Entry #14

Hi friends!

I'm back! That's right, after a whole school year without hearing my voice in your head, I am back with lots to share. It's been very busy! Despite being in the process of completing my final year in the Education program at StFX, applying to become a substitute teacher, and getting my head on straight in general, the research never really stopped. I've continued to read about poverty and its huge impact on education in rural spaces, but have also been a part of some really interesting developments I'd like to share with you.

A poster from the PD session
combining the different ideas that those attending
 felt were important takeaway messages.

The first thing is something that I imagine most of the readers of this blog probably already know about because they were probably there. I'm talking about the Professional Development session that Alanna Saunders and I presented in October at StFX. During the session we discussed our research with fellow Bachelor of Education students, detailing the ways in which barriers to student success can be mitigated in a practical way. It's important, I think, that when we talk about educational research we always remember to root it in the everyday implications - research doesn't help us if it doesn't give us insight into things we can do differently. This was what made the session so successful - we could share our research with other students, get some feedback, and have an open and honest conversation about how poverty impacts student learning and classroom contexts.

The second development links well to that very point. In March I attended StFX's Student Research Day, which was another opportunity to share what I learned throughout the creation of the literature review. And, because I've now formally shared my findings, that means I can share them with you!

The graphic I generated to illustrate what I
found in my literature review of 100 articles.

According to my review of 100 research articles, there are 9 themes central in informing teachers in their pedagogical practices and daily instructional interactions with students who experience poverty:

What was fantastic about it, if I'm honest, was the validation I got from researchers and community members who aren't invested in the Faculty of Education. I spoke to people about what I read, and about the implications that the commonalities in that reading have for the education system in

My poster from the StFX Research Day!

supporting impoverished students, and I was floored by the response. I had professors congratulate me for bringing this work to light, and community members sharing the ways in which this information may have changed their own experiences in school for the better. People loved what I had to say (which really inflated my ego), and were really happy to see that the good teaching practices that they remember from their favourite teachers are embraced and praised in the research literature. Don't get me wrong, it was really nice to have my personal work congratulated and recognized, it was very flattering, but the most validating part of the responses was the call to action. While happy to see it, community members and professors who heard my message were shocked by the element of common sense that threaded my research together, and none of us could understand why the themes weren't more widely recognized. Teachers should collaborate with students? Imagine that. There should be more supports in place for struggling students? Seems a bit obvious. All of the themes make perfect sense, so why aren't they more commonly found in our schools?

This point brings me to my third very exciting thing - The Art Matters Conference I attended at the end of March. The conference was held at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, and it was all about "leveraging knowledge to influence change." Everyone who attended the conference had that concept in mind when applying and presenting their research, which lent to the conference's diverse and interesting group of student researchers, all of which talked about different aspects of social sciences, humanities, and arts. It was a really interesting experience in that, having just finished the StFX Student Research Day, I had an opportunity to share my work with people from all over Atlantic Canada and engage with different perspectives. It was also absolutely terrifying because it was the first time I was truly presenting to people I didn't know beforehand. I was among friends at the PD session, and former professors and peers at the Research Day, so this was an incredibly intimidating venue.

That said, I managed to condense my research findings and discussion into a 10-minute presentation, which I delivered in front of a group of complete strangers. People often assume that because teachers have experiencing lecturing and speaking to students that they're predisposed to be excellent public speakers, but the dynamic changes when you're speaking to a group of people who are older, highly educated, and ooze authority. At the end of the day, I'm a 23-year-old with a Teacher's License - sometimes I can't help feeling unqualified sitting next to Ph.D. candidates and brilliant long-time researchers. Nervousness would have been fine normally, but this work has come to mean a lot to me, and I didn't want to get it wrong. I was overwhelmed with the thought that if I butchered the presentation, the information would have come across as being hokey or unimportant, which would have broken my heart.

But I did it. I presented the findings, answered some questions, and have lived to tell the tale. I attended several fantastic presentations that day, and though I didn't see any other Education students, I met some really down to earth and perceptive people. I even won an award, despite my fears, for having an "Outstanding Research Presentation." I never expected that I would win anything for doing work that, again, seems like such common sense in retrospect, but I was incredibly grateful for it. Student success is really important to me - this work in general is - and anything I can do to keep spreading this information and the value it has in helping disadvantaged youth is something I'm going to continue to pursue. I know most of my friends from the B. Ed. program have graduated and are out there teaching in the "real-world," but that doesn't mean the learning ends, or that the investments in becoming better stop.

Anyway, those are my updates, and there are sure to be more in the near future. I'm fully immersed in the research world again, and though the focus is a little different than it was last summer, it's sure to be just as enlightening (even for all the non-Educator types out there). I hope you stick with me for another round of wild and wonderful learning!

Thanks for checking in!

Savannah MacDonald

..

https://www.stfx.ca/research/student-research-opportunities/student-research-day

https://artsmatters.wixsite.com/artsmatters2019/abstracts

Entry #13

Good morning!

The day has come - today I post my last entry for the summer! My research work term officially ended on August 3rd, so now it's time to relax and mentally prepare for my last year at StFX. Before I do though, I want to share a few final thoughts on the subject of poverty and education, as a way of synthesizing some of the personal conclusions I've made through my research, and as a way of saying goodbye.

