LEARNING TOGETHERCULTIVATING SUCCESS BY FOSTERING A

SENSE OF BELONGING

Diane WishartUniversity of Alberta

youth and their teachers•Reframing conceptions of teaching

•Coming to awareness of learning from students

Did u hear about the rose that grew from a crack

in the concreteProving nature’s laws wrong it

learned 2 walkwithout having feet

Funny it seems but by keeping its dreams

it learned 2 breathe fresh airLong live the rose that grew

from concretewhen no one else even cared!

 —Tupac Shakur (1999)

 

Comfort that eludes for disenfranchised urban

Aboriginal youthSeparate programs with cultural

underpinnings and/or meeting needs in public schools

Voicecomfort

When I was in [public] high school, the teachers they’re not friendly

I had some pretty bad experiences because all the schools I went to, if you weren’t like a certain type of person then nobody liked you and you got picked on

I didn’t like the way I was being treated, that’s all

Comfort in an alternative program Teachers here don’t look at you as a

student, they look at you as a person and a student so they treat you like both… you can call teachers by their first names here, which is also a sign of respect, too, in a way

The students or the other people are easy to get along with and they accept you

Model of schooling

•Listening to students•Understanding circumstance

•Reflecting on my role•Building trust

Creating the conditions for learning

•Comfort, coffee, conversation

•Community building•flexibility

Labeling

•Special needs coding and the

realities of street life

Success

•Alternative definitions

•Often achieved slowly and

incrementally

http://dianewishart.wordpress.com