Christian Educators Journal: December 2021

Christian Educators Journal December 2021 Vol. 61 No. 2

Speak Up Civil Discourse as Kinship Encouraging Conversations about Race and Culture I Hear You: Poetry as a Tool for Literacy and Education Highlighting Global Issues through Spoken Commentaries Are You an Indiginest?

Future Issues February 2022—School Staff: A Precious Resource Because the quality of teaching makes the most significant difference in the success of any school, the culture of a school faculty and the training and support given to teachers and staff plays a vital role in achieving a school’s goals. In a Christian school, this has implications for the spiritual development of students as well as their educational success. How do Christian schools develop cultures of learning and growth among their faculty? What types of leadership best help teachers succeed in their work with students? What kind of mentorship and support helps young teachers succeed, and what opportunities and experiences promote longevity and satisfaction in careers of experienced teachers?

What are the elements of successful professional development? And beyond a free pizza lunch, how can we make faculty and staff feel appreciated and supported?

April 2022—Resource Review Each year we highlight the best books, films, websites, teaching tools, and other resources for Christian school teachers. We publish reviews of student-facing material (like which books to stock in your classroom library) as well as materials relevant to school staff (like curriculums or books about teaching). Submissions are currently open. Contact Steve and Abby at cejeditor@ gmail.com to propose an article. Articles are due January 31.

Contents

3 Editorial STEVE TUIT AND ABBY ZWART

5 Civil Discourse as Kinship DAVID LOEWEN

12 Encouraging Conversations about Race and Culture EDITH van der BOOM

19 I Hear You: Poetry as a Tool for

Emotional Literacy and Empathy Education HAYDEN MacKINNON

25 Highlighting Global Issues

through Spoken Commentaries ANTHONY BIGORNIA

30 Are You an Indiginest?

GINETTE MACK

Christian Educators Journal December 2021 1

Christian Educators Journal Vol. 61 No. 2, December 2021 cejonline.com Co-­­­­editors Steve Tuit and Abby Zwart cejeditor@gmail.com The Christian Educators Journal (CEJ) encourages letters to the editor in response to articles presented in the CEJ. Letters must be accompanied by the author’s name and email address. The CEJ reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity. Where a letter addresses issues raised by the author of an article, the CEJ reserves the right to invite the article author to respond to the letter.

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Editorial

I

t takes courage to speak up.

Many social movements of the last several years (like #MeToo or #BlackLivesMatter or #StopAsianHate) have required a few brave individuals to speak up in the face of injustice in order to start a tidal wave of support and change. Anti-­bullying movements like “be nice” and Pink Shirt Day aim to teach students not to be passive bystanders, but to speak up and intervene in bullying situations they see happening around them. The popular YA novel The Hate U Give and its film adaptation follow the story of Starr, a young black girl who learns to harness the power of her voice, at great personal risk, throughout the story. Society highly values politicians and other leaders who are willing to challenge the status quo and speak their minds.

Speaking up is also a key skill in much of Scripture. Moses tries to use his poor speaking skills as an excuse to get out of leading the Israelites out of Egypt (Exod. 4:10). The prophets are called to speak to Israel on behalf of God, so they do—often at great length. The disciples are given the ability to speak in various languages at Pentecost so that they can share the gospel with a new audience (Acts 2). And even the apostle Paul, one of the greatest speakers of the Bible, needs some encouragement to keep him going. In Acts 18, Paul is in Corinth and has “devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah” (v. 5). This isn’t a popular message with the Corinthians, and they “[become] abusive” (v. 6). But God steps in: One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.” So Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God. (vv. 9–11)

In so many situations—whether they are preaching the gospel, standing up to a bully, or decrying mistreatment and injustice in the world—our students need powerful, practiced voices. They need training in posture, vocabulary, and confidence. They need tips on persuasion and how to be sensitive to diverse audiences. So how do we teach them?

This issue focuses on helping students—and teachers—learn to speak up. Contributors give suggestions for using poetry in your classroom, encouraging civil discourse, administering oral exams, and incorporating more BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) voices in your curriculum.

Whether you’re encouraging the quiet kid in the back of the room to share an idea or helping hone the already-­boisterous voices of a group of theater students, we hope there’s a tip here for you.

Christian Educators Journal December 2021 3

And remember: teachers have some of the most powerful voices in the room. So do not be afraid. Keep on speaking. God is with you.

Steve and Abby both coach forensics (competitive public speaking and acting) at Grand Rapids Christian High School. In their personal blurbs this month, they’ll share some of their favorite things about the activity.

One of my favorite things about forensics is watching how students grow and change over the course of just one year—especially the students who are trying forensics for the first time. These newbies are unsure of themselves, nervous, fidgety, and often so quiet you can hardly hear them from across the room. They slouch, they shift their weight back and forth, and they say “um” once per sentence. But after just a few weeks of practice, they start to catch on. Good speaking skills are surprisingly easy to teach—there are so many ways to make adjustments, the work is physical, and the results are clearly visible. Students can sense the difference in their confidence and delivery, and they can even see their audiences reacting differently as their skills improve. By the end of their first season of competition, every student has gotten better—and that’s a result we don’t often get to flaunt as teachers.

Forensics is one of the most fulfilling periods of my semester because I get to teach students that their voices matter.

—Abby Zwart Coaching forensics for over a decade means that I’ve gotten to teach a wide range of students, from those who started out with enough charisma to take over a room to those who were at first uncomfortable saying more than a few words in front of anyone they didn’t already know (including the coach).

The most exciting part of it for me has been helping students develop a culture of continually working to get better. Whether the speaker is vying for a state championship or just learning to be comfortable in front of the room, the process of working, speaking, and critiquing becomes the focus. While it’s still fun to challenge and encourage them, I know I’m successful when my students begin to realize they don’t really need me. After all, I won’t be there for the rest of their lives. Shouldn’t my goal be to make myself obsolete?

—Steve Tuit

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Civil Discourse as Kinship DAVID LOEWEN

O

ne of the greatest blessings of living in the Western world is freedom of speech. While we often experience tension and disagreement around where the boundaries to that freedom should lie, we can be thankful that we do not live in a country ruled by an oppressive regime and exist in constant fear that our words could cause us and our families to suffer. As followers of Jesus, we can “preach Christ and Christ crucified” in the public sphere.

We may experience disagreement or social pressure to quiet ourselves, but we do not experience government violence or imprisonment for talking about Jesus.

I live in the Greater Vancouver area of British Columbia. During my undergraduate days at a local Christian university, one of the large public universities in the city had a “Free Speech Alley” in which anyone could stand and speak about any topic. Students and faculty walking down that passageway were aware that, on a non-­rainy day in Vancouver, they might experience a wide range of talkers focusing on everything from Marxism to sexuality to the perils of the lake of fire. But here’s the thing: if you stopped and watched events unfold, you noticed that most people simply walked down the “alley” without stopping, kind of like it was some sort of unique exhibit. And this raises what I believe to be a fundamental issue with free speech; that is, just because we have the right to speak doesn’t mean anyone is listening! Another example can be found in our halls of government, where it often feels as though everyone is competing to have their voice heard, but I’m not always sure anyone is really listening. Might it be that this reality creates an opportunity for those of us who follow Jesus?

When we step back and reflect on how we grow as humans, how we develop and become more like Jesus, it is generally through intimate relationships of mentoring and discipleship. It is through the give and take of two humans sharing vulnerably and really seeing and hearing each other.

It is through listening well and being heard that we are able to process deep emotions, think through challenging issues, and make critically thoughtful decisions about what it means to be human. In essence, we grow through the support and accountability involved in being deeply known by another.

These are the relationships in which we know we are loved (support) and in that love are challenged to become more fully who God has created us to be (accountability). This is the fundamental truth and somewhat ironic process of following Jesus. We come to God to confess our sins knowing we are already truly known, hence the irony of any false pretense in our faith walk. This truth exposes the silliness of avoiding complete vulnerability with God, who already knows us and who loves us anyway! I believe that Christian Educators Journal December 2021 5

We live in a society in which the right to speak up dominates over the call to listen.

We are called both to invite others into that radical kinship with Christ and to model the kinship Christ offers us.

fostering a true relationship with God allows us to move toward fostering true relationships with others.

But here’s the challenge: we live in a society in which the right to speak up dominates over the call to listen. And with the exponential growth and influence of social media, that right to speak has morphed into the right to present.