I've developed a list of things that I think we should all keep in mind:
1) As I've said before, students who are socioeconomically disadvantaged are less likely to have books, access to the Internet, the means of hiring a tutor, school supplies, and countless other resources that impact academic achievement (Sirin, 2005). I realize teachers can't "out-teach" poverty, and that creating access to these resources will require significant societal change, but I think it's important that teachers are just cognizant of the range and number of factors outside of school that impacts the students in their classroom. Being mindful of the deficit of resources students can access can make the classroom more equitable and self-aware, which I think students can sense.

2) Speaking of being self-aware, it's important to remember that students are aware of the resources they lack. They know too well the opportunities that they miss out on, the extra-curriculars they can't join, and the tools they don't have access to. The barriers to success that disadvantaged youth perceive tend to lower their academic confidence and motivation - they don't believe they can do the work, and because of that belief, they often choose to not try (Legault, 2006, p. 571). Teachers should actively work to build student confidence, give them reasons to care about their work and see themselves as successful, valuable people. Students need these reasons, because, after a lifetime of feeling academically inadequate (which is often the fault of less-than-kind teachers), they deserve to have someone in their corner who celebrates their strengths and interests and gives them a reason to want to be their best.

3) In the words of Rita Pierson, "Kids don't learn from people they don't like." This is true especially for students who experience poverty. In a study conducted by Carrington (2013), teachers who were perceived as angry, mean and ‘uncool’ by students were also disengaging in the classroom, while teachers who were described as fun and ‘nice’ were more engaging (p. 28-29). This is to say that teachers who adopt a more authoritarian teaching style tend to discourage students from the start, creating a classroom environment that isn't conducive to engagement or learning. Again, being relational and aware of the dynamic in the classroom is critical in making students feel safe and valued. If as adults we crave a congenial and positive work environment, why are young adults so often denied that same kind of space in schools?

4) None of this can be achieved if teachers lack experience. The problem is low-income schools tend to see high rates of teacher-turnover (Johnson, 2013), meaning that the teachers who work most with disadvantaged youth tend to lack the preparation, temperament, and personal efficacy that would make them and their students successful (p. 27-31). Really, the thing to remember is that teachers who are new (like us pre-service teachers) are often so busy just trying to get lessons together and not be terrible that the relational and mindful stuff sometimes gets lost in translation. It's no one's fault really, but it's a balance that's learned over time and with experience. Areas that have high rates of poverty will likely struggle to change the teacher-turnover rate (p. 2-4), but they can offer more practical forms of teacher training and professional development geared towards helping struggling students, which I think will at least provide teachers with some new strategies and ways of thinking.

Image retrieved from
http://www.glasbergen.com/wp-content/gallery/teacher-amp-
education-cartoons/?C=S;O=A

5) Teachers with high personal efficacy are more likely to be well-versed in instruction, period. The more comfortable a teacher is with curriculum and subject-area content, the more comfortable they'll be adapting their lessons to better suit the needs of students who struggle (Cantrell, 2013). Really, everything I've been telling you all summer can be directly related to this very point, because students who experience poverty and struggle in school need someone who can be clear, who can be understanding, and who can be adaptive. I think a lot of these practices comes from experience, but, they're still skills that can consciously be practiced. That being said, knowing your material is something you should be doing from the get-go - your teachable subject is YOURS to know and to teach, so do it well, and do it with some passion. Students can sense from a mile away when a teacher isn't interested in what they're teaching anymore, so love what you do, and use that love as motivation to change things up once in a while. And, frankly, if the students aren't as excited about the subject as you are, that should be an even stronger motivator. Too often do teachers focus on what the students "won't" or "can't" do rather than the why. If you know what you're doing, and you do it well, you should be practicing new teaching strategies that are directly linked to the question of why it matters, and more importantly, why it should matter to them.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: It's easy to decide that your students are just lazy. It's easy to assume that they don't care about their marks, and that they don't care about what you're teaching. But, if you get to know your students, it's also easy to see why students do and say things about themselves, and about school. There's a fine line there, of course - don't assume you know everything there is to know about a student after teaching them for 2 months - but remember that people do things for a reason. No matter what age group you work with or what subject you teach, we are working with young people who will remember the way they were treated, the teachers who genuinely cared, and the lessons that were personally valuable to them when they leave school. It wasn't too long ago that we were in school ourselves, so, when in doubt, question your beliefs about your school experience. What made it successful? What made it unsuccessful? Who were my favourite teachers, and why? Who were my least favourite, and why? Did my teachers assume things about myself, or my classmates? Did they love teaching, and was it noticeable? Did they ask me about my day? Did they adapt their lessons, or listen to what we as students had to say?

Image retrieved from http://jaycwolfe.com/2015/09/30/celebrate-world-teachers-day-an-infographic-by-grammarly/

All in all, I think researching this subject has made me think about those questions more often than I did before. I've found myself reflecting a lot, thinking about the lessons I still remember today that were taught by genuine, interesting, and thoughtful teachers. When we talk about students who experience poverty, we talk about students who have lived challenging lives. Students who, for the most part, have limited access to the resources and opportunities that some of us have never really had to worry about. As teachers, we need to think about what we can do to even the playing field, it really is that simple. Nothing that I've reported in this list is new (I hope), none of it is ground-breaking or unrealistic. All it takes is some time and effort. We can make a world of a difference for disadvantaged youth who need that extra time, and frankly, there are no good reasons for why we can't offer it. We were all students once, we know how we were and wanted to be treated, so why can't we apply that to all of the students who walk into our classroom? Why can't we be our best, so that they can be their best?

