Edutainment….
ECS 210 October 8th, 2013
Commonsense
Partial Knowledge
Troubling Knowledge
Producing Teachers
----------------------------------------
Producing Teachers
Which of the three images
in the chapter best describe
the programme you are in
and why?
Teacher as Researcher
Teacher as Professional
Producing Teachers
Teacher as Learned
Practitioner
Pairs or Triads – What
does Kumashiro say are
the limitations of this
approach? What other
limitations can you think
of?
Producing Teachers
 Learned Practitioner
Producing Teachers
 Questions to consider:
 Who does the teacher get to be here?
 How does the curriculum produce
teachers?
 a focus on “supporting Aboriginal identity”;
 developing, “knowledge, positive attitudes and
cultural understanding”;
 an emphasis on “positive images of First
Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples”;
 a focus on “identity development” of
Aboriginal youth; and a call to teach Aboriginal
students in a manner “compatible with
[students’] backgrounds and learning styles.”
Producing Teachers
 The language of Native Studies
10(Saskatchewan Education, 2000)
Producing Teachers
 Questions to consider:
 Who does the teacher get to be in these
frameworks?
 How does the curriculum produce
teachers?
 Students will be able to explain the
factors that made economic transition
difficult.
 Students will be able to synthesize the
impact of residential schools on family
life.
Producing Teachers
 Students will be able to understand
the harmful effects of forced change.
Producing Teachers
 Questions to consider:
 Who does the teacher get to be?
 How does the curriculum produce
teachers?
Producing Teachers
First day Story
It was the first day of my new job as a high school English teacher in Punnichy Saskatchewan.
My experience with Aboriginal peoples was limited. My desire to be in this place was not
however, and as a way to actualize this desire, I had a plan. On my first day of school, I was going
to drive through George Gordon First Nation. This was the first time I had ever been to a reserve
and I thought it appropriate to start my time in this place with a show of solidarity.
The trip through the reserve would add about 10 minutes to my trip. There was a lot of gravel
road driving. My senses were very alert, I mean this was my first time on a reserve, and I was
coming to teach students that lived here… I needed to be awake and aware, learning from what I
was seeing; starting to make some sense of the context I was going to be teaching in.
As I entered Gordon’s from the South, I started to catalogue what I saw – houses, distances
between, stuff in the driveway, the conditions of cars, the upkeep of places, some ‘very nice’,
gables and horses and satellite dishes and some not so nice – boarded windows, unkempt lawns,
big, old rusted cars on blocks. Cars and trucks would pass me on the road, and almost every
person waved a friendly greeting. Cowboy hats on heads, dream-catchers hanging from
rearview mirrors, each one waving with one hand lifted slightly off of the steering wheel. She
looks friendly, he looks nice, a little big, maybe he has diabetes, wow was she old and wrinkled, nice
truck….
I was driving past the gas station / grocery store and saw a large truck and a really large Native
man filling gas. I hope I don’t get stuck right here, that guy might try and steal my car.
Pardon? Did I think that? Where the hell did that come from? There is no rational reason to think
that. But I did. But I’m not racist. But why would I think something like that? As I continue driving
down the road towards school, I argue with myself about my thoughts.
Producing Teachers
 Questions to consider:
 Who does the teacher get to be in
this story?
 How does the lived curriculum
produce teachers?
 In what ways are you partial, that is
invested in a particular image of ‘being’ a
teacher?
Producing Teachers
 Take a look at what you noticed/wrote
about this teacher education program.
Given what we’ve said about some of these
complexities, what else can you say about
either what the program does do, or should
do to prepare you?