Encountering the Cultural Myths of Teaching: Curricular and Pedagogical Possibilities of Digital Filmmaking

• In Event: Roundtable Session 23
  In Roundtable Session: Intersections of Culture and Curriculum With Teachers, Students, and Education

Abstract

This paper expands on findings of a three-year research project that employs visual participatory methodologies with beginning teachers who are struggling with critical moments in their teaching. By participating in digital storytelling, the teachers come up against their own fears, resistances and prejudices exposing the inherent obstacles of emancipatory practices even while being attentive to social justice and antiracist frameworks. Findings point to how multimodal tools are effective for engaging meaningfully with unresolved conflicts and the cultural myths of teaching. The research points to the importance of using the digital medium to help teachers attend more explicitly to their inner landscapes and understand the imbrication of the psychic and the social to their teaching.

Authors

• Linda Radford, University of Ottawa

• Avril Aitken, Bishop's University