Abstract
Pre-service teachers move through multiple learning communities during teacher education programs, arguably emerging as authentic insiders in teaching culture. In this case study, a critical perspective is offered by Ann, a First Nations learner who described her experience of teacher education, and how she came to question different aspects of her university program and practicum assignment which challenged her understandings of self. The experiences of pre-service teachers like Ann are often hidden from view, and what they perceive as shortcomings in programming are often unseen within institutional contexts. Ann articulated numerous gaps that still reside within teacher culture despite structures that are in place to address such gaps. The situated knowledge of pre-service teachers can offer alternative perspectives to guide the future of teacher education by drawing attention to shifts underway among students that will change the nature of professional practice.
Acknowledgements
My special thanks to Dr Erika Hasebe-Ludt and Dr Linda Farr Darling for their generous support of my research. I greatly appreciate the helpful comments of reviewers and the editor, Professor Jo-Anne Reid, on earlier drafts of this article. This research was supported by a fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanites Research Council of Canada.
Notes
1. In a self-study, Teresa Strong-Wilson discusses her experience as a White teacher in a First Nations community. She charts her initial ‘exile’ in the wilderness to becoming a member of the community. See Bringing Memory Forward: Storied Remembrance in Social Justice Education with Teachers (2008); Cynthia Chambers describes her journey with First Nations communities as mixed and mixing identities. See Hasebe-Ludt, Chambers & Leggo's Life Writing and literary métissage as an ethos for our times (2009).
2. According to Hasebe-Ludt, Chambers and Leggo (Citation2009), some scholars are questioning whether the ‘contemporary context of the Americas can be considered post-colonial’ because First Nations peoples ‘resist the collapse of difference into new hybrid forms that do not honour and retain the original Indigeneity as being distinct from other forms of difference’ (p. 37).
3. The Truth and Reconciliation Canada website is available at http://www.trc-cvr.ca/index_e.html.