Faculty of Education Education News Fall 2012 / Winter 2013 Page 3 communities that , on a daily basis , are faced with huge challenges , including geographical isolation , poor roads , and inadequate services . And yet these educators are living our own faculty ’ s motto of “ inspiring and transforming education ,” one student , one family , and one community at a time . It was abundantly clear to me on this brief visit that education is relational and about building and sustaining relationships .
Many educators have written about the metaphors that define the process of teaching . They have been grouped into three categories : production , travel , and growth ( Kliebard , 1975 ). The production metaphor is mechanical : The student is transformed from raw material to finished product by the experience of schooling . In the metaphor of travel , education is seen as a journey of discovery with the teacher acting as a guide . In the metaphor of growth , students are seen , like seeds , to be full of potential and promise that can be nurtured in a specific context . The garden is a mediation imposed on nature ; it is by definition , like teaching , an intervention . The garden is not passive : Like school , a garden is replete with decisions made about what is worthy , what is to be encouraged , and what is to be pruned and cut back .
The principal of Churchill School in La Ronge said , “ I want my students to regard school as much more than just a place to ‘ hang out .’” Lilly McKay-Carriere noted , the school is not just a building , “ it has to be a catalyst of change .” As Rosalina in Pinehouse added , “ We must do what we can to support the aspirations of each student ; we need to help students to understand that they can , despite adversity , have aspirations to be successful and contributing members of our community .”
Unlike music or sports or other media stars , teachers are largely unheralded and often ignored influences on the young . Not only does our work go largely unnoticed and unrecognized , we are often simply unaware of the difference we make in the lives of young people . We cannot , for example , begin to calculate or quantify the effect of the fly-in visit of a group of southern university educators on the students we met in these northern communities . President Timmons spoke of her own life in an isolated Labrador mining town , and of her own Mi ’ kmaq heritage . She also announced a thousand dollar bursary available to any Grade 12 student who chooses to come to the University of Regina to study . Will that make a difference in an individual ’ s life ? Will such a bursary be an enabling catalyst ? Perhaps .
I do know that I was witness in these communities to the passionate desire that animates good teaching ; it is a form of leadership and community development . I am more adamant than ever that our educational systems cannot be self-serving to those of us who construct and then inhabit them . We must ensure that educational bureaucracies are not barriers to children ’ s engagement in learning if their potentials are to be realized .
This edition of Education News continues to tell the stories of how we in the Faculty of Education and our partners are interrogating the curriculum to find new ways to engage students . First Nations , Métis , and Inuit ways of knowing continue to animate the discussions . From these perspectives , we have come to learn , as Dr . Xia Ji reminds us in her article on page 12 , that teaching is an affair not just of the mind or the body , but also of the heart .
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