LEARNING TOGETHERCULTIVATING SUCCESS BY FOSTERING A
SENSE OF BELONGING
Diane WishartUniversity of Alberta
youth and their teachers•Reframing conceptions of teaching
•Coming to awareness of learning from students
Did u hear about the rose that grew from a crack
in the concreteProving nature’s laws wrong it
learned 2 walkwithout having feet
Funny it seems but by keeping its dreams
it learned 2 breathe fresh airLong live the rose that grew
from concretewhen no one else even cared!
—Tupac Shakur (1999)
Comfort that eludes for disenfranchised urban
Aboriginal youthSeparate programs with cultural
underpinnings and/or meeting needs in public schools
Voicecomfort
When I was in [public] high school, the teachers they’re not friendly
I had some pretty bad experiences because all the schools I went to, if you weren’t like a certain type of person then nobody liked you and you got picked on
I didn’t like the way I was being treated, that’s all
Comfort in an alternative program Teachers here don’t look at you as a
student, they look at you as a person and a student so they treat you like both… you can call teachers by their first names here, which is also a sign of respect, too, in a way
The students or the other people are easy to get along with and they accept you
Model of schooling
•Listening to students•Understanding circumstance
•Reflecting on my role•Building trust
Creating the conditions for learning
•Comfort, coffee, conversation
•Community building•flexibility
Labeling
•Special needs coding and the
realities of street life
Success
•Alternative definitions
•Often achieved slowly and
incrementally
http://dianewishart.wordpress.com
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