Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity Richardson, G. et al. (December 2003). Performing the Problematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity Educational Insights, 8(2). [Available: http:/ / www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/ publication/ insights/ v08n02/ contextualexplorations/ richardson/ richardson.html] Performing the Problematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity Terry Carson, Ingrid Johnston, George Richardson Jyoti Mangat and Jennifer Tupper Department of Secondary Education, University of Alberta. Lynne Wiltse University College of the Caribou. Joyce Mgombelo Memorial University. Performed at Provoking Curriculum Conference UBC February/March 2003 Performing the Problematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity Terry Carson, Ingrid Johnston, George Richardson Jyoti Mangat and Jennifer Tupper University of Alberta. Lynne Wiltse University College of the Caribou. Joyce Mgombelo Memorial University. Opening Notes http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v08...contextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (1 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM] Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity George Richardson: One of Ted Aoki’s most important contributions to the field of curriculum scholarship is the insight that curriculum is much more process than product. For Aoki, curriculum is best imagined as a negotiatory act that takes place between curriculum understood as formal plan and curriculum understood as lived experience (Aoki, 1988, 1989, 1992). In a broad sense, it is in this complex negotiatory space that we all craft our professional identities and “overcome mere correctness, so that we can see and hear our doings as teachers harboured within pedagogical being, so we can see and hear who we are as teachers” (Aoki, 1992, 27). In many ways, the performance that follows below announces itself from the (in)between spaces that Aoki has characterized as “a multiplicity growing from the middle”(Aoki, 1992, 19). By voicing the tensions pre-service teachers experience in their teacher education program between multiculturalism as plan and multiculturalism as lived experience, and between their idealized personal and professional identities and the identities they must negotiate, we hope our performance provides helpful insights into problematics and possibilities of developing a curriculum for cultural diversity. Our performance consists of five linked scenes. Each scene attempts to represent a different aspect of developing a curriculum for cultural diversity in teacher education curriculum. SCENE ONE Creating a Cultural Artefact Terry Carson: If we accept that culture matters in teaching, and if we interpret the pedagogy of teacher education as making interventions in the formation of teaching identities, then it is our responsibility to address cultural difference in the teacher education program. Our question is how to address the matter of cultural difference in such a way that pre-service teachers are able to find an enunciatory space from which to explore the tensions and ambivalences of cultural difference and the complexities of their own emerging professional identities. At the University of Alberta, we have been concerned that the curriculum of our teacher education program does not address the question of cultural difference. This concern led to the creation of a six-year initiative, the Culture and Teaching Project, funded by the Metropolis Project. Ingrid Johnston: Our first major initiative in the Culture and Teaching project was the creation of an educational video, entitled Cultural Conversations: Diverse Cultures, Complex Teaching, produced in collaboration with pre-service teachers, university faculty members, http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v08...contextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (2 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM] Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity representatives from community groups, and administrators, teachers, students and parents at three urban schools. The video as a cultural artefact is intended to help teacher educators and student teachers to “engage in empathetic inquiry into [their] own histories and cultural practices” (Salvio in Pinar, 1998, 45) and to serve as a cultural location from which student teachers are able to challenge their understandings of cultural difference. The video attempts to address what Britzman (1991) calls the “overfamiliarity” of teaching as a seemingly transparent cultural activity— a view reinforced by images in the media and popular culture— which leaves the impression that learning to teach involves the acquisition of a self-evident body of teaching and managerial skills. Such a process appears to leave the self untouched by teaching and fails to address the negotiatory nature of teacher identity formation that takes place during the teacher education program and throughout initial teaching experiences. The video also explores historical tensions around Canada’s development as an officially multicultural nation; it considers ambivalences around how student teachers see themselves as implicated in questions of culture and identity, and how schools have taken up notions of cultural difference in their curriculum and pedagogy. Finally, the video as “epistemological object” (Bhabha, 1995) both ‘ represents’ and ‘ critiques’ the notion of diversity as a set of “cultural contents and customs.” This ambiguity, we believe, creates possibilities for engaging pre-service teachers in Bhabha’s enunciatory “third space,” a location from which they can explore the complexities of their own emerging professional identities. As a cultural product, the video reflects our own understandings, prejudices and beliefs, and articulates the constraints, the dilemmas and decisions surrounding the collaborative process that created it. SCENE TWO Cultural Difference and Teacher Identity: Conversations Around a Video In the year following the creation of Cultural Conversations, we asked student teachers to respond to the issues the video raised around cultural difference, identity formation and teaching. George Richardson: It’s been a full term since we began to use the Culture and Teaching video, and I’m glad we are taking this opportunity to discuss the impact it has had in our teacher education classes. Lynne Wiltse: I am too, and I think it’s been particularly useful to have had students record their responses to the video on tape. I know you’ve http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v08...contextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (3 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM] Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity been reviewing the tapes— what are students saying about their reaction to the video? George Richardson: It’s interesting— I think it’s possible to group the responses into four broad perspectives on cultural difference. In some ways each perspective might be considered as an enunciatory space from which pre-service teachers examine and explore how their own identities are implicated in cultural difference. Joyce Mgombelo: But is it really possible to separate the responses so precisely and to fix identities so neatly? What does Joan Scott (1995) say about identity formation— that it’s an “ongoing and ambiguous process of differentiation subject to redefinition, resistance and change” (….)? George Richardson: Of course, you’re right, identity formation is complex. But listening to the tapes, I still get the sense that student teachers are engaging cultural difference in certain identifiable patterns. The first, and most commonly expressed perspective, is that cultural difference is a “pedagogic problem” much like classroom management, for example and that, as a problem, it is most easily resolved through technique. First Perspective: Understanding Cultural Difference as Pedagogical Technique Student Voices For beginning teachers it was good to see the practices [of multicultural education] being implemented and what options are available. This video heightened my awareness about cultural diversity. I think that some more tips would be beneficial…to know what to expect and to be aware of how to bring the school community [members] together despite their differences. We have to learn how to incorporate their [ethnocultural minorities’] learning needs into our lesson plans and curricula. Unfortunately, the video did not focus more on how this is being done or if it can be done. Lynne Wiltse: We certainly know that pre-service teachers have deep concerns over technical issues like classroom discipline, lesson planning and time management. Given these concerns, it’s not terribly surprising that acknowledging cultural difference is reframed as little more than a technique in the developing arsenal of student teachers. George Richardson: I think that’s quite true, but I see a kind of retreat in what we just heard. Reframing cultural difference as an issue best http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v08...contextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (4 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM] Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity approached through technique is ‘ safe’ in the sense that it means student teachers need not have any ‘ opinions’ about cultural difference, and their own cultural identities are certainly not open to question. Why don’t we listen to the voices of students in the second category for whom cultural difference and cultural identity is external to their own identities? Second Perspective: Understanding Cultural Difference as Externalized Other Student Voices I think it’s great that there is greater awareness and instruction in this. I grew up and still live in a community where there is very little cultural diversity and I really enjoy learning about new cultures. I am going with an open mind and an eagerness to learn from students about their cultures, and I hope to encourage students to celebrate their cultures with each other. Both of my parents are from different backgrounds and as I was growing up, I was not taught to look at myself in terms of ethnicity. I do not follow any specific culture that could be termed to follow under multiculturalism. Lynne Wiltse: I see there’s a kind of cultural blindness at work here that suggests that minorities have “culture” but that the mainstream does not. This blindness is exactly what Peter McLaren (1995) and Ruth Frankenberg (1997) talk of when they note that dominant cultures internalize their own power to such a degree that they resist selfquestioning. Joyce Mgombelo:: Exactly, and when does this blindness become resentment? What