Our right to speak has become a highly polished practice of presenting oneself via media in a very specific way. We know that the word “media” derives from the term “middle,” indicating that social media is essentially what gets in the middle of our authentic being together. Knowing via social media can never be true knowing, as there will always be something between, something mediating the reality of who we are, mediating the presentation of self in everyday life. And so we speak and present, and speak and present, but do we feel heard? And if we feel heard, is it true hearing or a weak forgery that simply “likes” or “reposts” our voice, basically affirming again our right to speak and present but never really moving us toward growth?

Now compare the speaking and hearing occurring on social media to the intimacy of prayer and reflection we are invited into as followers of Jesus.

When we recognize our total depravity, we come to the cross stripped of pretense (presentation) and are completely vulnerable and accepted in that place of vulnerability. And we come before a savior who has been waiting for us.

We come to Christ as wanted. We come to Christ as longed for, just as we are, in all of our humanity. American theologian Stanley Hauwerwas talks about this being known as “the friendship of Christ.” It is not a soft relationship that avoids difficult conversations, that presents everything as good and fine. It is the kind of knowing that is real, that allows for vulnerability and honesty.

And it is just this kind of knowing that fosters our growth in our journey to become more Christ-­like. I like to call it the radical kinship of Christ.

So what does all of that have to do with speaking and listening? I believe that we are called both to invite others into that radical kinship with Christ and to model the kinship Christ offers us in our relationships with others (might that actually be the invitation as well?). I also believe we cannot do this without listening well. We need to be the kind of people who create a space in which others can feel safe enough to be heard, safe enough to be vulnerable. When we reflect deeply on the theological concept that all humans are created in God’s image, it becomes even more clear that to treat someone as the crowning glory of creation requires treating them with exceptional dignity. One of the most straightforward ways to achieve that is simply to listen well, to create time and space for people to be heard, to honor their “image-­bearingness” by being fully present to them. It is this kind of deep listening and vulnerable sharing in which intimacy will develop, the kind of intimacy that leads to a relationship of both support and accountability to growth.

Let’s clarify what listening actually looks like and what it means to create time and space for it. Listening starts with a posture that reflects the posture of Christ. Biblical scholar Michael Gorman writes poignantly about the Christians’ call to cruciformity—that is, to be a people marked by the cross who esteem others over themselves and are willing to sacrifice self for the good of the other. This kind of posture is that of the servant way of Jesus.

When we look at different types of listening, there is a continuum (adapted from Stephen Covey) that starts with the self and moves toward a Christ-­like posture of valuing the other. The first stage on the continuum is not listening, 6 December 2021 Christian Educators Journal

which is ignoring what someone is saying or simply being distracted while listening. Next is listening to speak, something I often find myself guilty of, when you are mentally preparing what you are going to say and waiting to interrupt to say it. After that comes listening to evaluate, judging what is being said against your own experience. This kind of listening is still primarily about you. Then we have listening to empathize, wherein we listen to understand the other both in what they are saying and what they are not saying.

We want to know how they feel and what they need as they share. Finally, there is listening as one. This is where the separation between speaker and listener blurs, intimacy exists, and there is a deep knowing of the other. This kind of listening often feels effortless. I believe this is the kind of listening we are offered when we come before our Father in prayer. It is core to our journey to become one in Christ and in the Father (John 17:21).

Can you think of times when you have been in dialogue with someone in a way that has been that safe and intimate, when you trust and are trusted?

How different those experiences are from the mediated presentations of self via social media. How different that kind of intimacy is from the fighting for air time to claim our stake in the realm of freedom of speech. What would it look like to offer that kind of listening to the stranger, to someone we disagree with vehemently? What would it look like to offer listening as one in our schools? I believe it has the potential to form a different kind of human, a peculiar kind of person who shows greater care for others than for personal presentation, a kind of graduate who is able to be fully present to the image-­bearers they interact with in their day.

Creating time and space for this kind of listening requires intentional- Creating time and space ity. It doesn’t just happen because we agree with it or would like it to happen. for this kind of listening It requires changing the way we structure our learning and meeting spaces requires intentionality. so that people can see and be seen, hear and be heard. Simply setting up our classroom environments so they facilitate opportunity to listen and for all to speak moves us in this direction. Creating time and space also requires changing the way we foster learning, moving from the traditional model of the “sage on the stage” dispensing information to engaging each other in learning together, assuming each has something to offer on the journey. The creation of classroom and staff room norms is essential to intentionally allowing all to be heard. If we are to create school cultures that foster image-­ bearer-­honoring discourse, we must plan in that direction, or the loudest voices will dominate and we will perpetuate the false notion that the right to speak up trumps the importance of including all at the table. If we are to work toward the opportunity to create shared understanding together, we need to plan for it.

Among others (Karl-­Otto Apel, Paul Chevigny, and Michael Martin), German philosopher Jürgen Habermas has written extensively in the area of discourse ethics (Theory of Communicative Action, vols. 1–2; Between Facts and Norms; The Inclusion of the Other; Discourse Ethics, etc.). He elucidates some core principles for the creation of what he calls an “ideal speech situation” that are informative for creating space for speaking, listening, and learning.

Grossly simplified, they include the following: Everyone who is able to speak and act is allowed to.

Everyone is allowed to question any assertion.

Christian Educators Journal December 2021 7

Everyone is allowed to introduce any assertion.

Everyone is allowed to express their attitudes, desires, and needs.

No one may be prevented by internal or external coercion from above.

Reflecting on these foundational principles can enable us to move toward intentionally planning for dialogue that fosters listening and learning. Imagine a school or classroom culture with clearly defined norms and practices for shared discourse that is rooted in the foundational belief that listening well is how we honor others and how we treat them as made in God’s image.

I believe our deep hope as Christian educators is that our graduates are Christ-­like, that they are rooted in the grand story of God and his people, and therefore that their life energy is spent on the kingdom. Fostering the ability to listen well, to offer to others the kind of relationship the kinship of Christ offers us, is essential to seeing that deep hope realized.

As we seek to create the kind of school and classroom cultures that foster graduates formed for the kingdom, may we model the kind of listening we receive as God’s children. May we model it with our students and colleagues, and may we do the especially hard work of modelling it with those with whom we disagree. In a culture in which the right to free speech is dominant, may our posture be one that raises to prominence the privilege of listening. May we offer the gift of the dignity of allowing others to be heard.

Resources on Creating Healthy Communities of Ethical Discourse Canadian School of Peacebuilding: https://csop.cmu.ca/ The Better Arguments Project: https://betterarguments.org/ The Colossian Forum: https://colossianforum.org/ Three Practices for healing our divides: https://www.3practicecommons​ .com/the-­3practices

Works Cited Covey, Stephen R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. 25th anniversary edition. Simon & Schuster, 2004.

Habermas, Jürgen. The Theory of Communicative Action, vols. 1–2. Beacon Press, 1984, 1987.

Hauerwas, Stanley, 2010. “Friendship and Community.” https://vimeo​ .com/11645713.

Hauerwas, Stanley and Charles Pinches, Christians among the Virtues: Theological Conversations with Ancient and Modern Ethics. University of Notre Dame Press, 1997.

Gorman, Michael. Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross. Eerd­ mans, 2001.

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David Loewen is currently the superintendent of Surrey Christian School and has served as head of school at two other Christian schools. He is an adjunct faculty member in Trinity Western University’s Masters of Arts in Leadership program.

Loewen holds a PhD in Organizational Theory and Leadership Studies. He is happily married to his wife, Sharlene, has three beautiful children (Chloe, Olivia, and Ilyah), and cares for two rather spoiled and self-­absorbed chickens.

Christian Educators Journal December 2021 9

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Encouraging Conversations about Race and Culture EDITH van der BOOM

R

Since racism is a learned behavior, it can be challenged, and new behaviors and attitudes can be learned.

ecently I was asked to lead a workshop on differentiated instruction.

Although this topic was not new to me, I decided to come at it from a different perspective and focus on racial differences within the differentiated classroom. Within this workshop I emphasized that a very important aspect of differentiated instruction is to know the learner. In the past, my focus on knowing my students considered their academic strengths and areas of need as well as what their preferences were in regard to learning styles and interests. Over the past couple of years, however, I have become increasingly aware of the need to celebrate the differences that students in my classroom have in terms of race and culture.

Race can be defined as “any one of the groups that humans are often divided into based on physical traits regarded as common among people of shared ancestry.” Culture is “the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group” (Merriam-­Webster). It can be determined by how we express ourselves, how we live out our faith, and how we see things. Culture is not based on physical characteristics but rather on a person’s way of life. Together, culture and race make up our identities, and it is our identity markers that shape how we perceive the world and how the world perceives us.