Thank you all for reading my ramblings this summer - it's been a lot of fun, and I looked forward to potentially sharing more when I start working with Dr. Mitton-Kükner again in the fall. I hope you all have a fantastic August, and I look forward to seeing some of you at X in September!

Goodbye for now!

Savannah MacDonald

...

Cantrell, S. C., Almasi, J. F., Carter, J. C., & Rintamaa, M. (2013). Reading intervention in middle and high schools: Implementation fidelity, teacher efficacy, and student achievement. Reading Psychology, 34(1), 26-58.

Carrington, S., Bland, D., Spooner-Lane, R., & White, E. (2013). Identifying engaging features of schooling: Assessing the psychometric soundness of student-generated research. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 17(7), 714-731.

Johnson, S. M., Kraft, M. A., & Papay, J. P. (2012). How context matters in high-need schools: The effects of teachers’ working conditions on their professional satisfaction and their students’ achievement. Teachers College Record, 114(10), 1-39.

Legault, L., Green-Demers, I., & Pelletier, L. (2006). Why do high school students lack motivation in the classroom? Toward an understanding of academic amotivation and the role of social support. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(3), 567.

Sirin, S. (2005). Socioeconomic status and academic achievement: A meta-analytic review research. Review of educational research, 75(3), 417-453.

Entry #12

Hello again!

I have so much to tell you all! Okay, so I last week I had the privilege of attending the Nova Scotia Examinations English 10 Scoring Session with the Student Assessment and Evaluation division of the Nova Scotia Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. Basically, I got paid to spend 4 days in Halifax (for free) to mark the Grade 10 exam, and because I've had lots of questions about it from friends and family, I thought it would useful to share my experience with you all (especially you teacher types out there - this is a great opportunity for you!).
First, let me just say that when I applied to join the marking session, I didn't think I'd get accepted. I mean, I hoped I would of course - I knew that I would learn a lot if I got to go and that I'd meet lots of interesting people - but I also knew that, being a pre-service teacher who doesn't have a ton of assessment experience probably wouldn't make me a prime candidate. So, when I did get the email telling me that I was good to go, I was thrilled, nervous because I still wasn't sure I was qualified, but still very excited.
The session started on July 23rd at 9am. The room was filled with circle tables and chairs - half of the room marked the Persuasive Essay section of the exam, and my side of the room marked the Reading Response section. My table included me and 6 other teachers, all of which were very friendly and welcoming - they were surprised that there weren't more student-teachers there, because of what a great opportunity it was to learn about assessment and student work. My nervousness faded quickly - it was hard to be nervous when the people I met at every turn were full of smiles.  We spent that entire morning training, which meant we discussed and practiced using the Scoring Rubric and Scoring Guide. 

The Scoring Rubric used during the marking session. I was scoring the "Reading Response" section of the exam, while others scored the "Persuasive Essay" section, which used a different rubric.

As you can see in the picture above, my copy of the rubric has a lot of notes on it. My nerves were calmed already, having met so many friendly people so soon in the week, but the training session made me feel more confident in my ability to mark, which was a different feeling entirely. The training we had was incredibly thorough and clear, and though my weird note-taking techniques might make it look complicated, getting to sit down with a table of experienced teachers and really dissect the rubric made marking much easier.
It's like this: as you can see in the rubric, to get a 4 in "Quality of Text Comprehension," the student had to demonstrate a "thorough" understand of the text in their response. But, what does "thorough" mean? To one teacher, thorough might be used as a synonym for clear, but, according to the rubric, a "clear" response should be getting a 3. See, that's why the discussion and Scoring Guide were so informative and valuable - if I was marking something and felt like I wasn't 100% sure how I could apply the rubric to a student's work, I was sitting with 6 other people who knew assessment very well who I could double-check with. The Scoring Guide, a booklet of examples of student work and they way they were scored, was also a great point of reference for figuring out how other papers have been marked, and why they were marked that way.
Once we all got in the groove of marking, I thought that the training was basically over, but we actually maintained a level of training throughout the week. We would, around twice a day, complete what they called a "Calibration Paper," which was a paper that everyone marked, and then discussed with the table. This was done to make sure that, even though everyone was getting a bit tired and cross-eyed after so much marking, we were still following the rubric and marking according to the resources we were given. Similarly, we would also mark was called a "Reliability Paper," which was also a paper that everyone marked, but we didn't discuss the marks. Instead, we passed them in so that the leaders of the session could tally and process them to make sure that the entire room was close in terms of scoring. 

Image retrieved from: https://plans.ednet.ns.ca/about-plans

As a student-teacher, this experience was so valuable. I was really happy to have Erin MacDonald, a fellow StFX Education student and friend there too - it was a comfort to have someone I knew to chat with at lunch about trends in student writing and experiences with the session itself. When I started writing this blog entry, I asked her if she could make a statement about how she experienced the marking session, to which she said:

"I guess if there was anything I could say about the marking session it would be that I talked to many teachers throughout the week that were confident that there was no better PD in terms of assessment, which I guess is what keeps them coming back every summer. Regardless of whatever side of the debate you're on in terms of standardized testing, this type of assessment informs our practice as teachers because we are able to see areas where students are struggling, such as inferring from reading responses. And when you're in the business of creating the outcomes for a subject matter, this information is crucial. I think its also important to stress that we're made well aware of the diverse abilities of all learners and we have a lot of training and support throughout the week to be able to mark those exams fairly. In terms of being a student teacher, there's no better way to gain solid skills in assessment, throughout the week you'll mark around 500 exams and be able to take this rubric into your classroom and use it for every student."

