I have also realized that I don’t expect my students to be the “good student.” One of the best things about becoming a teacher is that challenge of learning how to better each one of your students. A positive message I learned from this reading and this picture is that we as teachers have the power to accept and encourage all kinds of learners inside our classrooms.
“We as educators need to reconsider our roles in students’ lives, to think of ourselves as connectors first and content experts second.”
I love how Will Richardson words this quote. In my opinion, as a future educator and also a growing educator I believe developing strong relationships will all of our students in the class is crucial for being an unforgettable teacher. I strongly suggest that the best types of teachers are the ones where their students remember them for the rest of their lives. And to me, this arises through relationships, not what you teach them but how. I have such strong feelings about the importance of student-teacher relationships because I can still remember what teachers influenced my life in a positive way. I personally wanted to learn and achieved my goals best when my teacher was on my side, always being supportive but always letting me know when I could do better. When I think back to my best memories in school, I don’t think back and remember when I aced an assignment or got a ‘good job’ from my teacher. I think of the ways my teachers became my friend. I think of how my grade 1 teacher let us be the teacher to our class and all the hands on learning we did. Furthermore, I don’t believe I could agree more when Will Richardson says we as teachers need to primarily be connecters and then content experts after.
I believe that the Tyler rationale is definitely seen and used in schools today. One of the examples I can remember that applies to the Tyler rationale is in elementary school music class. Specifically I remember the purpose of the class was to be able to read the notes and sign or play an instrument to the tune of the music. Luckily for me, my parents forced me into piano lessons so I already knew how to read music. But for other students who have never seen a treble or bass clef in their life before really struggled at the objective of the class. The way we were assessed is that there would be a line of music that we could either sing, play the piano or play the guitar. This was simple for me only because I had done it before. In my opinion, this is an unfair way to assess because it was too advanced for beginner musicians. This is an example of one of the limitations created by the Tyler rationale. I agree there should be some sort of evaluation and assessment however, as future educators we need to make sure the evaluations we have our students do is fair for all students.
On the other hand, the Tyler rationale in my opinion is a great way to provide a well developed curriculum to the students. It requires a plan, an objective and a way to evaluate. I definitely believe that the Tyler rationale has pros and cons, which every curriculum based theory does. However, in my opinion I believe that the Tyler rationale works in schools and is still used today.
The first example Kumashiro refers to about what common sense is, is when his neighbours in the village of Nepal were informing him on the villages facets of life. Because Kumashiro did not know how to cook or how to mix in American food in the Nepali meals, the villagers assumed that he didn’t know anything about cooking. Now this is very ironic to me because I see this all the time in society. For example, there was a time I had to stop at 7-11 and fill up on gas. I was waiting in line when I noticed the fellow ahead of me was giving the cashier a hard time because he had a strong (what it sounded like to me) Jamaican accent and couldn’t understand what the cashier was asking. When really the cashier was only asking the man what number he fuelled up at. Anyways, my gas wasn’t quite finished yet so I initiated conversation with this same cashier. We got talking and he mentioned that he was waiting for his work visa to pass so he could start applying for engineering positions. He informed that his initial education was an engineering degree. The man earlier giving the cashier a hard time, relied on his common sense and assumed the cashier wasn’t smart only because he wasn’t able to understand him. So when I read Kumashiro’s experience in Nepal I thought of this because common sense is everywhere in the world. These two prime examples of common sense only really go to show the effects of what relying on common sense can do.
For future educators, awareness as to what exactly common sense is, is crucial inside schools. People rely on common sense to help them have a better understanding of how schools work. However, as Kumashiro noted “common sense often makes it easy to continue teaching and learning in ways that allow the oppressions already in play to continue to play out unchallenged in our schools and society.”(p. 36) Common sense doesn’t allow people to realize the oppression inside of schools which is why drawing awareness to common sense is so important. Paying attention to common sense could lead to positive changes inside classrooms.
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