concerns me more than externalization of cultural difference is the potential for racism. In your review of the tapes did you find any examples of anger and resentment towards the way the video tried to sensitize student teachers to cultural difference? George Richardson: Yes, I did, there were enough responses of this kind to make up a third and frankly quite troubling perspective. Third Perspective Understanding Cultural Difference as Threatening Presence Student Voices http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v08...contextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (5 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM] Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity I realize that I will encounter a great deal of ethnic diversity when I go out to the school. I feel somewhat ill-prepared to deal with students whose cultural background is so significantly different from my own. With the very diverse cultures found at Edmonton schools, education like this is necessary for teachers. It really opens your eyes as to what’s out there that [we] teachers will have to deal with. Perhaps in Alberta it’s [cultural diversity] not as…what’s the word, visible. It’s not as much of an issue yet, but in places like Toronto it’s an issue. It’s not a matter of what you would like, it’s there already. Joyce Mgombelo: I see what you mean, this sense of the Other as an unwanted, alien presence and a direct threat to their own identities. I think it was Julia Kristeva (1993) who spoke of nations constructed around a “cult of origins” that tend to frame itself around a rejection of “those others who do not share my origins” (p. 2). George Richardson: And what does this mean for the classrooms where students with these views will be working? With concerns about the survival of their own identities, will the video promote reflection, understanding and openness, or will it be seen as yet another threat? Joyce Mgombelo: It seems to me that what we’ve heard up to this point paints a less than encouraging picture about how students see cultural difference. Did you find any evidence in the tapes that students view cultural difference in a more positive light? George Richardson: Yes. A number of students could see how their own cultural locations were a part of the wider notion of cultural difference. What was most encouraging about these students was that they could also see how this understanding could help them teach in culturally diverse classrooms. Fourth Perspective: Understanding Cultural Difference as Lived Experience Student Voices I think it is extremely important that when we talk about cultural diversity that we remember that there is a white culture. As teachers we need to promote tolerance, but realize our own politics and deal with them so we can give all our students a fair and equal opportunity. http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v08...contextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (6 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM] Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity As a First Nation person, I watched this video from my eyes who are most definitely ‘ culture biased.’ In some ways I do not think that we have changed since the policies of expulsion and elimination: we have in some aspects become more careful as a society in the way we promote assimilation. I call this ‘ polite racism.’ However, with my own cultural biases, I must state that there is hope. With more educators who feel [the importance of] meeting and connecting with each family one at a time. This is where I feel that I will place myself as an educator. Lynne Wiltse: This is certainly reassuring. But I find it interesting that the student who was most able to reflect on her cultural identity was a First Nations student teacher. Perhaps the video really only preaches to the converted, and we’re still left with the question of what impact it has on the majority of our students who will never have the experience of being cultural minorities. Joyce Mgombelo: But don’t your concerns point to the very reason why we should continue to use the video? Whatever its shortcomings, it opens up an enunciatory space where self-reflection is possible. When else will such an opportunity arise for student teachers? Certainly not once they begin teaching. George Richardson: Basically I agree, but I think that if we’re going to continue to use the video, we also need to think about the next stage of our research. From the data we’ve collected to date, I think we should begin a conversation around why many of our student teachers resist the notion that they speak from a specific cultural location. I think a good starting point for that conversation is considering whiteness as a cultural construct. SCENE THREE Stories of Whiteness and Teaching The following five narratives, related by members of the Culture and Teaching research team, offer personal perspectives on questions of whiteness and teaching. George Richardson: That’s Not About Here As a beginning teacher in a remote northern community in the 1970’s, one of my assignments was to teach social studies from grades 8 through 12. At the time, issues of social justice were very much a part of the new Alberta social studies curriculum. In particular, students were expected to take part in discussions about the causes of and