Honestly, I don't think I could have said it any better. I left at the end of the week feeling way more aware of my marking habits (I definitely caught myself wanting to mark too hard, which is something I'll have to work on), and feeling like I would be better prepared for the upcoming school year at X. I feel like as a future English teacher I have a more clear idea of how I should be marking, and how I should be teaching. I hope that writing this blog post will make some of my friends at StFX consider attending next summer's marking sessions (which are for English and Math examinations), and consider it an opportunity to learn more about assessment. I had a great time, and I look forward to going back next summer!
Thank you to Vera Grayson, the Literacy Evaluation Coordinator for the Nova Scotia Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, for permitting me to write my experience during the marking session on this public blog, and thank you to the amazing teachers who put up with all my questions and awkward, not-funny jokes throughout the week - you're all 4s to me!

Until next time!

Savannah MacDonald

...

For access to Teacher Resources and the Professional Opportunities page provided by the Nova Scotia Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, please visit this website:
https://plans.ednet.ns.ca/

Entry #11

Hello everyone! It’s Alanna and I’m back to share another blog post with you. Today I want to share an experience I had in my second practicum trying to integrate Indigenous material into my lessons. In no way is this piece meant to be a bragging session about me and my culturally relevant lesson plans. I am in no way an expert in implementing Indigenous Knowledge nor will I ever be, but I tried it once and it seemed to work okay. I will also mention that the music video included in this post might trigger some individuals who have gone through similar experiences described in the song, it is very emotional, please watch what you are only comfortable viewing. 

First let me give you some context. I was teaching a grade 12 Academic English class in a rural Nova Scotia high school. I was teaching a poetry unit (which is often the most hated unit in every ELA class) but I wanted it to be different, I wanted to show my students how poetry is relevant and can be a way to make change in the world. In this particular lesson, my students and I were analyzing Marilyn Dumont’s poem “Helen Betty Osborne” which is a very powerful piece filled with emotion. Dumont is a Métis author and in the poem she writes about Indigenous icons and events that faced adversity.

Photo Credit: Alanna Saunders

My students were not confident in their analysis skills, so I knew we would have to tackle the poem line by line. This was not a bad thing as I knew there would be many references my students would need to look up as well as allusions, images and symbols they could highlight. Before we began to analyze the poem I showed students a music video as a way to prime them for the content they were to analyze. The song “Powerless” is by Nova Scotian rapper Classified and showcases the struggles young girls and women face, particularly Indigenous women. The video introduced the content in a familiar and engaging way. The video was directed by fellow Canadian and Grammy-nominated Andrew Hines. Hines shot the video on the Millbrook First Nations Reserve which is a Mi'kmaq community near Truro, N.S (Classified, 2018). 

After watching the video we discussed The Red Dress Campaign and how it raises awareness of Murdered and Missing Indigenous women and how that connects to the poem. We then began to analyze the text which started with the students annotating the poem with questions or highlighting lines they felt drawn to. From there we researched references to people we didn’t know and gained context to the poem. We then went one step further and looked at word choice within the text and discussed what the words meant to the poem and the author. This wasn’t a perfect analysis but with each read through we were able to go from surface reading to picking the poem apart to gain further meaning. By showing my students this process they were able to understand what type of things to look for when reading a poem, and to be comfortable asking questions and making connections even if no one else has the same idea. 

I should also mention that I purposefully tried to create an open and casual environment so my students would feel comfortable asking questions or hazarding guesses about the content of the poem and about analysis. I went about achieving this environment by trying to create a “coffee house” vibe with low lighting, snacks, a crackling fire video from YouTube and desks pulled together in a group. I told them I wanted it to feel like we were just hanging out in university at a local coffee shop discussing poetry (because isn’t that what all cool university students do?). I don’t know if they believed the university coffee shop thing but they did become more confident in analysis and they learned about the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women crisis in Canada. All in all, I think the lesson was successful and I plan to use a similar strategy again in the future. 

I know this was only one example of one lesson, and it doesn’t shed light on how to seamlessly weave Indigenous content into curriculum. But I hope it shows that it can be possible and small steps like one poem, one video or one story are better than taking no steps at all.   

References: 

Classified. (classifiedmusic). (2018, April 6). Classified- Powerless [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W69e9jDRq0

Dumont, M. (1996). Helen Betty Osborne. In A Really Good Brown Girl (pg. 20). London,ON: Brick Books. 

Greenslade, B. (2015, October 4). Red dress campaign looks to raise awareness about missing, murdered indigenous women. Global News. Retrieved from: https://globalnews.ca/news/2257745/red-dress-campaign-looks-to-raise-awareness-about-missing-murdered-indigenous-women/

Entry #10

Good morning world!

I'm back again and more fired up than ever. All of my time spent doing research has been eye-opening, but this last week has been especially valuable. I finally finished my annotated bibliography (for those of you who are new to reading the blog, I've spent the last 2 months searching for research literature about poverty and its relationship with academic achievement), and, though I'm relieved and proud of what I've accomplished, there's a lot still to be done. I found exactly 100 articles that make suggestions relating to disadvantaged youth in the education system, so now my job is to sort through the articles and pull out key themes and similarities. I've been doing this for about a week now, and it's been really interesting to see so much overlap in the researchers' ideas, but the more themes and agreement I find, the more annoyed I am that they hasn't been applied to rural contexts.

