Focus Question 1: Teachers, Knowledge, Building Relationships: Invitation and Hospitality
Core Questions: Using your own educational experiences to date, how did you see teachers honouring different ways of knowing and doing in the classroom? In what ways did teachers build a sense of community in the classroom? In what ways can teachers build hospitable and invitational educational environments and relationships with all students?
Throughout my educational journey as a student I have come to learn that teachers that are more engaged with their students are the ones that are better with honouring different ways of knowing and doing. As for building a sense of community in the classroom I think that the same thing applies. When a teacher is involved with their students in the classroom as well creating personal relationships with students the classroom feels more inviting. I have found that the teachers who can create relationships with his or her students are the ones with the most hospitable environments. Simple things like getting to know certain details about a student’s life outside of the classroom. A good way to create student teacher relationships is to find personal connection with your students, while keeping it professional. When it comes to the educational side of things, being vocal in the classroom is huge. For example when a teacher offers to give help rather than just saying you can ask questions if you need help is a big thing. The more involved the teacher is with their students the more hospitable the classroom.
Teachers are one of the most powerful figures in a person’s life, and I believe everyone can agree that when you can create relationships with your teachers, it is something you will remember for the rest of your life. So when it comes to building a community within a classroom, or making your classroom more inviting and hospitable. Being involved with your students is the key, whether it’s creating personal relationships or connections with your students or just being more involved with your students in the classroom. When I say building relationships and connections with your students in the classroom I do not mean getting to know every little detail about your students’ lives. And being more involved in the classroom can just be as simple as creating an attendance question to begin the class. As a teacher the image you leave with your students is huge and you do not want to leave a bad one.
Focus Question 2: Students & Learning Environment: Focus on places, spaces, and boundaries
Core Questions: Using your own educational experiences, what did the learning environment look like? Describe and draw a sketch of what your classrooms looked like as you went through the grades. How did your classroom space indicate power relationships in your classrooms? Did the space in your classrooms provide you with opportunities to engage with all students in your classrooms? How did this space make you feel? What could teachers do to make classroom spaces more relational?
The first thing that comes to mind when I picture a classroom is the standard desks all in a row facing the front, whiteboard at the front of the classroom, with the teachers desk in the front corner as well, plus the forbidden seating plan in place. As I got into highschool I definitely saw some different iterations of the classroom but when I think of a classroom that is the one that I had the most. When it comes to power relationships in the classroom, I look at my very poor drawing of a classroom. I find that when a teacher’s desk is placed at the front of the classroom with the students facing him or her, the teacher with this model of the classroom is the one that holds the most power. When no matter your teaching a lesson at the front of the class or sitting at your desk while the students are working, whenever they look up, eyes will always be on you. When it comes to being a student in one of these classrooms, power relationships are not as evident. When you’re sitting quite spaced out in one of those desks with the chair attached to it, and a teacher has a seating plan in place, it’s almost like you’re glued to the floor and there isn’t much room for relationship within a classroom.
A standard classroom space like the one I drew, although a classroom space like this is great for focusing on learning as well as being productive in the classroom. It lacked the ability for students to engage with one another. When the desks are all in rows, evenly spaced apart and such, the classroom doesnt feel as hospitable and invitational. A classroom like this feels as if creating relationships in the classroom was forbidden and the class was strictly business. Walking into one of these classrooms all you think is sit down, open your books, and get to work. I think a teacher’s ability to make a classroom feel more hospitable as well as building a sense of community in the classroom, is what generates a classroom in becoming more relational. Whether that is using tables that sit multiple people instead of singular desks, or changing where the students sit every class. I think these are two very crucial things in creating a more relational environment within a classroom.
Focus Question 3: Truth & Reconciliation
Core Questions: Describe what you learned in your K-12 education about Indigenous history in Canada. What have you learned as an adult through media, family, friends and other learning experiences? As you read through the TRC booklet-Truth & Reconciliation: What is it about? What messages resonate with you? What do you need and want to learn more about? What would you do for a call to action?
Throughout my K-12 education, when it came to teaching about Indigenous history in Canada they barely scratched the surface. In the early years like grades K-8 I don’t remember learning pretty much anything about Indigenous history, the only things I do remember was that there was one field trip where we visited a buffalo jump but that’s really it. It wasn’t until highschool that I began to learn more about the things that my grandfather talked about. Like residential schools, the 60’s scoop, the missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. Throughout my whole life as an Indigenous person myself I like to think that I have experienced quite a lot when it comes to learning about my own culture and history, throughout my childhood my family would tell me stories about the dark past of Indigenous history in Canada, the crazy thing is, is that I use to wonder why we didn’t learn about it in elementary school. Up until the last few years where social media has taken over how we consume news and knowledge, it was my own family that educated me about Indigenous history.
The Truth and Reconciliation booklet is about the action of these young students from all around Canada towards Reconciliation. In the video we watched in class about decolonization, one of the people in the film says reconciliation is not about the books and learning about history but the action that we take towards reconciliation. I loved reading the “IF YOU MET A RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SURVIVOR, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO THEM?” The message in this short piece of writing really hits home with me because I have been able to actually meet people who have experienced going to a residential school whether it was them or one of their family members/friends. My favourite part about the writing is when it says “I would praise them for their BRAVERY”, the thing that a lot of people don’t understand is that it does take a lot of courage/bravery to be able to speak about a past as dark as Canada’s. The thing I want to learn most is what we can do better, I want to learn how to make things better, not to dwell on the past. Personally I would make sure that my voice is heard. Nowadays with social media it is not hard to get people to see what you are posting about or tweeting, and I think the key is making my voice heard.