Synopsis

In this title the authors explore how individuals’ identity and personal practical knowledge are being formed, shifted or interrupted through moments in teacher education which the authors have carefully and thoughtfully constructed. The particularity of the stories expressed in this collection, provide us with multiple perspectives and multiple entry points into making deeper sense of the complexity of curriculum-making in teacher education. As the stories of experience resonate with our own or as they stand apart from them, they provoke us to re-imagine teacher education, and to retell and relive our own stories of teacher education with new possibility. Narrative inquiry offers teacher educators a way to move the telling of stories of curriculum-making in teacher education forward, to delve more deeply into stories in order to make sense of experience and to attend more closely to a curriculum of life that is educative for the self and others in teacher education.

Contributors to this volume include
F. Michael Connelly – Darlene Ciuffetelli Parker, Debbie Pushor, and Julian Kitchen – Cheryl J. Craig – Stefinee Pinnegar and Mary Lynn Hamilton – Grace Feuerverger – Ruth Mansur, Smadar Tuval, Judith Barak, Bobbie Turniansky, Ariela Gidron and Talia Weinberger – Julian Kitchen – Darlene Ciuffetelli Parker – Lynette B. Erickson and Amy B. Miner – Shelley M. Griffin – Ramona Maile Cutri – Debbie Pushor – Dixie K. Keyes – Shijing Xu – Debbie Pushor, Julian Kitchen and Darlene Ciuffetelli Parker

In Debbie Pushor’s chapter, Attending to milieu: Living a curriculum of parents alongside teacher candidates, Debbie defines and explains a curriculum of parents, its purpose and importance as an addition to teacher education curriculum, and how she lives out this curriculum alongside teacher candidates in her undergraduate courses. The chapter gives an account of her narrative inquiry into the lived experiences of two teacher candidates who were engaged in a curriculum of parents. The chapter highlights how the teacher candidates’ acceptance of dominant notions of parents as outsiders to the processes of schooling or as individuals to be wary or fearful of were interrupted by their experiences within a curriculum of parents. Debbie gives an account of the teacher candidates’ dis/positioning as they came to “un-know” their understandings of professional as someone with power and control and to re-know it as an act of standing together with parents; as a reflection of the “person to person.” The value of Debbie’s chapter is that it is the first work that has detailed a curriculum of parents. Her chapter shows the major contributions such a curriculum can add to teacher education programs.

The book is now available on Emerald’s Bookstore http://www.emeraldinsight.com/products/books/series.htm?id=1479-3687 as well as on Amazon.

Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Registered Office: Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley, BD16 1WA United Kingdom. Registered in England No. 3080506, VAT No. GB 665 3593 06

Five interactive workshops!

Agenda for the Day
Keynote and interactive dialogue with Debbie Pushor
Workshops
National Child Day Celebration
Refreshments and lunch will be provided

Details
Cost $75 for members and $100 for non-members
Saturday, November 20th, 2010
at Delta Toronto East, 2035 Kennedy Road, Toronto (Kennedy Rd. & 401)

Registration
Register now at www.onlineregistrations.ca/fsio_conference/

For more information on the FSIO conference
Sharing our Stories, Finding our Voices
November 17-19, 2010 at Delta Toronto East
visit www.fsio.ca/conference.html

ECUR 898: Re/Presenting Families in Schools
Representations of families exist everywhere. This course explored dominant social, cultural and institutional narratives about families which underpin these representations and considered the influence they have on curriculum-making and decision-making in schools.
(Classes were held weekday mornings, one evening/week, one ½ day Saturday.)

ECUR 898: Engaging Parents in Teaching and Learning
This course explored what parent engagement is – and is not, conditions which invite engagement, the complexities and multiplicity inherent within it, and possibilities within programming and curriculum-making for incorporating parents’ knowledge.
(Classes were held weekday afternoons, one evening/week, one ½ day Saturday.)

New Summer Graduate Course Offerings
These courses were experiential and included fieldwork with families and in communities. They also provided participants with opportunities to develop specific plans for their own practice.

I am very excited about these two courses as, currently, in undergraduate and graduate teacher education programs in colleges and universities in Canada, there is very little attention being paid to the development of teachers’ and teacher candidates’ thinking around engaging parents in their children’s schooling. In a search of 10 prominent universities in Canada, no undergraduate teacher education courses were identified which offer a curriculum focusing on parents. At the graduate level, three teacher education courses were identified: one at the University of Alberta, ECE: Home/School/Community Relations, which appears to have been last offered in Summer Session 2008, one at the University of Saskatchewan, Parents and Education: Contemporary Developments and Issues, taught by Dr. Bonnie Stelmach and me as a special topics in educational administration in Spring Session 2007, and a third course offered by Dr. Stelmach, EADM 895 Parents and Educational Theory Policy and Practice. While I am aware that the topic of parents is an element in some courses, particularly in educational administration courses in relation to governance and roles and responsibilities as defined by the School Act, or in educational foundations courses which explore cultural and historical constructions of childhood or the family, courses which foreground a curriculum centered on the engagement of parents and families and the incorporation of parents’ knowledge in their children’s schooling are very rare indeed.

I invite you to have a close look at the syllabi for the two courses and to be in touch if you have questions or comments you would like to share about the courses. I would love to hear your response as I refine and enhance these offerings.

ECUR 898: Engaging Parents in Teaching and Learning – Full PDF

ECUR 898: Re/Presenting Families in Schools – Full PDF

On Thursday, January 21, the Early Childhood Community Development Centre (ECCDC), the District School Board of Niagara (DSBN) and the Niagara Catholic District School Board (NCDSB) hosted a special workshop for early childhood educators, teachers and parents. The even took place at the Quality Parkway Hotel & Convention Centre in St. Catharines and featured a presentation by Dr. Debbie Pushor, Associate Professor of Education from the University of Saskatchewan.

Joining Our Voices – Part 2

Full Article PDF