I know, here I go again. But, honestly, I was really mad when I wrote my last post about rural representation in research literature, so I think it's reasonable that it's still on my mind. I do wish I could just focus on the work without having the thought constantly nagging at me, but at least I'm  thinking about the literature critically.

Two articles in particular have been holding my attention while I work. The first one was written by
Corbett (2005), and it talks about how students in rural areas associate formal education with out-migration, which isn't necessarily what they want:

"...additional factors such as rising tuition costs, the centralization of educational and other services in rural areas, the high cost of leaving, and the expansion of low-wage, low-skilled work in the expanding rural service economy may help to explain continuing high dropout rates and low post-secondary participation rates in rural communities... My data supports common local perceptions about how education functions as preparation for out-migration.... Families in coastal communities understand that their children need education, but the source of this need is ironically nested in the very forces that are conspiring to destabilize the life they know...In other words, young people’s need for formal education has been created by the same global change forces that are seen to be jeopardizing the traditional way of life in coastal and rural villages. Thus, education, along with other forms of state intervention, has come to be viewed with skepticism and ambivalence (p.14-16)"

Image retrieved from https://therodcast.ca/2013/06/06/comparing-education-in-canada-the-usa-and-australia/

I realize that that's a lot of academic reading I just subjected you to, but everything Corbett says makes perfect sense. The goal of education has historically been to create workers, plain and simple, but over time it has increasingly become more about creating potential university students. Azano  (2015) absolutely hit the nail on the head when they said that "teachers face the challenge of giving students meaningful (and plausible) responses to questions like, "Why are we reading Shakespeare?" (p. 268). It's a challenge because, if we're all honest with ourselves, there are some abstract literacy tools and skills that just don't matter to students who want to join the work force as soon as they leave high school. Corbett is effectively saying that there's a mismatch between rural students and modern education, because, while education as an institution likes to push conceptual thinking and academia, those things are not a priority for students who value local traditions and local work.

My goal here is not to condemn academia, if anything, I think that my exposure to abstract literature and critical thinking has made me a more well-rounded person and a more empathetic teacher. That being said, I still think it's important to remember that if students aren't given a reason to care about literature and academia, to see their value in the real world, they're not going to be motivated to engage with them. So, that's it, I guess I solved the puzzle: If students have a reason to care about Shakespeare, they'll love it and want to read it!

Well, no, it's not quite that simple.

It's not enough to tell students that something is "important" or that "they should know the material."
Sure, those are technically reasons, but if someone handed me a book, and told me that I should read it because it's "important," my first question would be "why?" Why is it important, and why should I bother? What am I going to learn from it, and will that learning matter in the grand scheme of things?

Image retrieved from https://darylcagle.com/2007/04/12/high-school-prepares-for-jobs/

Azano (2011) observed the classroom practices of a teacher in a rural community and how they used the local context to bridge gaps in their students’ knowledge. The teacher made explicit connections between their life experiences in the area with the novels they studied in class. The students in this class were actually very successful academically, because the teacher created a common ground that enabled a sense of community, and made the abstract ideas they discussed in class accessible by situating them in a place-based frame of mind (p.8). I feel like I'm jumping all over the place with my ideas in this post, but what I'm really trying to get at is the fact that, while rural students are different in their motivations and values, they really just need a --- reason to care about what they're doing in school. Azano's work shows how valuable real-life implication and student-teacher relationships are in helping students be successful, and they are practices that any teacher can integrate into their routines.

Though a lot of strategies for working with disadvantaged youth are thematically similar, I think that they all depend on a school's context and culture. If there was more research available focusing on education in rural areas, I think that the entire field of study would look different. Multiple perspectives are important when approaching a subject as complicated and difficult as disadvantaged students, and as of now, there aren't enough voices from rural communities in the conversation. All in all, I think it's just important that teachers do their best to make the subjects they teach relevant to the lives of their students. It's not always easy, but it's important have a good reason - one with instrumental value - to care about and be motivated to engage with school. That, paired with more rural representation in research literature, will help our motivate our students and foster their strengths.

Have a great week!

Savannah MacDonald

...

Azano, A. (2011). The possibility of place: one teacher's use of place-based instruction for English students in a rural high school. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 26.

Azano, A. (2015). Addressing the Rural Context in Literacies Research. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 59(3), 267-269.

Corbett, M. (2005). Rural education and out-migration: The case of a coastal community. Canadian Journal of Education, 52-72.

Entry #9

Hey everyone! It's Alanna again and I’m back to talk about the research I’ve been doing in relation to Indigenous students in public schools. With my first blog I talked about how Indigenous Knowledge might be understood (Batiste, 2002) and how we as teachers should want to learn and grow in order to make change happen. Today I want to do something a little different. I want to focus on a friend of mine who I met at Mount Allison University during my undergrad degree. Emma Hassencahl-Perley is a multidisciplinary artist who completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Mount Allison. After graduating, Emma went on to work in Student Life as the Indigenous Affairs Coordinator and became an active leader in the Indigenous Support Group on campus. All of the insight and information in this blog has been provided by Emma as we've been collaborating back and forth all week.  

The reason why I am profiling Emma is because her identity as a Wolastoqiyik woman (commonly known as Maliseet) influences her art. She is currently exploring how legislative identity such as the Indian Act shapes the identity of Indigenous people. She has completed two projects called “White Flag” and “Ahtolimiye” which means “She Keeps Praying” that personify the impact of the Indian Act on Indigenous identities. Both projects have fragments of the Indian Act which were shredded and placed on a Canadian flag and a Jingle Dress.