http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v08...contextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (7 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM] Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity solutions to poverty in Canada. Eager to involve my students in the values clarification and social inquiry approaches I had learned in my teacher education classes and that were then sweeping through social studies, I attempted to engage my Grade 11 students, many of whom were Mé tis and Aboriginal, in serious discussions about what caused poverty in Canada and what they should do about it. To my surprise, most students expressed little interest in the issue, and many were visibly and vocally bored. Their disinterest only increased the more I pushed them to take up a stance on such issues as homelessness, the unequal distribution of wealth and the need for low income housing. Finally, in desperation, I asked Maria, one of my best students, to stay after class to discuss what was going wrong. I explained to her how important it was for students to come to grips with poverty, and expressed my concern that the class seem uninterested in such a significant social issue. Maria listened quietly, then said, “but Mr. Richardson, that’s not about here.” When I asked her to explain, she indicated that the text and all the resources were about poverty in Toronto and that students found it boring because it wasn’t about any world they knew or felt connected to. Maria helped me to see that both my teacher education classes and the social studies curriculum were framed in white, Anglo-Saxon, and urban terms that made her world invisible and that my students’ bored reaction was a logical response to their own marginalization. Why should they enter into a dialogue with a curriculum that refused to acknowledge their existence? Joyce Mgombelo: “A Good Student” This story is about a conversation I had with one parent—an African parent, Nangula. Nangula was complaining about a meeting he just had with his daughter’s grade 5 teacher. The purpose of the meeting was mainly to talk about Ndapewa’s (Nangula’s daughter) report card. The parent was very excited about his daughter’s performance, for the report showed very good grades in almost all subjects: Mathematics, Science, Language Arts, etc. What seemed to come out of that discussion between the parent and the teacher was that the teacher was encouraging the girl to pursue physical education more than other subjects. The teacher seemed to concentrate on the Ndapewa’s performance in physical education. She said: “I am so glad to have Ndapewa in my class. She is a very good student, cooperates very well with her team-members and she http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v08...contextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (8 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM] Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity possesses very good skills in basketball and soccer. She should keep up the good job and some day she will become a very good athlete/sportswoman.” But the parent was very surprised and disturbed by the direction this conversation was taking. He noticed how the teacher was putting more emphasis on Ndapewa’s good job in Physical Education and ignoring other subjects in which Ndapewa was equally good. He wondered to himself: “Why would the teacher talk about physical education only while my daughter was also doing very well in mathematics and the sciences? Why is she encouraging Ndapewa to do her best in Physical Education and says nothing about Science or Mathematics or even Language Arts?” Lynne Wiltse: What’s the Matter With Them? My first teaching job was in 1980 in an isolated Aboriginal community in the Cariboo Chilcotin region of British Columbia. I arrived in the community having recently completed what I considered to be a first-rate teacher education program at the University of Victoria. A few days before school began, a group of curious children from the reserve, all students at the school, arrived at my teacherage to meet the new teacher. The new principal and his wife were in the other half of the teacherage. After asking me some questions, the children began to talk amongst themselves about me, the principal and his wife. They referred to the principal as ‘ he.’ Then I heard someone call his wife ‘ he,’ and the next moment I was ‘ he’ as well. I was confused. They had been calling me Miss Wiltse. They knew I was female—didn’t they? They knew the difference between men and women—didn’t they? I can still remember wondering what was the matter with them? Thinking, I know these are ‘ backwoods’ kids, but what have I got myself in for here? Sometime in the first few weeks of school, I learned that my students spoke a dialect of English, sometimes referred to as Indian or Indigenous English, which was the result of the influence of the Indigenous language on English. I learned that dialects are variations of a language, exhibiting varying degrees of differences in the areas of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and discourse patterns. For example, in many Indigenous languages, speakers classify things according to whether they are animate or inanimate, and not according to a gender that is masculine, feminine or neuter as in English. So, Aboriginal students learning English will frequently say ‘ he’ when they mean ‘ she.’ I learned that while ‘ nonstandard’ dialects of English are systematic and rule-governed, they are often considered to be deficient forms of language. There was a logical explanation for the way my students spoke. But, I didn’t know that. I http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v08...contextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (9 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM] Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity hadn’t learned about dialect (or so many other things relevant to these students) in my teacher education program. And so, when I met my first students, I did think that there was something wrong with the way they spoke. It didn’t occur to me that the fault lay in my teacher education program. Jyoti Mangat: Multiculturalism in the Suburbs I was raised in a predominantly white, middle-class suburb and as a child I was often the only “brown person” in school. The overwhelming majority of my students were white as well. Generally, I have grown accustomed to not seeing myself as “not white,” even sometimes when the context is one in which race, culture, and ethnicity are the topics of discussion. Despite the fact that I was born in India, and as a result of the social advantages of my upbringing, I tend largely, but not exclusively, to identify myself with the dominant culture. As the only non-white teacher in the large suburban high school where I taught for four years, I was always very conscious in my teaching of not wanting to be seen as a teacher with an “agenda.” Because of the overwhelmingly homogeneous student population, questions of culture were never pressing in my school—indeed, these were questions that weren’t even asked or addressed during my time there. As a result, I was concerned that attempts on my part to raise issues of culture and difference in the classroom and in the staff room might possibly be interpreted as my having some sort of “chip on my shoulder” about racial issues. However, I struggled with this difficulty because of my own interest in questions surrounding multiculturalism. Over my time at this high school, I began to see some of the ways in which my position as a “minority” teacher took on a more symbolic presence than I might have imagined. For example, the parents of the few non-white students I did teach usually seemed to be very happy, and often relieved, to meet me. For most, I was one of the few non-white teachers their children had had in their schooling and they were often curious about what brought me to education as a career. This interest intensified when I returned to university to pursue a master’s degree while still teaching high school English. One of the participants in my masters’ research was the son of another teacher in the district. This student’s family also had origins in India and I realized when this student returned his signed consent form to me that questions of culture and difference are as significant in a relatively homogeneous environment as they are in a more diverse setting. Across the http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v0...ontextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (10 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM] Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity bottom of the consent form, near her signature, this student’s mother had written, “I’m so proud of you.” This woman was not a teacher I had ever worked with, nor had I ever taught her child—really, our only connections were the fact that neither of us was white and that we both worked in the same school district. This encounter has made me think about the fact that none of the white teachers I’ve talked to about my research have ever responded in this way. There have been varying degrees of interest, but no one else seems to have taken what I’m trying to do quite so personally. I wonder if this is what Spivak means when she talks about “strategic essentialism”? Ingrid Johnston: Interrogating Whiteness in a Teacher Education Class As a white, middle-class woman who teaches student teachers, the majority of whom are also white, I feel I should be addressing and challenging perceived norms of whiteness. In a class I taught for secondary undergraduate students who are English language arts majors. I introduced a reading, viewing and discussion activity that focused on issues of racism, prejudice and intolerance, built around Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, (1960) which has become a staple of the North American school canon. Lee’s novel offers a liberal, humanist stance on questions of race and intolerance. Filtered through the perspective of Scout, a young white girl, the story centres around Atticus, her lawyer father, who exposes the racism of a small southern U.S. town, and saves the life of an African-American man wrongly accused of rape. In an effort to foreground how the novel is focalized through a white middle-class perspective, I asked my student teachers to read Harper Lee’s novel in conjunction with Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by the African-American writer, Mildred Taylor. In this novel, events of racism and intolerance in the American South are portrayed through the eyes of a young black girl. I also asked students to view the film A Time to Kill, a late 1990s Hollywood version of John Grisham’s novel that depicts the trial of a black man accused of killing the white men who raped his