“There’s Nothing Aboriginal in the Subject I Teach”: Seeking Systemic Shifts in Non-Aboriginal Teacher Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session 104
  In Roundtable Session: Ontario’s Urban Aboriginal Education Pilot Projects: To Know Is Not Enough to Decolonize Our Schools

Abstract

Purpose: In the Lakehead DSB, the majority of the UAEPP funds were allocated to mandatory professional development, curriculum integration and resource collections for teachers. New policies in Urban Aboriginal Education (UAE) are placing in-service teachers (95% of whom are non-Aboriginal) at the center of reform efforts. The goal of the LDSB was to change teachers’ attitudes and approaches to urban Aboriginal education across the whole school board in order to shift the entire system towards UAE. This paper details the variety of positions that comprise the social landscape of non-Aboriginal teachers in the LDSB who are engaging (or not engaging) in various ways in UAE. In our system-wide analysis, we focus on how these teachers identified systemic barriers, challenges to professional growth and shifts in their perceptions and practices as culturally responsive teachers.

Methods and data sources: In this longitudinal study of the LDSB’s UAEPP implementation, teacher data was collected over an 18-month period (2008-2010). Fifteen focus groups were conducted with a total of 80 elementary and secondary teachers and professional development facilitators. Seven individual interviews were also held with exemplary decolonizing non-Aboriginal teachers. Data collection was guided by Indigenous Research methodologies with an emphasis on story-telling and narrative, speaking without interruption, relationship-building, and circle sharing (Archibald, 2008; Absolon and Wilett, 2004; Graveline, 1999). Over 400 pages of transcript were generated and coded using Atlas.Ti to map and generate a more complex, nuanced view of professional development and non-Aboriginal teacher positions in UAE.
Results and Scholarly Significance: We discovered that in the LDSB, the site with the highest Aboriginal school population of the three Ontario school boards, the typical profile of an urban non-Aboriginal teacher was “the perfect stranger” (Dion, 2007, 2009). From this seemingly “neutral” stance, teachers claimed inoffensive ignorance by declaring that they did not actively know, represent nor misrepresent Aboriginal peoples or Indigenous knowledge. Most teachers were reticent to discuss their teaching practices as culturally responsive or to see their curriculum as Eurocentric by ignoring Indigenous knowledge. Finally, most teacher comments emphasized how they held Aboriginal students and/or their families responsible for school difficulties or low achievement.
While the majority of teachers held the position of the “perfect stranger” and focused on barriers and challenges to UAE, we were able to identify a small number of non-Aboriginal teachers who wanted to inquire into and further their own decolonization. Though they did not have the theoretical knowledge to engage in this complex personal analysis, these teachers seemed to understand that the solution to improved UAE resided in their response, work and commitment to integrating Indigenous knowledge and teaching as reconciliation (Christian, 2011). As we understand more about the diverse and complex social landscape of non-Aboriginal teacher positions that exist in urban school boards, we can better address the actions and implementation that supports non-Aboriginal teacher engagement in Aboriginal education and their ongoing decolonization.

Authors

• Lisa M. Korteweg, Lakehead University

• Brooke Madden, The University of British Columbia