Photo credit to Logan Perley, Jingle Dress "Ahtolimiye"

I asked Emma about some of the challenges she has faced as a Wolastoqiyik student going into university and how the education system could change to make Indigenous students feel more welcome in classrooms. Emma described how she went through culture-shock as she realized that her peers knew little about Indigenous history and who her people were despite New Brunswick being unceded territory. For those who may not know "unceded territory or land" refers to Aboriginal land titles that have not been surrendered or acquired by the Crown (Indigenous Corporate Training, 2014). Emma felt like she didn’t have a sense of community, she felt “othered” when at school and dealt with racism, ignorance and misconceptions from classmates. Emma is not the only person to experience this, as many Indigenous students form elementary to post-secondary experience racism and feel like they are not understood by educators (Canadian Council on Learning, 2007, pg. 10). Obviously there isn’t a band aid solution, as Emma explained to me, but she believes that curriculum needs to change in order to support Indigenous students. It starts by telling the truth about history, for example acknowledging that colonialism still happens today, evident by the Water Crisis’s on many reservations. Emma believes the education system needs to listen to Indigenous students so their needs can be heard. Each generation of Indigenous students are going to need different things from their respective institution and as educators the least we can do is listen to what they have to say. 

While Emma was working as the Indigenous Affairs Coordinator at Mount Allison the Indigenous Support Group wanted to integrate Mi’kmaq language classes, to fly the Mi’kmaq flag on campus, add signage and host a Powwow. Students and allies began advocating for a Mi’kmaq flag in 2013, and the flag was flown for three days the following year. However, the Indigenous Support Group and allies wanted the flag to be flown for longer but resistance from administration made the flag hard to attain. This spurred the group to fundraise the money for a Mi’kmaq flag and flagpole on their own in order to make change happen. In the past year Mount Allison has begun to comply with the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and has since worked with the Indigenous Support Group to purchase the Mi’kmaq flag and flagpole using funds the group had raised and funds from the administration (Mount Allison University, 2018).

Photo credit to Mount Allison University, raising Mi'kmaq flag

The permanent installation of the Mi’kmaq flag was the opening event to the first Powwow ever held at Mount Allison. The raising of the Mi’kmaq flag and the Powwow was a defining moment for Emma as she felt like Indigenous students would finally see themselves represented on campus. She describes how the flag celebrates the identities and histories of Indigenous students, but also acknowledges the people that occupied and took care of the land before us. For Emma, the permanent installation of the flag should represent a commitment to concrete change at the University and within the community. She was encouraged to see so many community members, faculty and non-Indigenous students come out to the Powwow to learn, love and celebrate together.

Photo credit to Mount Allison University, circle at the Powwow 

If you only take one thing away from this post, I hope it is that as educators we need to listen to Indigenous students, teachers, researchers and communities as they know exactly what their children need to thrive in the education system. When we hear students or parents raise concerns, we need to actively listen and do everything in our power to make the changes happen. As educators we hold a lot of influence and we need to seek out Indigenous voices and knowledge to make the right impact. 

P.S. I acknowledge the effort of Mount Allison to comply with the Calls to Action but in no way are they perfect. Mount Allison and many other universities have a long way to go if they are to overcome their colonial nature. 

Reference: 

Battiste, M. (2002). Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education: Literature Review with Recommendations (pp. 1-69). Ottawa, Canada: National Working Group on Education.

Canadian Council on Learning (2007). Redefining How Success is Measured in First Nations, Inuit and Metis Learning. Report on Learning in Canada, (pp.1-44) Ottawa, ON: Canadian Council of Learning. 

Indigenous Corporate Training (2015, August 10). Why you should avoid using “Crown Lands” in First Nation consultation. Retrieved from: https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/why-you-should-avoid-using-crown-lands-in-first-nation-consultation 

Mount Allison University (2018, March 19th). Mount Allison University to host first Powwow, March 22. Retrieved from: https://www.mta.ca/Community/News/2018/March_2018/ Mount_Allison_University_to_host_first_Powwow,_March_22/

Entry #8

Hi there!

Let me just say, before we dive in, how exciting and motivating it is that this blog hit 5000 views! Yay! Of course, when Dr. Mitton-Kükner and I discussed the potential of a blog at the beginning of the summer, we had hoped that it would be of interest to our friends in the B. Ed program and the general public. Still, as much as we hoped it would catch on, I don't think we expected that it would be this well received. So again, thank you - you've made our hearts soar!

Having so many views is exciting in itself, but what really excites me about them is knowing that most of them come from readers who: A) are currently or have been enrolled in StFX's Bachelor of Education program, B) are faculty members or staff at StFX, C) are friends or family of mine or Alanna, or D) went to high school with me or Alanna and are interested in what we're up to. Any of these kinds of readers are likely from, or have attended school in a rural part of Nova Scotia. I think that's really cool, and particularly relevant to what I've been thinking about lately.

See, when I'm looking for research articles, I search for key words and phrases that will get me the results I need: poverty, socioeconomic, struggling, readers, literacy, etc. Compiling these articles and looking at them side by side is interesting, because even though they cover a range of subjects in education, I can see patterns in the ideas that are presented in their work. That being said, it's actually even more interesting to find information that isn't common across articles, whether it's a teaching strategy that's far outside the box, or an aspect of literacy that no one's really talking about in academic circles yet. That stuff is really interesting, because it's new, and new stuff is... Well, interesting. You know what I mean.