daughter. Students kept a reading and viewing log of ideas, reflections and memories that the three texts evoked and then brought these to class for discussion. A majority of my student teachers loved Lee’s novel, identified effortlessly with the novel’s strong white characters, felt angry at the racist views held by many of the town’s citizens, and expressed empathy for the weak black characters who were so unjustly treated in the story. Similarly, they saw http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v0...ontextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (11 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM] Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity only the “rightness” of the white lawyer in A Time to Kill bringing about justice for the oppressed African-Americans. I had hoped that reading Mildred Taylor’s novel in conjunction with Harper Lee’s book, might cause students to interrogate their identification with the white characters in To Kill a Mockingbird, but this was not the case. Most found Mildred Taylor’s book far less engaging. I paid insufficient attention to the power of Lee’s ability to construct them as “ideal readers” of her text, and I failed to take account of student teachers’ lack of experience or preparation for dealing with issues surrounding cultural difference. They tended to see racial identity as something troublesomely possessed by other people and were unaware of how their own racial identity privileges them. I am beginning to understand the difficulties of challenging historically-privileged positions of power conferred by whiteness, and the complexities of resisting discourses that privilege or marginalize readers in particular ways. SCENE FOUR Tensions of Resistance and Ideology Jyoti Mangat: The Limits of Critical Theory Critical pedagogy, with its belief in the transformative power of education, takes as its starting point issues surrounding justice and injustice. With critiques of commonly-held belief systems as its prime intent, critical theorists such as Giroux (1994) and Peter McLaren (1995) have placed power differentials at the centre of current educational debates. However, there seems to be a pedagogical shortfall at the heart of critical theory that privileges what Giroux (1994) refers to as “illumination” as the reasoned path to social justice. Our work, while it takes up concerns similar to those of critical theory, is interested in a more psychoanalytic approach to anti-racist and multicultural education. By incorporating elements of psychoanalysis into our theoretical framework, we have attempted to shift the location of our interrogation from the other to the self. Along with an interrogation of the external, institutional conditions that continue to hinder the ideals of antiracist education, we believe in the need to interrogate the resistances to knowledge that reside within individuals. The Culture and Teaching Project has drawn upon the application of psychoanalytic theory to education (Britzman, 1998; Briton, 2000). Here, we have been interested in in-depth explorations of student teachers’ attitudes toward multicultural and anti-racist education in their teacher education program and in the school curriculum. This study builds upon http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v0...ontextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (12 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM] Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity earlier research in the Culture and Teaching Project that shows general consensus about the value of multicultural education, but disagreement about the role of anti-racist education. The sources and dynamics of this disagreement were explored through hermeneutic conversations with the student teachers. In addition, social psychoanalysis informs the research and it is employed as an aspect of reflective practice in teacher education. While psychoanalysis has traditionally been applied to individual psychotherapy, there is a growing recognition that it might have an even greater significance for social and educational theory (Kincheloe and Pinar, 1991). In terms of education, psychoanalysis has drawn attention to the role of the unconscious in learning, helping to explain, for example, why knowledge that is potentially dangerous and threatening to one’s selfimage is rejected. The psychoanalytic concepts of “dangerous knowledge” and “a passion for ignorance” (Britzman, 1998) offer potentially productive insights for understanding the debate between anti-racist and multicultural education. This project elaborates upon Britzman’s conceptual work by having these insights inform hermeneutic conversations with student teachers over an extended period of time. Terry Carson: Ideology and Pedagogy in Multicultural/Antiracist Education What are the limits of ideology that became apparent in our hermeneutic conversations with pre-service teachers during their teaching experiences? We discovered that the student teachers in our study became increasingly aware of some of the problematics of language in multicultural/anti-racist education. One student, Amy, spoke of how attempts by the school to attend to culture ended up being celebrations of foods and fashions, making multiculturalism “cheap, gaudy and frivolous.” The Stop Racism Day that occurred during her time at the school seemed to fall short, or was ignored