Racism is defined as “a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race” (Merriam-­Webster). Consequently, racism is something learned, as a set of behaviors and attitudes in daily interactions (Brookfield 211). Although we may not intentionally hold racist thoughts, racism can be a part of the values and beliefs that we learn and assimilate over our lifetime and that make up our perspective on the world (Brookfield 211). Unconscious bias may lead us to racist behaviors that we may not even be aware of, which come into play as we unintentionally make judgements or show support toward others based on their race and/or their culture. Racism is also not limited to one’s individual perspective, but it can affect entire systems, structures, and institutions that hold the power to make decisions (Tisby 49), affecting individuals in all settings in which they live their lives.

Those who have been subjected to racism have described their experience as “the accumulation of racial microaggressions over one’s lifetime—some have referred to this as ‘death by a thousand cuts’—that contributes to the deleterious impact of racial microaggressions on one’s well-­being” (Kim para. 9).

Since racism is a learned behavior, it can be challenged, and new behaviors and attitudes can be learned (Brookfield 223). It is within this framework that I would like to challenge our practices of listening and speaking 12 December 2021 Christian Educators Journal

in the classroom. To do this, I start by writing about ways in which we can think about knowing ourselves as instructors and then knowing our students. What follows is an invitation to be a critically reflective educator and to apply critical reflection to our practice as a way to encourage conversations about race and culture.

Knowing Ourselves as Instructors Racial privilege has shaped and continues to shape experiences of educators from dominant cultures and requires an ongoing journey of de-­centering.

Reflecting on one’s racial identity is an important part of understanding another’s racial identity. I am aware that the way I learn and participate in racial and/or cultural identity is very specific to my own experience, and yet, as a woman with white skin, this is something that I have done very little of. Considering one’s racial identity, however, is a regular practice for those of color (Tisby 41). Racism functions at multiple levels—individual, group, and institutional. Although I am not intentionally racist, I am advantaged in inherently racist systems. There are things that I have done or have been a part of that have been racist, and I belong to a race that for much of history represents the oppressors. As a teacher, I have been in classrooms where whiteness has been made to be the standard by using only dolls, toys, and books in which white children are represented, and where adhesive bandages are used that only match white skin. Whether intentional or unintentional, conscious or unconscious, racism is still racism.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to create a safe environment for students to share about their own racial identities and experiences. Recently, a friend shared with me a hurtful experience that her son had when he was in high school. A teacher came up to him and asked him where he was from. When he informed this teacher that he was from a neighboring town, the teacher asked again, “No, where are you from?” Being of Asian descent, this teacher assumed that this student must have come from a different country. The fact, however, was that this student, with Asian features, was born and raised in Canada. Although the question asked by the teacher was not meant to be hurtful or racist, it was. Without having built a relationship with the student or having provided a safe environment, the seemingly innocent question created a hurtful and racist interaction.

Becoming self-­aware of the ways we learn and participate in a racial and/or cultural identity is important and challenging (Ramsay 20). For instructors in the dominant culture, confronting the evidence of racial privilege found in course and curricular development can be especially humbling (Ramsay 22). When we consider that racism is defined by “an interlocking system of advantage based on race that function[s] at individual, group, institutional, and cultural/symbolic levels” (Ramsay 21), “coming to terms with how pervasively privilege has and continues to shape our experience is an ongoing journey of de-­centering” (Ramsay 20).

Christian Educators Journal December 2021 13

Without having built a relationship with the student or having provided a safe environment, the seemingly innocent question created a hurtful and racist interaction.

Knowing Our Students

As educators who are challenging our own practices of listening and speaking, it is important to provide space for students to share their own stories.

Race and cultural diversity concerns should play a central role in our pedagogical considerations of how we teach and what we teach.

As our classrooms become more racially and culturally diverse, there is a greater chance to encounter students who do not belong to the dominant culture and therefore are more likely to experience the pain of racism (Ramsay 20). Providing students with the opportunity to become familiar with each other’s racial and cultural heritage through speaking and listening can be the start of creating a more inclusive and safe environment for brave conversations where all student voices are valued and respected. As educators who are challenging our own practices of listening and speaking, it is important to provide space for students to share their own stories and to have a posture of openness when those who have experienced injury by current practices voice their pain. Together with our students, we need to consider ways in which we can support and foster these spaces for truth and reconciliation.

As an educator, when you talk about the different races and cultures represented in your class, you might consider doing an activity such as a “privilege walk” to provide a kinesthetic as well as intellectual understanding of how privilege favors students outside of our awareness (Ramsay 20). The “privilege walk” begins by having students hold hands while in a straight line across a large empty space. In silence they each take a step forward or backward depending on their response to questions that have to do with circumstances they did not create, such as whether their classroom includes resources that regularly describe their racial group. You might ask, Have you ever been told you couldn’t do something due to gender or race?

(This question may even apply to elementary students whose teachers may think that some class tasks are more appropriate for boys than girls.) We continue to see students favor subjects based on their gender or race rather than their interests or abilities. Eventually, the line will become broken as students have different answers to these questions. While such an exercise cannot be done successfully apart from a context of trust and prior conversation, it has regularly transformed the experience of privileged students and confirmed the experience of those in minority racial or cultural groups. Another level of conversation often becomes possible after such an experience.

Race and cultural diversity concerns should play a central role in our pedagogical considerations of how we teach and what we teach. Research has shown that students from different cultural backgrounds prefer different learning styles (Anderson and Adams as cited in Ramsay 21). Some students prefer a more relational style and are highly sensitive to the context or field in which learning takes place, while others prefer a more analytical style that is independent of the immediate context for learning. Without considering different learning styles, teachers tend to teach in the same way they are taught or in their own preferred learning style. Considering that the students in your class represent a variety of learning styles, it is important to teach in a way that such variety is considered and thus create a more effective multicultural classroom experience.

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Being a Critically Reflective Teacher Teaching in a way that values each student’s identity and belonging is a good starting point for creating an inclusive classroom. Our teaching can be “a medium for challenging ourselves and our students to take responsibility for contributing to communities of justice and inclusion” (Ramsay 22). Facilitating conversations about various racial and cultural heritages is an important part of journeying together, with our students, in seeking such justice and inclusion. When students learn about each other’s race and culture, it helps them understand their own biases and prejudices. Uncovering unconscious bias requires both time and space to listen to each other’s stories and perspectives, helping us all to understand our own bias and prejudices.

One very practical way to begin critically reflecting on your own teaching practice is to be aware of what resources are available in your classrooms. Books written by and representing different cultures are important in creating an inclusive classroom environment. Teaching black history throughout the year and not only during Black History Month helps us hear a more complete story of what has happened in the past.

In 1968, Jane Elliott created an experience for her grade 3 students to experience discrimination first hand. The day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., her students asked her why someone would have shot him. In response, she created two groups within her classroom based on students’ eye colors. On the first day she told her students that those with brown eyes were superior to those with blue eyes. The result was that students with brown eyes felt and acted superior to their blue-­eyed peers.

The blue-­eyed children found it difficult to concentrate and perform in class.

The next day Jane Elliott told the students that she had made a mistake and that it was actually the blue-­eyed children who were superior to those with brown eyes. Very quickly the blue-­eyed students cheered and took the place of their brown-­eyed peers. The students quickly internalized racial differences and the blue-­eyed/brown-­eyed experiment continues to demonstrate how quickly even young children can be impacted by racism. Years later students in this class talked about how they internalized this racial experiment in the film “A Class Divided” (1997). Discussion around this film provides one way students can explore their own socially constructed racial identity.

A critically reflective examination of culture, race, and ethnicity can help us better celebrate the differences of our students, co-­workers, and community. Terry Borton’s development framework used for reflective writing may be helpful for our purposes (UM RhetLab). His model includes the following three prompts that form a continuous integrated flow: What? Describe an event or action.

So what? Explain why that action or event was significant.

Now what? Explain how you will use that information to inform future practice.

Using the example of the situation in which a student was asked where they are from can help us critically reflect on our unconscious bias and on the racism that may be playing out in our classroom.

Christian Educators Journal December 2021 15

What? A student is asked where he was from because of his racial features.

So what? This student feels that this teacher was suggesting that he did not belong because he looked different than other students in his school.

Now what? Create safe spaces that invite students to be brave and tell their own stories of race and culture.

Using these prompts may help us become aware of our unconscious bias, encourage a safe space for brave conversations, and begin the work of truth and reconciliation. Our journey to creating both diverse and inclusive learning environments requires us to be critically reflective in our practice as we strive to create learning communities of grace.

