Colleen Elep Curriculum Planning, General, Social Justice

Why Representation Matters in Your Teaching Practice

Growing in Ontario as a second generation Filipino largely involved learning someone else’s histories and stories – voyageurs, cowboys, settlers, fur traders, and a whole slew of white protagonists. I didn’t know that I was missing any perspectives, and happily read my way through Shakespeare, Salinger and Austen, dreaming of studying English literature in university.

When I started teaching, I dutifully used whatever resources were provided, excitedly poring over the details of England’s glorious wars and conquests. I genuinely believed I was sharing alternative perspectives through ‘multicultural’ or ‘social justice’ texts written by white authors. I firmly subscribed to the idea that creative works of fiction could be viewed separately from an author’s lived experience, and that a text did not need to be questioned if it contained all the elements of ‘good’ storytelling.

Despite my best efforts to serve my diverse group of students, I was ultimately serving up the same perspective and worldview I had been raised with: Euro-centric, Western, and woefully one-sided.

Like many other educators over the last 5-10 years, I felt the need to decolonize my work and critically reflect on my own perspective. And while I am still largely on a journey to understand my own complex relationship with Canada and my family’s cultural ancestry, I am certain that we have the capacity and resources to ensure that the students we teach don’t have to be instilled with a worldview that undermines their own sense of identity by ignoring and devaluing their cultural assets.

Use Culturally Responsive Resources

Representation matters. When you don’t see yourself represented in the media you consume or what you learn in school, you can feel alienated from your own community or surroundings. Seeing yourself and your culture in what you learn is engaging, empowering and exciting.

Teachers today likely have access to the most diverse range of authors and stories in the history of publishing. Black, Indigenous, East Asian, South Asian, Latinx, Southeast Asian and 2SLGBTQ+ authors are writing some incredible books for kids and young adults. And no, you don’t have to read every young adult novel or picture book that hits the shelves of your local bookstore: ask the library resource, support staff or consultant in your school or board to suggest some titles, and divide the reading up with your teaching team. Build literature circles or reading units with the titles that reflect the range of identities of the students in your classroom, co-planning and co-teaching as much as possible to save time and energy.

Beyond language arts, there are so many ways to make your programming more culturally responsive and representative of the students you teach. Incorporate the voices and histories of different communities in your social studies, history, or geography teaching. Make independent research and inquiry a regular practice, scaffolding learning by providing prompts or ideas that encourage learners to discover different perspectives and to consume historical and social discourses critically.

If the class or classes you teach is monocultural, students will still benefit from learning diverse perspectives and narratives. Such texts can dispel stereotypes, enable students to develop a more balanced perspective of society, or spark interest and engagement.

Change Isn’t Easy

Doing the work of disrupting the way you teach is not easy and will certainly not happen overnight. It is easy to get triggered by ideas and perspectives that don’t align with the worldview you have held for much of your life. And it can feel onerous to invest time and energy into changing your program. So start with small changes: a new text or approach to assessment, tweaking your discussion questions to provoke a more critical discussion, or connect with other teachers that are intentionally changing their programming to be anti-racist and anti-oppressive.

The effort you place into making today’s learning environment a more inclusive place will pay off when you see students feeling seen, engaged and connected to the place they learn.

grey squares spelling out the word "Welcome" on a red background.
Colleen Elep General

4 Ways to Welcome Students from Refugee Situations

Students that come from refugee situations are a unique group that differ from other newcomer students. Some may have fled their homes due to persecution and war. Others have endured long journeys through different countries, often without a clear destination. Some may have witnessed acts of violence against families and loved ones, or have been victims of abuse and torture. Many have experienced significant lapses in formal education.

Like other newcomer students, students from refugee situations will be experiencing the stressors of adjusting to a new country,  a new school, and learning a new language. Their families may also face systemic barriers like discrimination, Islamophobia and anti-Black racism.

It’s important for teachers to keep in mind that they already possess many teaching skills and strategies that will help these students feel safe and thrive in a new environment.

