We are engaged in a variety of creative and important educational work in the community and internationally that demonstrate the themes and principles that infuse our programs.
The following are examples of some of the things that we do:
Forge links with Communities (±)
Almost 1,000 teacher candidates have graduated from the unique Urban Diversity Initiative since its inception in 1994 and are now working to engage and empower students across Toronto and beyond. Candidates currently in the program are teaching in some of Toronto’s most culturally diverse neighbourhoods, where they are working with community groups to address the many issues students face. They are encouraged to challenge their own preconceptions about different communities, explore the perspectives of marginalized students, and develop strategies to include the experiences of those students in the curriculum.
Reach out with Innovative Programs (±)
A Home for Issues Relating to Homelessness
The issue of homelessness often falls off society’s radar. That’s why the Homeless Hub provides an opportunity for people and organizations to share research, stories and best practices regarding homelessness and to develop creative responses to housing instability. This one-stop resource has been created through a partnership among York University, the Government of Canada and community partners from across the country. Please visit www.homelesshub.ca for more information.
Embody Social Responsibility (±)
Speaking their Language
In 2007/2008, the Faculty of Education began collaborating with the York Region District School Board to create a dialogue between linguistic and cultural minority families, focussing on their children’s public schooling. The project hosts a series of forums aimed at learning from parents what they consider to be the most important aspects of their families’ public education experience. It is the first step in a proposed framework for community-referenced decision-making at school and board levels. The project will continue in 2008/2009.
Innovative, Interdisciplinary and Collaborative Research (±)
Mario DiPaolantonio’s project “Commemorative Pedagogical Practices” seeks to explore the pedagogical implications of artistic memorial practices that arise as an effect or response to legal attempts to come to terms with an unsettling or unsettled past. For this work he received $50,870 during the 2008 SSHRC Standard Research Grant competition. The project will focus specifically on Spain and Argentina, two societies in different stages of transition that are presently coming to terms with state sanctioned wrongs. As each nation legally grapples with its traumatic past, it consequently unleashes incommensurable and unsettled memories around the national ‘we’. During such trying times artistic memorial practices can play an important role helping to give form and expression to these unwieldy and contested memories. This project is thus interested in exploring how particular artistic works can provide frames of orientation that render collective meaning to the irruptive memories that arise when nations use legal forums to teach and account for past state wrongs.
Education Around the World (±)
Sharing our approach to Multicultural Education
For nearly 20 years, faculty members from the Teacher Training Department of Uppsala University (ILU) in Sweden have been visiting York’s Faculty of Education to gain ideas to help them address the needs and issues of their growing number of students from refugee and immigrant backgrounds. Professor Bengt Spowe of ILU has annually brought Swedish teachers to participate in a two-week course at Glendon College in which a number of our education professors participated through lectures, seminars and school visits. Professor Carl James has been an annual visiting lecturer at ILU for the past 14 years where he is responsible for a section of a winter/spring course: “The Classroom – a social and cultural meeting place” offered to international students. It is expected that our link with Uppsala University will continue through the new York Centre for Education and Community (YCEC).
A Multifaceted Student Experience (±)
Learning about First Nations Education: Starting from the land
Teachers who have achieved the qualification Teacher of Native Children have learned to focus on positive learning relationships, which is central to successfully teaching Aboriginal children. These teachers help Aboriginal children appreciate their own identities, learn more about their cultural heritage, and build positive self understanding. The goals of the course are to connect students’ learning to their life experiences, and give both teachers and students a deeper cultural understanding of Native relations within Canada.