As I look back at my practice as an educator, I acknowledge that much of my focus has been on students’ academic achievements as a means to give each student a sense of belonging. Although this is not wrong, I realize that I have so much more to learn about my students and their sense of belonging as I look more carefully at their racial and cultural contexts. Our motivation for doing so is described wonderfully by one theologian: “When our lives have been transformed by God’s grace, we see many things in new ways. And this seeing is guided by love, by an abiding desire to care about what God cares about—to rejoice in what makes God’s heart glad and to grieve about what saddens him. That kind of seeing, ‘beholding,’ has profound implications for how we view people and ideas and products and processes of culture” (Mouw 92, emphasis added). My hope is that we can behold our students so that they feel a strong sense of belonging and become all that God has created them to be.

Works Cited Anderson, James and Maurianne Adams. “Acknowledging the Learning Styles of Diverse Student Populations: Implications for Instructional Design.” New Directions for Teaching and Learning, vol. 49 (1992): 19–33.

Brookfield, Stephen D. “Applying Critical Reflection to Teaching Race and Racism.” Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. Jossey-­Bass, 2017, pp.

207–24.

Kim, Paul Y. “How a Pad-­Mounted Transformer and Stair Spindle Help Me Teach about Racial Microaggressions.” Christian Scholar’s Review, 23 Apr. 2021, https://christianscholars.com/guest-­post-­how-­a-­pad-­ mounted-­transformer-­and-­stair-­spindle-­help-­me-­teach-­about-­racial-­ microaggressions/.

Merriam-­Webster. 2021. https://www.merriam-­webster.com/.

Mouw, Richard J. “World-­Viewing.” Abraham Kuyper: A Short and Personal Introduction. Eerdmans, 2011, pp. 90–94.

Ramsay, Nancy J. “Teaching Effectively in Racially and Culturally Diverse Classrooms.” Teaching Theology and Religion, vol. 8, no. 1 (2005): 18–23, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-­9647.2005.00220.x.

Tisby, Jemar. “How to Explore Your Racial Identity.” How to Fight Racism: Courageous Christianity and the Journey toward Racial Justice. Zondervan, 2021, pp. 39–62.

16 December 2021 Christian Educators Journal

UM RhetLab. “Frameworks for Reflective Writing.” UM RhetLab, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/olemiss-­writing100/chapter/ frameworks-­for-­reflective-­writing/.

Dr. Edith van der Boom is Assistant Professor of the Philosophy of Education and the Practice of Pedagogy as well as Director of the Master of Arts in Philosophy in Educational Leadership at the Institute of Christian Studies in Toronto, Ontario.

With over thirty-­four years of experience as an educator in both K–8 schools and university settings, she acknowledges that she has benefited from privileges due to the white color of her skin and is on a journey to become more aware of the racial and cultural injustices within our world and specifically in our classrooms.

Christian Educators Journal December 2021 17

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I Hear You: Poetry as a Tool for Emotional Literacy and Empathy Education HAYDEN MacKINNON

A

s I hid under the table, clutching the chrome legs of my second-­grade desk, I could hear my teacher reading to my parents a poem I had written a few days before. She kindly praised my use of imagery, descriptive language, and the ways I established a sense of voice—high praise, indeed, for an eight-­year-­old.

You see, even as young as the tender age of eight, I had discovered something in writing poetry that resonated with me in a deeply personal way.

And when my teacher read it out (to my parents of all people), it felt to me like something authentic, creative, and new had just been unearthed, something I didn’t know how to make sense of at the time, hence me hiding under the desk.

Over twenty-­five years later, I’m still writing poetry, still putting words together in new ways in order to express something deeply personal and, hopefully, say something meaningful to others. Since then I’ve also had the privilege of teaching poetry to students in various schools from K to 12.

Writing over the years has only deepened my love of the craft and set me on a journey to find new ways to excite my students about poetry and to understand themselves better in the process. Poetry is a powerful tool not only for helping us see the world in a new way but also as a means of growing in our own “emotional literacy”—or the way we understand and are able to articulate our own feelings, hopes, and desires. The more poems we read—the more we engage with the tightly woven narrative fabrics of good poetry—the more we are able to understand ourselves, others, and the world around us.

Something interesting I have found and have begun to explore in my role as a poet and teacher is that in addition to helping us understand our own emotions, poetry can also lead us to a place of greater understanding of the emotions of others; that is, it moves us toward a greater, more fully developed sense of empathy. The specific kind of empathy I speak of is known as “emotional empathy” and has been defined as the moments when “you physically feel what other people feel, as though their emotions were contagious” (Goleman).

The importance of learning about and growing in empathy can’t be understated, and teaching these skills may be some of the most relevant and applicable life lessons we leave our students with, because in today’s society it is easier than ever for young people to become isolated, self-­ absorbed, and lost in the endless social media messages of “it’s all about me” and “I am the most important person”; in other words, we live in a society that has become—when left unchecked—very good at fostering narcissism (Vater et al.).

Christian Educators Journal December 2021 19

The more we engage with the tightly woven narrative fabrics of good poetry—the more we are able to understand ourselves, others, and the world around us.

The connection between poetry and an increased sense of empathy has been studied and well documented.

I know that poetry is a tough sell at the best of times, and that for the average student, poetry will never be something they deeply “love.”

The good news, however, is that empathy has been cited as an effective cure to this extreme self-­centeredness (Riggio), and the connection between poetry and an increased sense of empathy has been studied and well documented (see Gabrieli et al.).

I’ve also seen poetry’s ability to help grow empathy in my own life, as someone who has had to work at learning how to empathize and come to terms with my own emotions over the years. From a young age onward, I had a difficult time understanding why I feel what I do, and I have found it overwhelming, difficult, and at times even distressing to put myself in other’s shoes.

Why this has been the case, I’m not entirely sure. One researcher cites “emotional overwhelm” as a cause for those who aren’t natural empathizers (Cummins). This happens when the neural pathways associated with observing pain and suffering in others are activated too often, and the individual tends to shut down as a way of self-­protection. This may be the case in my situation, or perhaps it came from the way my mother raised me, with an immense amount of love, care, and attention that told me in some way that I was the center of the universe, and my needs mattered more than the needs of others.

Regardless of the reason, I’m someone who has had to learn how to empathize and make sense of my emotions. And now, in my mid-­thirties, I can reflect back and say that reading and writing poetry has been instrumental in my own personal journey. It is from this place of a deep and lasting personal love of the craft that I approach teaching the subject, with the hopes of instilling in my students some measure of appreciation for what poetry is capable of achieving and the ways it can be used to help them function with greater levels of genuine care and empathy toward others.

However, I know that poetry is a tough sell at the best of times, and that for the average student, poetry will never be something they deeply “love.”

For many it will be something they tolerate in the brief units we teach, then discard as another trifling memento of their time in grade school.

Knowing this now (I did not know it in my first year of teaching—when I taught, if you could call it that, the work of T. S. Eliot to a group of glassy eyed high school students), I can appreciate the fact that poetry is often difficult, obscure, and useless beyond the walls of the classroom. It has, however, become a personal passion of mine to change as many minds—and perhaps hearts—toward poetry as I am able to with the time I have left as a teacher.

So that is why I teach poetry, and why I specifically teach it as a tool for empathy education. Now let’s get to the how. I’d like to outline some of the activities we do in my grade-­level classes, as well as how we go about planning activities and finding inspiration.

The very first piece of advice I’d give to anyone serious about teaching poetry would be this: immerse yourself in it and learn to love it, or at least appreciate it, for yourself. This may be difficult, especially if teaching English is not your passion or first choice, or if you’re simply filling in for another teacher for a time. However, students can smell sincerity or the lack thereof a mile away, and in order to teach poetry well, it has to be done from a place of genuine passion, or at the very least, appreciation.

Read poetry on subjects you care about or think are beautiful, or read well-­known authors whose work has stood the test of time. Read until you find something that makes you pause, makes the breath halt in your chest 20 December 2021 Christian Educators Journal

for just a moment. Read until you find something that leaves you feeling like you’ve just seen the world in a new, more vibrant way. Then take that, and show your students what poetry can do.

This year my fellow language arts teacher and I have been trying something new. Instead of studying poetry over a concentrated two-­month period of study, we have decided to extend it throughout the whole year in a weekly block where students have a chance to read, write, and discuss various aspects of the craft. Our deepest hope in this is that we will establish a culture where students see value, beauty, and significance in poetry as they find ways to know themselves and others more fully.

Here’s a bit of a rundown on what actually happens in the classroom.

I open with a discussion of what empathy actually is, and whether or not practicing it is important in today’s society. From there I read aloud a story

by Ray Bradbury titled “All Summer in a Day,” which can be found in PDF format online. The story is beautifully written (as is all of Bradbury’s work) and deals with themes of bullying, taking responsibility for one’s actions, and empathy.