Let’s explore some ways teachers and staff can welcome and support students from refugee situations.

Learn the Background of the Student

When teachers know the backgrounds of newcomer students in their classes, they can determine appropriate program adaptations, understand their student’s unique circumstances,  and be better prepared to provide trauma-informed pedagogy if required.

What is the best way to get to know a newcomer student? If your board has an intake and initial assessment process, read through the report to get a sense of their background and a snapshot of their language, literacy and numeracy skills.

During class, ask the student to show you the places they have been on a map, or to show photos of their home country or city, using a translation tool if needed.

Invite students’ families to the schools and, if needed, enlist an interpreter to facilitate the meeting. Use the meeting as an opportunity to answer questions the family has about the school and education system in Ontario, and ask questions about their child’s educational background, interests, goals, and what language(s) they speak at home.

Support Learning Across Languages

Newcomer students with refugee backgrounds are often multilingual, arriving in Canada with oral communication and literacy skills in one or more languages. In many cases, these students will have emergent literacy skills due to interruptions in formal schooling.

Multilingual learners (MLs) will need program adaptations that will enable them to learn English, the language of instruction in their classroom, while also maintaining proficiency in the languages they already communicate with.

Providing opportunities for MLs to use the full range of their linguistic skills honours the cultural assets students bring to the school community, enables students to share their prior knowledge and experiences with their peers, and supports literacy development. Teachers can encourage students to ‘translanguage’ or use the full range of their linguistic repertoires by:

  • Informing the class/school community about the importance of home languages.
  • Making students’ languages visible in the classroom.
  • Making room for  home languages as part of the learning process.
  • Embracing languages, dialects and accents.
  • Providing access to multilingual resources.

Tools like Google Translate and Microsoft Translate support translanguaging and can be a lifeline for students who want to work alongside their peers.

Be Trauma Informed

Many students from refugee situations have experienced traumatic events, and that trauma may continue long after they arrive in Canada. Some students show many signs of trauma, some will show few signs, and some will show no signs of trauma at all. It’s important to keep in mind that as a teacher, you are not a therapist or a mental health professional that will treat the trauma symptoms of students.

You can be trauma-informed by becoming aware of the prevalence of trauma among students, what symptoms of trauma might look like, and how trauma can affect them. Creating a safe, supportive and regulated learning environment will be critical to supporting the transition of students with refugee backgrounds into the classroom.

To learn more about the signs that a student may be struggling with adjustment and trauma, and strategies for creating trauma-informed learning environments, please visit this page or check out this resource from the Alberta Teachers’ Association.

Use the Steps to English Proficiency (STEP) Continua to Provide Appropriate Program Adaptations

Setting appropriate learning expectations for newcomer students who are emergent speakers of English is essential to supporting their success in school, and is mandated by ministry policy. The ESL or ELD Steps to English Proficiency (STEP) Continua is a Ministry developed resource that is very helpful for assessment and planning purposes.  STEP along with the Ontario Curriculum can be used alongside an initial assessment report (if available) and ongoing observations you have of the student.  Find out in your school and in your board what supports or staff or professional learning there is to guide and support programming for ELLs. Start by:

  • Determine whether the student will be placed on the ESL or ELD STEP Continua using recommendations from the initial assessment report and any other observations you have gathered about the student in class or communicating with the family. When a student in grades 3 or higher has had significant gaps or  interrupted learning, they should be placed on the ELD Continua.
  • Modify grade level curriculum expectations, when needed, using the appropriate STEP Continua. You may modify the depth and breadth of the learning expectation to provide the student with an entry point into the Ontario curriculum.
  • Support the student’s learning further by creating a culturally responsive learning environment and providing accommodations that facilitate English or French language acquisition. For example: use of visuals, translation tools, pairing with a peer that speaks the same language, multilingual instructions.

Your Work as a Teacher Matters

When you create a welcoming, safe and supportive environment for newcomer students, you are not just enhancing the learning environment, but playing a direct role in facilitating the success of some of the most vulnerable learners in the school community.