Here's my problem: some of the information I've read shouldn't be new or uncommon. 

I'm particularly frustrated by the lack of research that there is on rural schools. If I were to go through the articles I've collected and summarized, I think that less than 1/4 would be about rural schools and literacy. Honestly, even if I looked at school-related subjects other than literacy, I don't think it would be much better. It seems like there's a push in research to focus on urban schools and "city kids," but why? Am I missing something?

I bring all of this up because, though poverty and literacy are pretty broad subjects for study, I'm ideally supposed to be finding articles that discuss them through a Canadian lens. After all, having a bibliography comprised entirely of work conducted in the US doesn't do much to complement research done in Nova Scotia. And, as much as finding studies about rural schools is a work thing, it's also of personal interest. My hometown, New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, is a rural town about an hour and a half away from Halifax. Plus, my university, where I've spent the last 5 years, is in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. Pretty much my whole life has been spent in rural Nova Scotia towns, so, yeah, I guess I'd like to know more about the schools that I grew up in and how to make them better, especially since I'll likely be teaching in one someday.

Image retrieved from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/21-006-x/2008008/maps-cartes/maps-cartes3-eng.htm

Again, knowing most of our readers are from some rural part of Nova Scotia is part of why this is blows me away. The way I see it, if there wasn't any interest in educational reform and helping students who experience poverty in rural Nova Scotia, none of you would be here reading. Yet, here you are, and here I am writing about it. So why such a lack of research? 

I was really happy to come across an article last week that expressed similar frustrations with this gap in research. Even better, the researcher, Azano (2015) gives a couple of examples of what makes rural schools different from urban ones, and how those differences are relevant to my work this summer: "Rural schools have more challenges than just limited resources... Apathy and lack of student engagement have also been cited as behaviors associated with rural students... If a student aspires to stay local and learn a trade, as perhaps familial generations have before, then teachers face the challenge of giving students meaningful (and plausible) responses to questions like, "Why are we reading Shakespeare?" (p. 268). Anyone who's been to a rural Nova Scotian high school, I think, can identify with most or all of this passage. Limited resources? Check. Students aspiring to stay local? Yup. Students having a hard time finding school meaningful? Definitely. Students not understanding the relevance and straight-up genius of Shakespeare? Yes, yes, and yes!

See, I think those are all really interesting points about education in general, like, student engagement and increasing motivation isn't an issue only encountered by rural schools. But since we know for sure that rural schools do struggle with those issues, why isn't there more research about it? Why don't we have more specific information about what students care about in rural contexts, especially when it can also be applied to urban ones? Poverty is a problem everywhere, that's a given, but we know that it's especially problematic in rural areas like Nova Scotia, so, again, why aren't places like it the focus of academic research concerning poverty, literacy, and education?

Image retrieved from https://www.novascotia.ca/finance/statistics/archive_news.asp?id=9828&ym=3

Azano says that, actually, "lots of folks [are] doing important work in rural places, but there is a limited amount of that work getting published in the journals of major academic associations" (p 268). Why aren't these brilliant people getting published? I mean, does it make sense to produce a bunch of research about equity and privilege while simultaneously prioritizing articles concerned with urban education over rural? I think not!

Schools across the board are complicated. They contain teachers and students whose personalities and lives are vastly different, meaning the systems that organize them are also necessarily different depending on the area they're in. I think in order to understand the big questions about poverty and literacy, we need to understand those different areas and how schools operate in them. Azano (my new favourite person) says that "there is so much that is powerful about rural contexts. Rural communities are resilient. They have grit and character... [But] rose-colored glasses only give permission to further ignore challenges or falsely claim that rural communities are harmonious and that folks there are living "the good life" (p. 269). Researchers and research journals need to take off the rose-coloured glasses! We need more information about students who are close to home, and we need it now!

I'm annoyed that I've spent 2 months collected articles and so few of them are about schools like the one I went to. I'm annoyed that there aren't more studies out there about how to help rural students see more value in English classes than basic reading and writing. I'm annoyed that the word "apathetic" is associated with rural students, and there's virtually nothing published to explain why. I know I'm not alone in feeling annoyed, because along with a lack of research on rural students comes  a greater lack in research about Indigenous students in rural communities and students who are economically disadvantaged. If we care about student success and equity, I think we need data from different school environments and types, and that's not going to happen if we have a weird caveat on rural spaces.

I do appreciate what I've read about urban schools and students from urban areas, I just want a more holistic idea of the big questions, and I don't think I can get that without knowing about rural areas too. I'll keep looking, of course, and here's hoping I find a bunch of work about rural high schools and literacy in the near future that will make all of this complaining irrelevant. Regardless, I appreciate your comments, and am grateful for you readers out there!

Chat soon!

Savannah MacDonald

...

Azano, A. P. (2015). Addressing the Rural Context in Literacies Research. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 59(3), 267-269.

Entry #7

Hi friends,

Dr. Anne Murray-Orr was kind enough to sit and chat with me about pedagogy, literacy, and what we can do as teachers to help disadvantaged students. Special thanks to Alanna for being our camera operator, and special thanks to you for taking the time to watch! Please write us a comment, and have a great weekend!

Savannah MacDonald
...