From there, I have students write their own “Expressions of Empathy,” addressed to the main character of the story, Margot. I have written my own example, which I read aloud to students, modelling how I have put myself in Margot’s shoes and how she must have felt at the end of the story. Throughout the unit we do many of these “Expressions,” each on a different poem, and it’s interesting to see how the students gradually grow in their capacity to feel and understand the emotions of others.

The poems I choose for us to study don’t all deal with empathy directly but rather function, as many good poems do, as finely crafted messages portraying the speaker’s or author’s emotional state at a given moment in time; in other words, as I tell my students, poems are sort of like really detailed text messages sent between the characters of the Pixar movie Inside Out. Another important activity that I love to do with students is to introduce them to what’s known as “Instapoetry.” This sort of writing is very short (one to three lines), anecdotal in nature, often dealing with love and relationships, and is immediately, or at least very quickly, understandable.

Many of my students are shocked when I tell them that this is a form of poetry, and we usually have a good discussion around questions like “Is this actually a poem?” or “Is it right for us to criticize someone else’s art, no matter how simple or silly we think it is?” For some examples of what I mean

by Instapoetry, look up some poets who got their start on the social media platform. Rupi Kaur, Amanda Lovelace, or r.H. Sin are good places to start.

Once I’ve shown my students these poets, I have them compose their own short pieces. Their first attempts are often silly or crude, but the more they practice, the more thoughtful and insightful they become. The important thing here is to give students the opportunity to be successful at writing, to give them the chance to be able to say, “I wrote a poem!” no matter how short or simple it may be, and, to take it one step further, to have someone read, hear, and appreciate their work.

I titled our poetry unit “I Hear You,” and this is something that plays a huge role in how I teach the subject. I believe that in order for students to learn how to empathize with others, to really put themselves in the shoes of another person, they first need to learn how to express themselves in a meaningful way, as well as to have the experience of being heard by a real Christian Educators Journal December 2021 21

Read until you find something that leaves you feeling like you’ve just seen the world in a new, more vibrant way.

Many of my students are shocked when I tell them that this is a form of poetry, and we usually have a good discussion around questions like “Is this actually a poem?”

audience—mainly, that is, by someone other than their teacher. I do this by having students read their poetry, as well as the poetry of others, out loud on many different occasions. We then have time for audience feedback, and, if asked for, constructive criticism.

Another activity that I’ve done in the past was to have students put together a “Poetry Cafe” evening. They had the opportunity to share their work with parents, teachers, and other members of the school community.

We had a makeshift stage, a tablecloth for a curtain, and a few candles to set the tone for the evening. It was memorable and empowering for students, and it is something I hope to do again this year and beyond.

Once again, I can’t state how important it is to teach students about empathy and emotional literacy in general. I’m convinced that the better students are at putting themselves in others’ shoes, the healthier, happier, and more successful they will be in life. What I’ve offered here is just my way of approaching the subject, and I’m sure there are countless others that are taught by excellent teachers across a range of disciplines. This is my way of incorporating my passion into what I teach, in the hopes that some of that passion and love for the craft of poetry will inspire my students to find opportunities to know and be known in ways that are more fully life giving and enriching.

Works Cited Cummins, Denise. “Why Some People Seem to Lack Empathy.” Psychology Today, 23 June 2014, https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/ good-­thinking/201406/why-­some-­people-­seem-­lack-­empathy.

Gabrieli, Guilio, et al. “Promoting Empathy with Rhymes: Effects of Poetry Exposure on Physiological Arousal and Empathic Trait.” Research Gate, July 2018, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326624639_Promoting_empathy_with_rhymes_effects_of_poetry_exposure_on_physiological_arousal_and_empathic_trait.

Goleman, Daniel. “Hot to Help: When Can Empathy Move Us to Action?”

Greater Good Magazine, 1 March 2018, https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/ article/item/hot_to_help.

Riggio, Ronald E. “Why Are There So Many Narcissists?” Psychology Today, 15 June 2017, https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/ cutting-­edge-­leadership/201706/why-­are-­there-­so-­many-­narcissists.

Vater, Aline, et al. “Does a Narcissism Epidemic Exist in Modern Western Societies? Comparing Narcissism and Self-­Esteem in East and West Germany.” PLOS ONE, 24 Jan. 2018, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0188287.

Hayden MacKinnon has taught across British Columbia for the last eleven years and has been writing poetry ever since he was young. He currently lives in Langley with his wife, Jennie, and daughter, Sophia-­Belle. If you have any questions about something he mentioned in this article or would like a copy of lesson plans for your own class, please feel free to contact him. He’d love to hear from you and be a part of your journey.

22 December 2021 Christian Educators Journal

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Highlighting Global Issues through Spoken Commentaries ANTHONY BIGORNIA

“I

f you don’t speak it, you don’t know it. If you don’t write it, you don’t own it.” These were words of wisdom told to us by Wally, a gentleman who served as a liaison and guide during mission learning service trips to Guatemala that our school participated in prior to the pandemic. It’s a mantra that resonates with me to this day; it speaks to the importance of self-­ reflection, but also to the importance of the different mediums of knowing and understanding knowledge.

As an English teacher, I have shared this valuable mantra with my students at the beginning of my English 11 and 12 courses. Being able to communicate in a wide variety of ways, whether in writing or in speaking, is something that we focus on and assess in our classrooms. In an English high school classroom, most of the assessments you would expect to find are essays (in-­class, take-­home) and group presentations. However, with accessibility to recording technology via smartphones or laptops, recording spoken commentaries is now a viable and accessible form of assessment. Students can speak and record what they know and then upload it to a dropbox.

Some students are better speakers than they are writers, and giving them a chance to speak what they know should be as valued as being able to write what they know. The assessment that I am writing about, the Individual Oral (IO), is a component of the course that I teach, IB Language and Literature.

Our school delivers the International Baccalaureate (IB) program from K to 12 and has been doing so for the past half-­decade. When I first started teaching this course a few years ago, oral commentary was a form of assessment that was completely new to me. It was daunting to teach and to mark and assess because it is a ten-­minute continuous spoken commentary worth 20 percent of the overall grade. It is also fairly time-­consuming, and marking one commentary can take anywhere from 15 to 30 or more minutes each.

Multiply that by the number of students you have, and that becomes a full day of just listening to and assessing audio commentaries. Nevertheless, as I’ve continued teaching the course, I’ve grown to value the Individual Oral as a valuable assessment, as it gives students an opportunity to demonstrate their learning beyond the traditional essay writing that you would expect in an English classroom.

Furthermore, this particular assessment integrates a component of international-­mindedness by challenging the students to frame the texts that they comment on through a global issue. Students are given agency to pick the global issue that they can draw out of the texts that they read, and this leads to interesting and insightful interpretations of the texts that they comment on. In an increasingly connected world, international-­ mindedness matters, and as teachers, we find creative ways to get students Christian Educators Journal December 2021 25

Some students are better speakers than they are writers, and giving them a chance to speak what they know should be as valued as being able to write what they know.

to think globally. This article will describe the nature of the Individual Oral, how it’s a valuable assessment format, and how it encourages and challenges students to synthesize two seemingly different texts and think at a global level.

What Is the Individual Oral?

The IB oral commentary requires students to close read a text, structure an outline, and then deliver a spoken ten-­minute commentary about two different texts framed by a global issue.

Regardless of the extracts that the students pick, both need to point to a global issue of some sort.

The oral commentary is one of the main summative tasks that we do in IB Language and Literature. It’s a strenuous and high-­stakes assignment, as it requires students to close read a text, structure an outline, and then deliver a spoken ten-­minute commentary about two different texts framed by a global issue. There is a lot of preparation and work that goes into it, and it really challenges the students to refine the way they speak as they synthesize, articulate, and present their commentary.

The IO is a very prescriptive assignment, but there is a lot of flexibility in the texts that the students can choose to comment on. The first text that they pick is an extract from one of the main works that we read. For example, they may pick an extract from one of the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., or a section of one of Hamlet’s soliloquies, or a significant scene from a novel like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. This extract is a maximum of 40 lines long, which can be limiting, especially if a section is lengthy. The second extract that students use is a text of their choice that isn’t literary (i.e., novels, poetry). This distinction can be confusing. For example, they cannot pick the song lyrics of an artist’s body of work, but they can pick the music video. A simplified way to think about this is that the second, non-­ literary extract is something that is multimedia in essence.

