Month: October 2021

In my future classroom, I intend to look at multiple perspectives through open discussion. As a social studies teacher I hope to look at the world around us and our country through the perspectives of many different view points and identities. Looking at historical viewpoints and discussing how they may be normative narratives or one-sided viewpoints. One example of this that has always stuck with me from a previous ECS class was how we’re taught that in Canada women got the right to vote in 1918, but that is a normative narrative or one-sided viewpoint because Indigenous women didn’t get the right to vote till the 60s. The truth behind our history must be examined fully from different perspectives. As mentioned in the reading, I would really like to promote discussions about our material through class and small group discussions where students can share their own thoughts and conclusions. I think this promotes student guided learning rather then the teacher giving notes and controlling what they should learn from a source. I really liked how on page nine the teacher used this thought process for students to think about the material: “Meriah asked the students to respond to the following questions: How did you feel while you were reading the poems? Were you able to relate to the experiences described? If so how? If not why not? The purpose of the questions was to get the students to think about their own identities and what they might have in common with others.” I think this would be a great way for students to start understanding how others experience the world around them differently. Race in material was never discussed in connection to the present or our own lives and experiences in my school. It’s an important thing to discuss to break through the normative narratives upheld in schools that don’t have a focus on multiculturalism, so they aren’t continually being upheld as adults outside of school as well. Change in education is the key to the change we need in our society.

When looking at this topic the thing that first comes to my mind is politics. There is a lot of debate around teachers expressing political views to students. While learning about politics in grade 10, I remember our teacher asking us which party we think we would vote for if we were old enough but refused to tell us which party he would vote for. I understand his decision not to tell us this as politics can be a very touchy subject, maybe not for us as students, but for our parents. People are very sensitive about their political views (especially in our conservative dominated province) so it could’ve caused a bunch of issues if parents believed our teacher was influencing our political opinions. I think teachers must be careful to teach students what is wrong and what’s right without bringing politics into it. Many issues like the oil pipelines, sex ed, etc may be touchy subjects for students parents and have to be approached carefully.