altogether. This phenomenon of always falling short of expectations is, according to Slavoj Zizek (2000), a feature of ideology. Student teachers are well aware of prohibitions against racism and official support for multiculturalism, but they do not know, with any precision, what the law is. Ideology depends upon this gap between knowing that there is a law and not knowing the exact regulations. As Zizek says, it is the tragic fate of the subject to “be held hostage to the word,” “to a priori guilty ... in his very existence guilty without knowing why” (p.14). Jennifer Tupper: Navigating the Tensions between Saying and Doing http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v0...ontextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (13 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM] Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity Student Voice # 1 “I’ve had a really hard time fitting in. The only way I could bring in art from another culture was to imbed it in that formalism. I had to be sneaky.” Student Voice #2 “There needs to be a way of balancing the curriculum. But there’s pressure to keep to the pace…yet you really should try to go there.” Student Voice #3 “Nothing I did in my student teaching was my own. I felt I was walking into this suit every day, putting on survival shoes.” Student Voice #4 “Me considering myself to be a feminist, why would I consider cutting my lesson on women? Why would that be the first to go and not any other stuff? Why?—because that’s not on the exam.” These are some of the comments that emerged from several conversations we engaged in with pre-service teachers over the course of their student teaching experiences. Initially, we were attempting to uncover how these individuals thought about multicultural or anti-racist education in the classroom context. What emerged, however, went beyond discussions of multiculturalism or anti-racism and reinforced Deborah Britzman’s assertion that learning to teach is a negotiatory process. The way that we imagine that we will teach as we are preparing to enter the classroom is not necessarily reflected in the way we actually teach. Rather, it is a process of constant negotiation and mediation. Likening the student teaching experience to “putting on survival shoes” is a reminder of the inevitable difficulty of life. For many pre-service teachers, walking into the classroom requires putting on a different set of clothes, occasionally ill-fitting, and often uncomfortable. The pre-service teacher who imagined herself to be a feminist, but dropped her lesson on women because it was not on the exam, was uncomfortable with this decision. In fact, she was somewhat surprised by it since the action contradicted what she believed to be an integral part of her identity. She found herself wearing “clothes” that didn’t really fit, but she wore them nonetheless. As teacher educators, it is important to remember that our pre-service teachers are constantly negotiating their own subject positions as teachers and that they are living in tension between saying and doing. We, too, must think carefully about our pedagogy as we prepare our students to teach. Elizabeth Ellsworth reminds us that in teaching, things are not always as they seem. She reminds us that there is a difference between thinking we know what we are doing as educators versus entertaining the idea that http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v0...ontextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (14 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM] Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity teaching is “undecidable.” Is it realistic to expect that our own subjectivities will always influence the decisions that we make, that these will decide for us how we teach? Calling ourselves feminist or anti-racist does not mean that we will enact these ideals in our own pedagogy. In education classes, it is easy to get caught up in a pedagogy of prescription—discussing the “best way to teach” the “best way to take up issues of culture and gender” and the “best way to address difficulties.” Sometimes, our students even demand this approach expecting that we will provide them with a teaching formula. As a teacher educator, I have struggled with this in my own classroom. But how does this serve our students once they leave the university and enter the schools? How does this help them recognize the “undecidability” of teaching? How does this help them navigate the tension that they will live in between saying and doing? Conclusion(s) Where do these questions leave us as teacher educators committed to projects of anti-racist and multicultural education? How should we conduct ourselves with respect to our students and their own processes of negotiation as they are learning to teach? Perhaps we can begin by actively recognizing the tensions that exists between saying and doing, and by acknowledging that in teaching, things are not always as they seem. In this way, we may be able to create what Ted Aoki calls “enunciatory spaces of cultural and language differences,” (Aoki, 1999, 33) in which pre-service teachers are able to explore the difficult spaces (in)between curriculum as planned and curriculum as lived experience. References Alladin, A. (1996) Racism in Canadian schools. Toronto: Harcourt and Brace. Aoki, Ted T. 1988. “Towards a Dialectic between the Conceptual World and the Lived