Edutainment….
ECS 210 October 16th 2015
 Formal, mandated, hidden, intended, null, place,
as taught, as lived, as experienced…
 Everything that Happens.
 Curriculum as Product, as Process, as Praxis
 A Saskatchewan Story – Schools with racism at
their core.
 “Curriculum Politics”
 Politics, Policies, Curricula
 What is taught, when, to whom, by whom.
Curriculum as Place
 Curriculum is…
-
Curriculum as Place
Northrop Frye (1971) claims that for
Canadians the answer to the question
"Who are we?" cannot be separated from
the answer to the question "Where is
here?”(p. 220). The classic existential
question "Who am I?" -can be posed only
by people for whom "where" they are is not
an issue, the place itself apparently being
fully known and well defined.
Curriculum as Place
Curriculum as Place
 Questions to consider:
 Who does the teacher get to be here?
------------------------------------------------- How might this curriculum of place
produce teachers and learners?
 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.”
Curriculum as Place
 The language of Native Studies
10(Saskatchewan Education, 2000)
Curriculum as Place
 Questions to consider:
 Who does the teacher get to be in these
frameworks?
------------------------------------------------- What does the official curriculum make
possible or impossible in this place?
 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.
Curriculum as Place
 Students will be able to understand
the harmful effects of forced change.
 Who does the teacher get to be?
------------------------------------------------------ What does the official curriculum make
possible or impossible in this place?
Curriculum as
Place
 Questions to consider:
Curriculum as Place
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.
 Who does the teacher get to be?
------------------------------------------------------ What happens when we combine this teacher
and this curriculum in this place?
Curriculum as Place
 Questions to consider:
 Kumashiro - Discomforting Learning - What
might it look like to teach and learn in ways that
trouble this dominant knowledge?
 What could you hear, if I called myself instead…
 I am a committed anti-racist?
 Switching gears
 For seminar – use your blog to record and respond to
the following prompts:
The article suggests that a “critical pedagogy of place”
aims to:
(a) identify, recover, and create material spaces and
places that teach us how to live well in our total
environments (reinhabitation); and (b) identify and
change ways of thinking that injure and exploit other
people and places (decolonization) (p.74)
1. List some of the ways that you see reinhabitation
and decolonization happening throughout the
narrative.
2. How might you adapt these ideas to considering
place in your own subject areas and teaching?