Photo credit : University of Regina Photography
Dean ’ s Message
In April , Dr . Jennifer Tupper was appointed Dean of Education by President Timmons based on strong support from faculty , staff , and students in the Faculty of Education .
One of the aspects I most value about the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina is the ongoing commitment to social justice through varying and often challenging pedagogical and theoretical processes and practices . Throughout this issue of Education News , you will read the insights of teacher education students as they learn about and through the difficult history of residential schools , often alongside Aboriginal educators , knowledge keepers , and elders . You will read about the important work of teachers in the field who are challenging traditional ways of thinking about curriculum and pedagogy . And you will read about members of this Faculty committed to inspiring and transforming education .
Aboriginal scholar and teacher educator Susan Dion ( 2009 ) calls us to learn from the stories of Aboriginal peoples so that more equitable relationships may be fostered . The voices of the students included in the pages that follow speak to how deeply meaningful their learning has been , and the impact it will undoubtedly have on their own classrooms when they are teachers . The Witness Blanket exhibit , the Moving Forward , Never Forgetting exhibit , and Joseph Naytowhow ’ s two-week residency in our Faculty created opportunities and invitations for supported learning in the midst of difficult histories .
SUNTEP students recently presented to their colleagues at the 2015 WestCast conference in Saskatoon , encouraging deeper thinking about what it means to indigenize a curriculum . The work of these students extends indigenization beyond superficial and often stereotypical approaches that tend to do more harm than good because they fail to account for the complexity of “ teaching and learning from [ our ] shared histories ” ( Dion , 2009 , p . 5 ). 1
Participants in Heather Findlay ’ s research , profiled in this issue , remind us of the importance of interrogating our own teaching practices if we ever hope to change the material and psychic conditions of schooling for Aboriginal learners . These voices also speak to the critical role of teachers in a more socially just education . Indigenous scholar Eve Tuck ( 2015 ) 2 describes the ongoing erasure and assimilation of Indigenous peoples in educational spaces and expresses concern that schools remain ongoing sights of suffering for Aboriginal students . While I share her concerns , the narratives herein
1
Dion , S . ( 2009 ). Braiding histories : Learning from Aboriginal people ' s experiences and perspectives . Toronto , ON : UBC Press . 2 Tuck , E . ( 2015 , April ). The meaning and matter of
materialist ( anti ) racisms in education research . Paper presentation at the American Educational Research Association ( AERA ) 2015 Annual Meeting , Chicago Illinois . suggest that a different and more equitable future might be possible .
My own journey to becoming a teacher was vastly different some twenty years ago . For the most part , what was absent in my education classes were conversations about other ways of knowing , being , and doing , and invitations to interrogate dominant narratives that I so willingly subscribed to as a hopeful teacher-in-the-making . While I could produce well-crafted and sometimes creative lesson plans , I rarely thought critically about the curriculum I was being asked to deliver . I ’ m pretty sure that I never once considered how I stood within my own fictions of what it meant to be a teacher , learner , citizen of Canada , and so forth , nor how I reproduced dominant knowledge systems in and through my teaching .
I often wonder what sort of educator I might have been in the early days of my career if my university classes had challenged my knowledge about the past , understanding of the present , and aspirations for the future . How would I have taught differently if I had learned about the history and ongoing legacies of residential schools in Canada ? If I would have had the opportunity to learn from and through Aboriginal perspectives ? As Dean of this Faculty , as a teacher educator committed to anti-oppressive education , and as a parent of two children in the public school system , I am proud of the teaching and learning that is happening in teacher education at the University of Regina and heartened by the leadership of teachers and administrators in schools in transforming educational experiences . �
By Jennifer Tupper
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