Regardless of the extracts that the students pick, both need to point to a global issue of some sort. According to the IB course guide, a global issue is defined as “significant on a wide and large scale,” “transnational,” and having an “impact [that] is felt on a day to day basis.” To introduce global issues to the students, I share with them the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that were developed and introduced in 2015. These are seventeen global goals such as “No Poverty,” “Quality Education,” and “Reducing Inequality” that the leaders at the UN agreed should be achieved by 2030. These goals give students an idea of what a global issue is and what they should focus on when preparing a commentary of the two texts. One activity that I’ve done with them to introduce global issues is to show them Time magazine’s “100 most influential photos of all time” (Goldberger) and have them select a photo and draw out some of the thematic global issues that it points to. There are many iconic (albeit graphic) photos in this collection, such as “The Terror of War,” by Nick Ut. This photo shows children running away from American napalm bombings during the Vietnam War and speaks to the global issues of wartime conflict and violence, and military attacks on civilians. There’s also “Cotton Mill Girl,” by Lewis Hine from 1908, which highlights global issues of child labor and unsafe working conditions. And finally, there is the iconic Tank Man photo from Tiananmen Square, which speaks to global issues related to politics, like power and justice. Photos like these could serve as a second extract that students could pair with their first extract.

26 December 2021 Christian Educators Journal

Preparing the Students As IB Language and Literature is a two-­year course, the students do many practice recordings, which they record on their own and then submit to the teacher via a dropbox for feedback. Multiple practice recordings are completed on different texts throughout the months leading to the set date of their official IO recording in their grade 12 year. On the official recording date, the students record their Individual Oral in one take with the teachers in a quiet room, followed by a five-­minute questioning period where the teacher asks them questions to help them elaborate on aspects of the commentary that they might have missed. In that recording session, students are also allowed to bring a ten-­point outline with them, as well as transcripts of the two extracts.

Upon being introduced to this assessment for the first time in grade 11, the students get visibly tense and nervous, and they begin asking many questions about the nature of the assignment. The International Baccalaureate program is perceived as a very rigorous and difficult program among teachers, students, and parents. And among the students, the IO is particularly nerve-­wracking due to the challenge of having to deliver a spoken commentary in one take in front of their teacher. In addition, the time restriction (8–10 minutes) challenges students to be concise and thoughtful.

Instructional time is spent coaching the students on speaking strategies and structuring commentaries in an organized and efficient manner. After the first set of practice IOs that they record on their own and upload, the teacher starts listening and assessing ways in which these students could articulate their thoughts better. Teachers notice patterns that become evident. Some students speak better than they write, and you can hear them articulate complex ideas in a way that’s much more nuanced than in their writing. This commentary is a chance to show that they are great communicators beyond the traditional essay format. Some students are good writers, but when it comes to speaking, you can hear the nervous tics in their language. Another pattern that shows up is students’ reliance on filler words, such as “like” and “um,” which take away from a confident and analytical academic register. Spoken commentaries expose students’ tendencies to ramble or go off topic. For example, a student was doing a commentary on an extract from “I Have a Dream” by Martin Luther King Jr. and a series of photographs from the Vietnam protests, and the student lost focus on the analysis of the extracts and shifted toward talking about their personal feelings on the subject of war. While what they opined in the commentary was not invalid, it wasn’t focused on the subject at hand. This is not unlike students’ tendencies to lose focus in written essays, and in both written and spoken format, coherence and organization of thought matters.

Yet despite the prescriptive nature and high standards that this assessment demands, the growth in learning and possibility for really interesting connections makes this assessment valuable in developing internationally minded thinkers and communicators. In the few years I’ve been teaching this course, I have heard some very insightful and interesting connections that I have not considered, even as an adult. These connections are a testament to the brilliance of some of the students that I have been able to teach, and I am grateful to have been a part of their intellectual development. The highest scoring IO was from one of my students who chose to look at how Christian Educators Journal December 2021 27

Among the students, the IO is particularly nerve-­wracking due to the challenge of having to deliver a spoken commentary in one take in front of their teacher.

Another pattern that shows up is students’ reliance on filler words, such as “like” and “um,” which take away from a confident and analytical academic register.

I have seen an unconventional range of extract choices—from music videos to social media posts to video game trailers.

We can adjust our assessments to get students to think about how the texts that we consume can be a reference point for greater global issues.

“a woman’s beauty is the largest aspect that affects her day-­to-­day life.” This is related to the Sustainable Development Goal of gender equality, and the extracts that she chose were a scene from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and a painting entitled Ophelia, by John Everett Millais. Through both texts, the student successfully pointed out how women are treated better when they conform to the beauty standards of their time, and the student was able to identify the authorial choices that both Shakespeare and Millais used in creating their works. Moreover, this student spoke with a confidence in her unique voice while maintaining a high academic register.

Another interesting IO was an extract from Pride and Prejudice and a scene from the film The Hunger Games. Although they were very different texts, one a novel about courtship and romance in Victorian England and the other a modern dystopian film, the student chose to speak on the global issue of the rigidity of social classes and marginalization of different groups.

In general, the students’ choices for their second text has varied widely, and I have seen an unconventional range of extract choices—from music videos to social media posts to video game trailers.

Through an assessment like an Individual Oral, students are encouraged to explore beyond the world of the literary works they read and into the realm of intertextuality. They start to ask questions about how an understanding of one text can shape the meaning of another text. They are exploring questions like “In what ways do diverse texts share points of similarity?” and “How can a text offer multiple perspectives of a global issue?”

Instead of just one text to analyze, there are two to synthesize and to frame under the context of a global issue. This model resembles Bloom’s Taxonomy of higher order thinking, where synthesis thinking is closer to the top and a step higher than analysis. Students are also challenged to work on refining their speaking skills. As our old friend Wally remarked, “If you don’t speak it, you don’t know it. If you don’t write it, you don’t own it.” Thoughts in our minds need to be spoken or written down in order to take a life of their own.

Furthermore, in the world we live in, it is important to get students to start thinking globally, and as English teachers, we can do that by adjusting our assessments to get students to think about how the texts that we consume can be a reference point for greater global issues. As an educator, I have seen students in their grade 11 year submit practice recordings that were full of filler words and off-­topic rambles and then, by the end of the grade 12 year, deliver thoughtful commentaries that synthesized two distinctly different texts framed by a pressing global issue of our times. Ultimately, this is a demanding assignment that is strenuous for both the student and the teacher, but it is worth the effort as we see students come to the point where they know it, write it, speak it, and own it.

Works Cited Goldberger, Ben. “Most Influential Photos.” Time. 17 Nov. 2016. https://time. com/4574500/most-­influential-­photos/.

International Baccalaureate. “Language A: Language and Literature Guide, First Assessment 2021.” IBO. February 2019.

28 December 2021 Christian Educators Journal

Anthony Bigornia is a teacher and the Student Life Coordinator at White Rock Christian Academy in Surrey, British Columbia. He currently teaches IB DP (­Diploma Programme) Language & Literature 11 and 12. In his spare time, he likes to play electric guitar or play pickup hoops at a local basketball court. IG: @aye. bigs

Christian Educators Journal December 2021 29

Are You an Indiginest?

GINETTE MACK

N

By choosing to accept God’s call to wave a banner of love and support, of truth and reconciliation, we may help a new generation of First Nation children say that through their education, they were encouraged, included, and valued.

Indigenous voices continue to speak up; now is the time for all of us to hear the truth.

orthumberland Christian School (NCS) in Cobourg, Ontario, is uniquely positioned in proximity to the community of Alderville First Nation.

For over twenty years, NCS has enjoyed a partnership with Indigenous families who choose to send their children to Christian school rather than local public or separate schools. Over the last decade, Alderville students have accounted for up to 20–25 percent of the student population at NCS. With such a high percentage of students coming from Alderville, it became apparent that much could be done to support, encourage, and honor the history and traditions of our local First Nations community. This has been our journey.

I am a white, middle-­aged teaching principal of British descent. I live on land adjacent to Alderville First Nation, land that has been carefully stewarded by the Anishinaabe people and many other First Nations from time immemorial. I believe God has invited our school community into his incredible work. By choosing to accept his call to wave a banner of love and support, of truth and reconciliation, we may help a new generation of First Nation children say that through their education, they were encouraged, included, and valued. I feel equally responsible to ensure that non-­Indigenous students, my own included, grow up in relationship with, and as advocates for, Indigenous communities. We are all treaty people.

I did not grow up learning about residential schools or the failure of treaties as part of my education. Indigenous history has been completely misrepresented and misinterpreted in Canadian history lessons spanning more than a hundred years. Most settler-­Canadian adults today have little knowledge of past government decisions or the church’s role in the cultural genocide that a country such as Canada, that claims freedom and equity for all, was responsible for. Many still do not understand the complexities of the socio-­economic struggles on reserves today. Misguided popular opinion about Indigenous issues abound. Schools must become places of active listening and truthful interpretation. Indigenous voices continue to speak up; now is the time for all of us to hear the truth.