To learn more about Dr. Anne Murray-Orr and see a list of her recent publications, please follow this link: https://www.mystfx.ca/bachelor-of-education/anne-murray-orr-phd.html

Entry #6

Hi everyone!

My name is Alanna and I’ll be taking over the blog for today to talk about the research I’m doing alongside Savannah. I just want to start my blog off with this quote by Richardson who says “As we speak about the people we study; we also speak for them” (Madden, Higgins & Korteweg, 2013, p. 220). I am not an expert in anyway, and I am not here to take the narrative away from the Indigenous people but am hoping to serve as an ally to support the pleas’ they have been making for years.

My research focuses on Indigenous students and how poverty and literacy intersect with their schooling. I’m also intrigued by the promising pedagogical practices of teachers who work with Indigenous students. Many of the articles I read talk about having “culturally relevant curriculum” which means having materials, content and perspectives that are relevant to Indigenous students. The other key term mentioned is “Indigenous Knowledge” which is described as “…oral and symbolic, it is transmitted through the structure of Indigenous languages and passed on to the next generation through modeling, practice and animation, rather than through the written word” (Battiste, 2002, p.2). Integrating Indigenous Knowledge is important because it aligns with traditional teachings for Indigenous students. Indigenous Knowledge allows students to feel connected to their community, authentic in their self-perception and prepared to learn (Battiste, 2002, p. 29).  

Despite numerous research articles, committees and councils, Canada has not done anything to drastically change the education of Indigenous peoples. As a society we associate success with graduating either high school or post-secondary institutions. A study done in 2005 found that approximately 50% of the Aboriginal population in Canada had less than a high school diploma compared to 30% of the general population (Brunnen, 2003, p. 1). The same study found that Aboriginal students are most likely to leave school all together by grades 9 or 10. The question is: why is the Indigenous student dropout rate so high? What is not happening in the classroom to support these students?         

Well known Indigenous scholar, Marie Battiste (2002), suggests pedagogical practices for Indigenous students may include sharing circles, experiential learning and modeling to name a few (p. 18). In 2013-2014, 87% of Mi’kmaw students in Nova Scotia graduated from high school. The Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey attribute this to translating children’s books into the Mi’kmaw language and developing Mi’kmaw language apps for youth to use (Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey, 2014).  However, these practices are not common, as many provincial educational systems tend to focus on testing students and publishing results from standardized examinations. For example, the Program of Learning Assessment for Nova Scotia or PLANS tests students provincially (in Math and ELA) and also publish assessment and examination reports for the general public to access (About PLANS, 2018). Statistically speaking 14% of Indigenous students required test adaptations for the Early Language Literacy assessment that took place in Nova Scotia (Thiessen, 2009, p.17). So as teachers, where do we go from here?

Image retrieved from http://homelesshub.ca/blog/infographic-aboriginal-poverty

When it comes to education we often want answers to be tangible i.e. course material, professional development days or handouts to make our classrooms more welcoming to Indigenous students. Culturally relevant curriculum is not the solution to the problem but rather is a tool (Battiste, 2002, p. 16). You can have multiple textbooks, curriculum guides and PD day’s but without a teacher’s willingness to change the system, the content doesn’t come alive for the students. A study was done in 2007 which compared two grade 9 Social Studies classes where one class (Class A) had integrated Indigenous curriculum and the other (Class B) did not. The results showed that Class A performed better on tests, had a better understanding of the content and grew in confidence as the year went on (Kanu, 2007, p. 32). When looking at student responses Indigenous students noticed how instrumental their teacher was to their success. They spoke of the teacher’s ability to clearly explain the content, the vast knowledge of the teacher and faith in each student’s ability to succeed. The integrated curriculum certainly was engaging for all students in the class, but it was the teacher’s desire to teach the content and his willingness to learn which stood out to students the most (Kanu, 2007, p. 33).

As teachers, we have the ability to create change in the classroom, but we have to feel the change in order to be the change. There needs to be a shift inside us as teachers so we can start to see the value of infusing pedagogical practices that support Indigenous learners in the classroom. Teachers need to embrace this idea and implement it wholeheartedly for Canadian society to see real change. If teachers and administration get behind the push for Indigenous Knowledge, then hopefully the rest of Canada will too.

Have a good one,

Alanna Saunders

...

About PLANS”. (n.d.). Student Assessment and Evaluation. Accessed June 20th, 2018.

Retrieved from: https://plans.ednet.ns.ca/about-plans

Battiste, M. (2002). Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education: A

Literature Review with Recommendations (pp. 1-69). Ottawa, Canada: National Working Group on Education.  

Brunnen, B. (2003). Encouraging Success Ensuring Aboriginal Youth Stay in School (1-23).

Calgary, Canada: Canada West Foundation

Kanu, Y. (2007). Increasing school success among Aboriginal students: Culturally responsive

curriculum or macrostructural variables affecting schooling? Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 1(1), 21-41.

Madden, B., Higgins, M., & Korteweg, L. (2013). “Role models can’t just be on posters”:

Re/membering Barriers to Indigenous Community Engagement. Canadian Journal of Education, 36(2), 212.

Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey. (2014). “Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey Releases Annual Report on

Mi’kmaw Education in Nova Scotia”. Retrieved from: http://kinu.ca/news/mikmaw

kinamatnewey-releases-annual-report-mikmaw-education-nova-scotia 

Thiessen, V. (2009). Identity, Equity and Performance: Mathematics and Reading Literacy in

Nova Scotia Public schools. Nova Scotia: Department of Education.