Teachers, Knowledge, Building Relationships: Invitation and Hospitality
A friendly classroom environment, in my opinion, would be receptive to students’ opinions and beliefs. Teachers can build hospitable and invitational space by acknowledging their student’s educational backgrounds and the fact that we all have different ways of learning. Understanding your students’ state, relating, and showing that you understand them, is essential as an educator. It can create an inviting space for the students. Also, as educators, we need to understand ourselves in order to teach or make a positive impact as our beliefs have an impact on our teachings and students’ beliefs.
With experience, I think my advisory teacher honored different ways of knowing and doing in the classroom by inviting students in my class to represent themselves, where they originate from, the places they have lived, and so forth. I think this created relationships and inviting space in the classroom as we all got to know about ourselves as students. To create an inviting environment, during Advisory time, students could have game playtimes where everyone could engage creating an inviting space as everyone felt involved and a place to belong.
I believe teachers should be acknowledged other races or new immigrant students familiarize themselves with them and treat them equally as others; accept and respect their voices and prevent any forms of stereotypes due to their performances, histories, religion, gender, and color. Creating a relatable and engaging topic in the classroom creates a sense of being valued, your ideas are heard. Teachers should know what to include and not in the classroom, We all have different beliefs and cultures. An example given in class is you don’t expect all students to believe in a tradition celebrated by the majority, in this context Christmas-based discussion or party, students have the right to engage in that activity or not; this can also lead to students to think they don’t belong in that space at that given time, they tend to feel unwelcomed.
As an educator, you should consider students’ beliefs to create an inviting space.
Students & Learning Environment: Focus on Places, Spaces, and boundaries
Places, Spaces, and boundaries surely have a great impact on both students and educators
Through my Primary school in Uganda, the classroom space resembles that of a factory model as described in the lectures. First, students stay in the same classroom for the year term, with four teachers, teaching four subjects, math, English, science, and social studies throughout the year. Students’ seats are arranged in sets of four to six per desk in rows with about fifty and up students in one classroom. The teachers always had a desk at the front where they could sit; it was basically her office. Students didn’t have enough space to move and engage with other students nor were they allowed.
The space indicated the reason we were in that exact place, which is to learn, we are “students” and the teachers are “Teachers”. The teacher showed power through dos and don’ts, [they] is an elder in charge and so must [they] be obeyed. The teacher could change the desks arrangements to create a new and appealing space for students. Sitting in one place for an hour or so was tiring though some teachers could make it rational by letting students go for a five-minute walk sometimes; they can take us outside to relate to the topic being taught with the environment and have a better understanding of the topic. Additionally, we could have Debates every Friday this helped us to move and interact with other students in our classroom and other classrooms. These debates could be held in a different space with students from another class and sometimes within the class. Debating helped us to improve our speeches, and knowledge about that particular topic being discussed but also we got to sit in a different setting and interact with new people. Teachers have the power of their possessed space, and classroom; they have the power of how they want their classroom to look like and how they teach in the space provided. Exploiting various ways of engaging students in the given environment is important for their success
Truth and Reconciliation
Through my three years in High school here in Canada, In my Grade 12 English, I got to learn about residential schools just for my English essay paper as I had never learned about it before. In my History 30, I learned about the history of Indigenous peoples in Canada, the migration to different parts of Canada, the settlement of Europeans, the treaties; how the settlers lied about the treaties for land, the legacy impacts in Indigenous communities through generations and how it has affected the current lives of Indigenous peoples.
Media, people in the community as a whole have different representations and stereotypes about certain groups of individuals. When I first moved to Canada, I rarely met with numerous Indigenous peoples in my school and other spaces. Before I thought they were Asian Canadians that lived in a foreign land just like me. Well, my assumptions were wrong as I had never learned about their existence and the fact that they were the People of this land, Canada. The media presents labels about indigenous peoples according to their behaviors and well beings in society and blame them for their current states but never acknowledge why they are in those situations and the fact that Canada’s history has a fault in their current states/
The TRC booklet is about the people and the government to acknowledge the Indigenous history of Canada, its impacts, and how they can unite, learn from the past for a better future. And also the government should accept the faults that were made, and teaches all the truth about residential schools. In the TRC booklet, one of the definitions given for truth is “to speak of things as they are, not falsely adjusted, or omitting things.” As I take this class, my INDG 100 this term, and during my journey into my profession, I hope to learn more and see a big change to the treatment and livelihoods of Indigenous peoples and how the government has kept to its promises about truth and reconciliation. I also hope to learn how I, as an individual can help in the healing of Indigenous peoples.