The Story of Shawundais Shawundais, an Annishinaabe man born on the banks of the Black River in Upstate New York, relocated to the Bay of Quinte after fighting for the British in the War of 1812. Displacement, disease, and decimation of village life were the gifts this war bestowed on his people, but Shawundais was resilient. He was a storyteller, a man of incredible humor and wit. His 30 December 2021 Christian Educators Journal

audiences, both settler and Indigenous, were captivated as he told of his life before and during the war and of his current dreams.

One night Shawundais dreamed that his two deceased sons had traded in their traditional clothing for the white robes of heaven. They were beckoning their baby sister to join them. Not long after this, his daughter died, leaving Shawundais devastated. The white settlers had healthy babies.

Maybe their God was true? he thought. It was soon after that dream that he converted to the white man’s religion and joined the Methodist mission under Rev. William Case, the big “black coat” man. Shawundais was no longer just a storyteller, but a missionary to his own people, and he was given an English name: John Sunday.

In 1826 the mission was relocated to Grape Island, three miles out into the Bay of Quinte. Here, the Methodist Church would keep the 130 Indigenous converts safe from the influences of the irreligious settlers, and the process of Christianization would be implemented. Within a decade, sixteen Indigenous missionaries, including John Sunday and William Beaver, would successfully spread the gospel across Southern Ontario and Upstate New York. The little community would also outgrow their island and find a new place to settle. Reverend Case secured 3,304 acres of reserve lands at Rice Lake, and by the spring of 1835, the exodus from Grape Island to Alder(s) ville began on foot and by canoe. The new settlement was named after Rev. Robert Alder, a man John Sunday met and admired on his travels to England.

Many from the community were returning to the place where their ancestors had once harvested wild rice, but with the coming of the settlers, the rice was already beginning to disappear from Rice Lake. The conditions were harsh. Some died and others nearly starved as they were forced to rebuild their lives once more, but they were resilient. The English names of those original families who travelled from Grape Island to Alderville included Simpson, Sunday, Crowe, Skunk (Marsden), and Beaver (Clark 31–59).

What would you say if I told you I have a student named John Sunday in my class? What if I told you he was the great, great, great grandson of Shawundais? This story is not fiction, but truth. It is both the story and the history of a community of people whose lives and work shaped Southern Ontario. Strangely, as a child growing up in Belleville, where I drove along the shores of the Bay of Quinte each day on my way to and from school, no one ever told me the story of Shawundais. It was not part of the curriculum.

What would you do if you had the descendant of Shawundais in your class? What if the last names of other students in your school included Simpson, Crowe, Marsden, and Beaver? Would it make you value this story more? Would it change the content of the curriculum? Would it transform learning for your students?

What if you don’t have any students with Indigenous heritage in your school? Does this history only matter if you do? What stories shape your curriculum choices, and who decides whose story is included or excluded?

Whose voice is heard in your classroom? Who gets to speak up?

If you work in a Christian school in Ontario, a province where the government mandated in 2007 that Indigenous education be included in the curriculum, do you heed the call to reconcile the wrongs of the past, to be justice-­seekers and truth-­tellers? Do you see yourself as uniquely positioned as a follower of Jesus to bring light and life in response to what is arguably Canada’s deepest darkness? Or have you, like so many, avoided the subject?

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What stories shape your curriculum choices, and who decides whose story is included or excluded?

Whose voice is heard in your classroom? Who gets to speak up?

Current Integration of Indigenous Knowledge

Parents of both Indigenous and non-­Indigenous children appreciated the exposure to cultural diversity that their kids were receiving.

Education from a ­hegemonic standpoint is inherently biased.

As independent schools, we have the freedom to include the Bible in our course of study and infuse all other subjects with a Christian worldview. I would argue that with this freedom comes great responsibility. As citizens of our communities, do we keep up with Ministry of Education initiatives like Indigenous education as faithfully as we should? I suspect the answer for many is no.

We are not alone. A recent study found that many Ontario public school teachers are also struggling with the implementation of Indigenous curricu­ lum guidelines and “educational initiatives that aim to boost Indigenous student achievement by enhancing family inclusion within children’s education and embedding Indigenous culture into student learning” (Milne 2).

Milne found that where Indigenous education was being implemented effectively, the whole community benefitted. Parents of both Indigenous and non-­Indigenous children appreciated the exposure to cultural diversity that their kids were receiving and felt they were gaining an expanded world­view emphasizing empathy and rich cultural experiences that all ­Canadian children should have. Indigenous parents also expressed that they appreciated non-­Indigenous teachers integrating teachings into their classrooms and saw it as a boost to their children’s self-­esteem to have their culture studied at school and see their peers get excited about it as well (4–5).

Yet when Milne interviewed non-­Indigenous teachers, many expressed discomfort with the topic, feeling like they were not equipped to teach about a culture and history they knew little about. Many admitted to avoiding the subject in their classrooms and ignoring Ministry of Education guidelines.

In addition, Indigenous educators complained that some poorly trained non-­Indigenous teachers were giving wrong information or were guilty of pan-­indigenism—combining the traditions and practices of different nations together into one. Milne drew the conclusion that better teacher support and education initiatives were the key to ensuring consistency across the province (6–8).

It stands to reason that teacher comfort level and perhaps even school-­ wide comfort level are factors affecting the lack of Indigenous education programs in Ontario Christian schools. Educational history tells me, though, that there may be a much more serious obstacle in the way.

Critical curriculum theorist Wayne Au explains that Standpoint Theory builds on the basic understanding that power and knowledge are “inextricably intertwined” (53). Whether we realize it or not, we teach the curriculum from a specific perspective or standpoint. Traditionally, history has been presented from the standpoint of the dominant power in each society.

This is problematic, as it cannot consider the perspective of, and impact on, the marginalized or minority members of that society. Education from a hegemonic standpoint is inherently biased (54).

Au argues that education is more objective and truthful if it begins from the perspective of those who are in the lowest position of power in each social context. It is more objective because viewing history from that posture allows the student to be critical of their own subjectivity or that of their political context, and it is more truthful because it can speak to the dominant position. A traditional hegemonic perspective would not even acknowledge that there was a different narrative to be told! Au proposes that just recognizing that there are multiple narratives of the same experience 32 December 2021 Christian Educators Journal

is the beginning of a more critical approach to curriculum development. In that sense, teaching is not about coming at every subject from every possible vantage point—it’s about considering the context carefully and choosing the perspective that most embodies the marginalized voice. This is the best standpoint from which to teach that particular topic (55–57).

Could it be that Christian schools, despite our best efforts to teach from a biblical worldview, loving God and neighbor, have viewed history from the wrong standpoint? Have we missed important alternative narratives? Have we neglected to hear from critical voices?

Emily Root, an outdoor education teacher in Ontario, provides great insight through her research. Root has come to realize that it is not just about teaching Indigenous knowledge or passing on stories, it is about “Indigenizing” the curriculum (103–6). A Eurocentric perspective pervades every aspect of our traditional teaching methods and content. The two worldviews are in conflict with each other, and the Eurocentric one has done much damage, both to the environment and to people. She aptly quotes Marie Battiste: “Eurocentrism is a consciousness in which all of us have been marinated” (qtd. in Root 106).

How to Shift Perspectives To move forward both as a Canadian society and as body-­of-­Christ communities, Christian educators should indigenize our teaching and practices.

Root states, “Indigenous education often disrupts both the social and ecological injustices of colonialism while emphasizing the inherent value of all beings, the importance of traditional and intergenerational knowledge renewal, and the contextualization of knowledge in particular communities and geographic places” (108). Essentially, schools should not just consider including Indigenous culture as an add-­on but should teach the values of Indigenous ways of knowing. This traditional, ancient knowledge offers lessons that can benefit us all as we try to live an enriching, sustainable life in this world (106–8). Surely those whose ancestors have lived on this land for thousands and thousands of years have great insight into how to live here now.

This shift in standpoint is neither simple nor easily implemented. As much as we must move toward an indigenized standpoint, we must take incredible care while doing so. Conceptualizations of Indigenous knowledge do not fit well into Western frameworks or English translations. It is true that all Indigenous knowledge comes out of relationship with each other and the land; “of the land” is the meaning of the word Indigenous. “All my relations” is an English phrase that captures the kinship with other people and all of creation that pervades Indigenous thinking. There is a deep spiritual connection to everything made by God the Creator and a belief that understanding and acknowledging this interconnection is essential for flourishing (Root 113). Individual flourishing is found in the mutual flourishing of all creation.