World: Transcending Instrumentalism in Curriculum Orientation.” In Contemporary Curriculum Discourses, ed. William F. Pinar, 402–406. Scottsdale: Gorsuch Scarisbrick. ———.1989. Layered Understandings of Curriculum and Pedagogy: Challenges to Curriculum Developers. Paper presented to the Alberta Teachers Association, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, March. ———.1992. Layered Voices of Teaching: The Uncannily Correct and the Elusively True. In Understanding Curriculum as Phenomenological and Deconstructed Text, ed. William F. Pinar and William Reynolds, 17–27. New York: Teachers College. http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v0...ontextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (15 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM] Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity ———.(1999). In the midst of doubled imaginaries: The Pacific community as diversity and as difference. Interchange 30(1). Bannerji, Himani. (2000). The dark side of the nation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Bhabha, H. (2000). The Pre-Occupation of Postcolonial Studies, Fawzia Afzal Khan and Kalpana Sheshadri-Crooks. Durham & London: Duke University Press. Bleakley, A. (2000) Writing with invisible ink: narrative, confessionalism and reflective practice. Reflective Practice 1(1), 15. Briton, D. (2000) Reading Lacan with education. Edmonton: University of Alberta, unpublished doctoral dissertation. Britzman, D. (1991) Practice makes practice: A critical study of learning to teach. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Britzman, D. (1998) Lost subjects, contested objects: Towards a psychoanalytic inquiry of learning. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Caputo, J. (1987) Radical hermeneutics: Repetition, deconstruction, and the hermeneutic project. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. Carson, T. (1986) Conversation as a mode of educational research. Phenomenology + Pedagogy 4(2). Carson, T. (1992) Remembering forward: Reflections on educating for peace. In W. Pinar and W. Reynolds (Eds.), Understanding curriculum as phenomenological and deconstructed text. New York: Teachers College Press. Carson, et.al. (1999) School programs that promote intercultural understanding. In G. Malicky, B. Shapiro, & K. Mazurek (Eds.), Building foundations for safe and caring schools. Edmonton: Duval House. Carson, T. & I. Johnston. (2000) The difficulty with difference in teacher education: Towards a pedagogy of compassion. Alberta Journal of Educational Research 46(1), 75-83. Ellsworth, E. (1997) Teaching positions: Difference, pedagogy and the power of address. New York: Teachers College Press. Felman, S. (1987) Jacques Lacan and the adventure of insight. Cambridge, http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v0...ontextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (16 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM] Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity MA: Harvard Press. Frankenberg, Ruth. (ed.). 1997. Displacing whiteness: essays in social and cultural criticism. Durham, NC : Duke University Press. Gadamer, H-G. (1989) Truth and method. New York: Crossroads Press. Gauthier, Clermont (1992) Between crystal and smoke: or how to miss the point in the debate about action research.In W. Pinar and W. Reynolds, Understanding curriculum as phenomenological and deconstructed text, New York: Teachers College Press. Giroux, H. (1994). Disturbing pleasures: Learning popular culture. New York: Routledge. Huddleston Edgerton, S. (1996). Translating the curriculum: Multiculturalism into cultural studies. New York & London: Routledge. Kristeva, Julia. 1991. Strangers to ourselves. Trans. Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press. Lund, D. (2001). Social justice pedagogy and teacher-student activism: A collaborative study of school-based projects. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. University of British Columbia. Magsino, R. (1985). The right to multicultural education: A descriptive and normative analysis. Multiculturalism/Multiculturisme, 9(1), 4-9. McLaren, P., and Kanpol, B. (Eds.). (1995). Critical Multiculturalism: Uncommon voices in a common struggle, Westport: Bergin and Garvey. Roman, L. (1993) White is a color! White defensiveness, postmodernism, and anti-racist pedagogy. (pp. 71-88). In C. McCarthy & W. Crichlow (eds.), Race, identity and representation in education. New York: Routledge. Scott, Joan. 1995. Multiculturalism and the Politics of Identity. In The identity in question, (ed.) John Rajchman, 3–14. New York: Routledge. Spivak, G. (1993). Outside in the teaching machine. New York & London: Routledge. Young, J. (1999) Multicultural, intercultural and antiracist in-service in teacher education. Ottawa: Canadian Council for Multicultural and Intercultural Education. http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v0...ontextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (17 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM] Educational Insights | Volume 8, Number 2, 2003 | George Richardson et al. |...lematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity Zizek, S. (1998) The inherent transgression. Cultural Values 2(1) 1 - 17. http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v0...ontextualexplorations/richardson/richardsonpdf.html (18 of 18) [12/31/2003 8:00:34 PM]