|
|
Session I
(571-5)
|
Session
II
|
|
3:15 - 3:45
|
Jaskiran Dhillon
(571-5)
Forcasting
empowerment and social change
|
Amanda Benjamin
(553-6)
Narrative
as discourse
|
Forcasting
empowerment and social change
Jaskiran Dhillon (571-5)
Forecasting Empowerment and
Social Change: An Analysis of Anti-Racism Policy
and Practice in Education
E-Mail:
dhillon@yorku.ca
Having recognized schooling
as a form of cultural politics, whereby human
experiences are produced, legitimated, and
contested within the dynamics of classroom life,
current pedagogical efforts, according to many
critics, must be reevaluated and transformed in
light of the educational system's failure to speak
to the heterogeneous and variable nature of human
existence.An interesting entry point into
contemporary deliberations around educational
reform, and derivative political/social change, is
anti-racism education.
Anti-racism education is one
of the most pervasive, "in vogue," discourses
associated with transformative education.Stemming
from educational theories of critical pedagogy,
anti-racism education strives to rise to the
occasion of diversity and difference by calling for
a fundamental restructuring of power relations
within schools and wider society. As Dei argues,
"current calls for 'alternative pedagogies,'
'inclusive curriculum,' and 'representative
environments' must be understood as challenges to
the hegemonic Euro-centered norms, values and ideas
that characterize Canadian schools" (Dei, 1996:
22). According to educators and policy makers
committed to an anti-racism agenda for/in schools,
schooling must become a site of resistance and
empowerment for the oppressed and marginalized, a
place where social identity, perceptions of the
self, and potential life chances may be negotiated,
resisted, and validated.
My presentation will
primarily focus on an examination of the
theoretical and strategic challenges/contradictions
facing anti-racism education.Possible topics of
address include the impact of multiculturalism,
teacher culture, school organization and
administration, student resistance, lack of teacher
education, and the anti-oppression movement on the
implementation of anti-racism education in
elementary and secondary schools.I expect my
presentation to consist of a traditional discussion
of my research paper followed by a short
question/answer session.
The topic of anti-racism
education is directly related to the Symposium
theme in the sense that it is a response to a new
millennium characterized by a rising immigrant
student population/culture, accompanied by varying
student needs and experiences, and an abundance of
racism embedded within institutions of education.
My research posits itself as a point of departure
in attempting to understand how anti-racism
education can move beyondcriticism and challenge to
become an applied reality in our educational
system.The relevance of this type of work becomes
obvious when we consider the importance of
community, parental, student, and teacher
involvement in producing a more socially aware,
equal, and just society for all.Thus, anti-racism
educationreflects the need to move the very purpose
and definition of education 'beyond the classroom'
into the everyday lives of those who comprise and
sustain society in the first place.
References
Dei, George.Anti-Racism
Education: Theory and Practice.Halifax: Fernwood
Publishing, 1996.
Narrative
as discourse
Amanda Benjamin (553-6)
Narrative as discourse: using
African narrativesas a literacy tool in western
classrooms
Literacy has been thought to
be the end result of our education system.The
latest critical literature suggests that there is
not a 'literacy crisis', but a need for change in
process.Now educators are looking at why some
children have difficulty with basic literacy
skills, and are searching for more effective
teaching methods.For young children, learning comes
form stories.Stories, or narrative, help teach
children basic literacy skills, and these skills
can be used as a framework for later learning.In
this paper, we suggest that narrative can be
translated into a literacy tool because it enables
students to learn in their own contexts by bringing
informal ways of learning (i.e. home literacy's
way) into structured school settings.The
importanceof narrative is that it is a sense making
tool that children can use in a classroom.South
African home literacy is an example for how
traditional oral stories teach through
narrative.This traditional approach needs to be
examined as an alternative method for teaching and
leaning in Canadian classrooms.Narrative is an
innate part if traditional oral stories, and
literacy skill are an important component of
learning.
This paper discusses two
important questions: What is narrative? How is
narrativeused in South Africa? Moreover, we discuss
how narrative can be translated into a teaching
tool in Canadian classrooms, by using the example
of how narrative is used in the teaching of
mathematics.Lastly, based on the assumption that
children construct knowledge through meaningful
experience we stress the importance of making
learning contextual.We challenge teachers to
rethink their assumptions about how children come
to learn language and other subject matter
(literacies) and suggest that they look at
traditional African home literacy as basis for a
new discourse in the Canadian educational
system.
This paper illustrates,
directly and indirectly, the importance of
reciprocity in communication strategies in the
field of literacy for an effective participatory
development process and for consolidating the gains
achieved and the lessons learning from
International Development over the past
decade.
|