How do we even begin moving in this direction and changing our standpoint? This challenge of standpoint in the development of curriculum is one that currently affects not just Canada but many education systems globally.

Most countries that have experienced colonization have this struggle. In Christian Educators Journal December 2021 33

Schools should not just consider including Indigenous culture as an add-­on but should teach the values of Indigenous ways of knowing.

There is a deep spiritual connection to everything made by God the Creator and a belief that understanding and acknowledging this interconnection is essential for flourishing.

Western thinking and values are so deeply embedded in our minds that we quite literally must unthink our previous approach and learn new ones.

Australia, some attempts to decolonize the education system have failed because of how entrenched this colonized mindset is.

Zane Ma Rhea, in her research based in Australia, found that the capacity of schools to disrupt or maintain societal expectations about Indigenous education was centrally in the hands of principals and teachers (90–92). It is those working directly with students that have the most influence for change. She states: “Unless teachers and other school leaders are aware of the colonial mindset that influences their thinking, they will unwittingly reinscribe the contemporary school experience with tropes of education that are painfully familiar to generations of Aboriginals’ ’ (95). It is important to note the word “unwittingly” because I do not think it is the intention of any educator, especially a Christian one, to deliberately teach in a way that continues a cycle of systemic marginalization for students. Western thinking and values are so deeply embedded in our minds that we quite literally must unthink our previous approach and learn new ones. This is not an easy or speedy task.

Rhea introduces a term that I have not heard used in the Canadian context but is incredibly useful in naming the non-­Indigenous educator’s response: “Indigenist” is an Australian term for a person who respects the rights and perspectives of an Indigenous person (96–100). This term does not imply that the person need be Indigenous themselves, but identifies as a friend and supporter of Indigenous peoples, or actively promotes truth and reconciliation. Rhea describes an Indigenist teacher as one who has empathy, who wants to see full equality, who seeks to unlearn mindsets of privilege and power, who recognizes systemic inequalities and injustices, and who wants to transform the dominant educational model (96–100). I immediately identified with this term because it requires more of me than mere lip service. It is not just about sharing stories and honoring cultural practices; it is not just about wearing an orange shirt once a year. Being an Indigenist requires me to be an agent of reconciliation. It is justice-­seeking put into action, and it assumes a level of accountability.

So, I ask the question: Are you an Indigentist? Is this an appropriate stance for Christian educators to take? What does it have to do with God’s kingdom work?

Indiginous Teaching as an Old Testament Concept Old Testament theologian Walter Brueggemann explains that the early Israe­lite community was engaging in an important educational process as they passed on their communal narrative to the younger generations. The rituals and practices of a community such as this became “educational” in the sense that they brought to light the mysteries of the faith or the context for their being. Through ceremonies like Passover, the Israelite adults, whether priest or parent, shared the cultural secrets and gave answers to what the children were longing to know. They did so with such personal connection and passion that there was no doubt about what they were saying. The relaying of the Torah to a child was not up for debate or open to discussion—it just was (Brueggemann 20–25).

The consistency of passing on the story in this way meant that the child could fully embrace the secrets with wonderment and without pressure, 34 December 2021 Christian Educators Journal

but also that what was told was accepted as the truth—the truth of their people and, therefore, their own truth. This created a worldview that “sets out an orderly, reliable life-­world in which children can find coherence and assurance, in which they can understand and celebrate who they are” (Brueggemann 30). What Israelite adults wanted to ensure for the next generation was a sense of community, belonging, and understanding. The telling of the story provided the foundation for everything else that was to come in life.

There are two important interconnections at play here. What Brueggemann describes deeply influences our perspective as adherents to a faith system based on the Israelite tradition. These words resonate, as much of this interpretation of Torah life also rings true of Christian life. There is also something about these ancient ways that compares to early Indigenous life and teaching. The heart and intent in those ancient ways of teaching are one and the same. Indigenous theologians teach us that their ancestors walked with the Creator, had a covenant with him, and most sought to follow his good way. We acknowledge, of course, that God was doing something unique and miraculous through the nation of Israel in the person of Jesus, but this does not diminish the cultural values and similar teachings of these ancient communities.

Brueggemann goes on to explain that the word of the prophets is a completely different educational approach than the Torah. Instead of stability, the prophets bring disruption. Instead of building consensus, prophecy challenges it. It is education that nurtures a restlessness with the old ways and introduces new thinking in somewhat shocking ways. There is a time for Torah, but there is a time for prophecy as well; that time is often in periods of crisis (Bruggemann 58–66). Prophets speak up.

Prophets like Jeremiah invite the listener to form a new or alternative social imagination, a liberated one. There is a need for new revelations of truth when the old revelations have grown weary and irrelevant. The word of the Lord was often closely tied to the marginalized community; in fact, the prophets themselves were commonly from such contexts. Brueggemann finds that the living word of God is sympathetic with the cries of those who lack power, who have not felt the extent of God’s promises fulfilled in their lives. The prophets are not just calling Israel to repentance, as is the common interpretation. Instead, they articulate a collapse of the establishment for the sake of well-­being for the widow and orphan and all who are powerless.

God is seen as identifying with the weak in their misery, and it is his voice that comes from below to throw a wrench in the system (Brueggemann 65–75). God speaks up through prophets.

Is it accurate to say that we live in a good time for prophetic voices?

Do we need a new social imagination in Christian schools? Is this what it means to be justice-­seekers? If God identifies and hears the cry of those in the margins and desires more for them, would it not stand to reason that he would call us, his image-­bearers, to take an active role in this? Is that not the meaning of truth and reconciliation?

Hope for the Future Again I ask, what would you say if I told you I have a student named John Sunday in my class? What if I told you he was the great, great, great grandson Christian Educators Journal December 2021 35

What Israelite adults wanted to ensure for the next generation was a sense of community, belonging, and understanding.

There is a need for new revelations of truth when the old revelations have grown weary and irrelevant.

Indigenist Christian teachers will bring life and light into Canada’s deepest darkness.

of Shawundais? This story is not fiction, but a narrative all Canadians should know and honor. It is both the story and the history of a community of people whose lives and work shaped the places many of us live today—and they influenced the spread of the Christian faith across this province. There are so many more stories and practices that have the power to transform us and the way we live on this land, but it takes wisdom and discernment to recognize their value. It begins with marginalized voices speaking and everyone else listening.

Indigenist Christian teachers will bring life and light into Canada’s deepest darkness. We can choose to be prophets who stand in the gap for those who have been systemically marginalized and forgotten. We can be a bridge and give opportunities for students to speak up. When I look in the eyes of my students with the last names Crowe, Simpson, or Sunday, I do see the effects of generational trauma, but I also see great hope and possibility. The next generation of all those original families who travelled to Alderville 181 years ago represents God’s promises to his people—all his people. He heard their cry and answered. The Indigenous children I teach are the future of their community: the artists, athletes, writers, musicians, environmentalists, leaders, and prophets.

An elder once said that the drum, the culture, and the language disappeared with the wild rice in Rice Lake, but a day would come when they would return. The rice is beginning to grow again, and the sound of the drum has returned to the community. The language and its stories continue to speak. Will you help them be heard?

Works Cited Au, Wayne. Critical Curriculum Studies: Education, Consciousness, and the Poli­ tics of Knowing. Routledge, 2012.

Brueggemann, Walter. The Creative Word: Canon as a Model for Biblical Education. Fortress, 1982.

Clarke, Ruth. Before the Silence: Fifty Years in the History of Alderville First Nation (Rice Lake), 1825–1875. Alderville First Nation, 1999.

Milne, Emily. “Implementing Indigenous Education Policy Directives in Ontario Public Schools: Experiences, Challenges and Successful Practices.”

International Indigenous Policy Journal, vol. 8, no. 3 (2017): 1–20.

Rhea, Zane Ma. “Unthinking the 200-­Year-­Old Colonial Mind: Indigenist Perspectives on Leading and Managing Indigenous Education.” International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, vol. 14, no. 2 (2015): 90–100.

Root, Emily. “This Land Is Our Land? This Land Is Your Land: The Decolonizing Journeys of White Outdoor Environmental Educators.” Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, vol. 15 (2010): 103–19.

Ginette Mack is in her tenth year of administrative leadership at Northumberland Christian School in Cobourg, Ontario. She has worked in Christian schools for over twenty years and attended as a student as well. She graduated from the MEd program at Calvin University and loves to write about educational theory and praxis.

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