Trent University: Implementing a core course in Indigenous Education and ESE

The PTE programme at Trent University, Ontario, features a mandatory, core course of 36 instructional hours that combines IE and ESE. All preservice teachers take the course in combined Intermediate/Senior and Primary/Junior classes (Elliott, Bell, & Harding, Reference Elliott, Bell and Harding2018). The aims are ambitious: (i) to explain teachers’ responsibility to engage in ESE, (ii) to prepare preservice teachers to incorporate ESE in their teaching, (iii) to improve understanding of Canada’s relationship with First Nation, Inuit and Métis peoples and (iv) to help preservice teachers understand how they can contribute to Truth and Reconciliation (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015). These themes were identified as priorities during a programme review in preparation for the government-mandated transition from a 1-year to a 2-year PTE programme.

Prior to introduction of the 2-year programme, ESE and IE were marginalised components of the programme, addressed only in extracurricular activities, one-off workshops and personal endeavours of individual faculty incorporating content into courses. Neither IE nor ESE were seen as priorities by most preservice teachers, despite the Ontario Ministry of Education (2007, 2009) requirement that both should be addressed by all teachers. Cajete (Reference Cajete2010) suggests that IE should be holistic, affective and transformational; a communal, social activity that develops self-knowledge. It was a priority to place these concepts at the centre of the new course. Also, to honour the Truth and Reconciliation (2015) calls to action, it was important to create a course that requires preservice teachers to critique colonially based, settler preconceptions and to recognise that complex and sensitive issues seldom have easy solutions. There are parallels here to the Australian context, as Nakata, Nakata, Keech and Bolt (Reference Nakata, Nakata, Keech and Bolt2012) write:

Developing a course for all preservice teachers was complicated by their various grade specialisations, the teaching subjects of those in the intermediate/senior stream and personal levels of prior knowledge. It became apparent that an inquiry-based approach could be an effective one to adopt. The benefits of doing this included the fact that the topics of IE and ESE have clear areas of overlap. Ensuring extensive integration of IE and ESE allowed opportunities for innovative pedagogy, assessment and evaluation. Finding ways to integrate the components would bring synergistic benefits and temporal efficiency – important in a course covering such broad topics in only 36 hours of class time. This decision had implications for course content and the modelling of pedagogical practices.

The course addresses three key ESE principles: situating the self in the environment, connections with the environment and interactions between people and the environment. Indigenous teachings and philosophy can inform each of these: the Medicine Wheel; Seven Generations teaching; Kinship and interconnectedness can all offer insights in ESE (Bell, Reference Bell, Kulnieks, Roronhiakewen Longboat and Young2013). Introductory activities, many hands-on, sensory, place-based and outdoors, establish a baseline of knowledge and understanding from which to approach more complex issues. Shifting to inquiry-based learning sees preservice teachers collaborating in small groups, each identifying a topic that has relevance to both Indigenous peoples and the environment. Such topics may include availability of safe drinking water on First Nation reserves, mining activity on traditional territories, and traditional ecological knowledge and intellectual property rights. Each topic raises complex problems requiring exploration from multiple perspectives and consideration of the views of diverse players. Many find the task difficult because they have never been required to consider multiple views before and they are used to there being a ‘correct answer’. Scaffolding helps groups plan their learning using the sequence immerse, investigate, coalesce and go public as described in Harvey and Daniels (Reference Harvey and Daniels2015). During the inquiry phase, class instructors act as advisors and, initially, all assessment was of the products of the inquiry process.

Preservice teachers often find the course challenging. Some are shocked when they realise their previous ignorance of difficulties facing many Indigenous communities and their own level of privilege. This can cause them to question perceptions of Canada as a modern, progressive country. Activities requiring them to consider their own behaviours, such as completing a carbon-footprint profile can cause discomfort. Some feel intimidated by the prospect of introducing such topics in their own teaching. In an attempt to help confront and resolve these issues, the course has been refined each time it has been taught. The emphasis on inquiry-based learning is still a central component of the course, but to address their anxiety about this form of learning less of the assessment is based upon this. We think it important for preservice teachers to gain experience of inquiry-based learning, but we do not want their first experience of it to be traumatic. The sequence of sessions has also been altered to shift initial priority to the Indigenous components, as this is the content of the course that causes most concern (so it is best addressed early on). In addition, we have incorporated additional, concrete examples of pedagogy, to boost preservice teachers’ confidence in their ability to teach both ESE and IE content. As with many PTE courses, the course evolves as we learn more about our learners’ needs and perceptions.

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education: Creating environmental art installations

For the last decade, the PTE faculty and preservice teachers at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto have been raising awareness and encouraging action on sustainability through the ESE Initiative, which leads programming, research and advocacy in this area. This has resulted in ways to help preservice teachers, staff and faculty learn about and participate in education’s response to climate change through courses, conferences, clubs and committees. Perhaps one of its more innovative means is through the creation of over a dozen environmental art installations. Located in OISE’s main stairwell, each artwork, created by OISE community members, focuses on an environmental issue with local impact, aiming to raise awareness and invoke action on it. These include the environmental rights of children, the challenges of climate change in urban environments, the need for nature-based learning and the pedagogy of sustainability practices. These installations exemplify a methodological approach to arts-based research (McNiff, Reference McNiff, Knowles and Cole2007) and their impact has recently been studied through a 2-year qualitative case study (Inwood & Kennedy, Reference Inwood and Kennedy2020).

Part of the rapidly emerging environmental art education movement (Anderson & Guyas, Reference Anderson and Guyas2012; Bertling, Reference Bertling2015), these community-based artworks have been inspired by the global environmental art movement of the past 40 years. Environmental artists include those working on nature-based installations (Goldsworthy, Reference Goldsworthy1990; Sonfist, Reference Sonfist2004), to those raising awareness of the un/sustainability of natural and built environments, such as Laderman Ukeles (Feldman Gallery, n.d.) or Burtynsky (n.d.). Collaborative environmental art projects like the Cape Farewell project (Buckland, Reference Buckland2006) and the Beehive Design Collective (n.d.) have also influenced how the OISE artworks have developed. While recent research in environmental art education is beginning to identify some implications for the pedagogy of this emerging field of study (Davis, Reference Davis2018; Sams & Sams, Reference Sams and Sams2017) there were very few models to follow in similar types of projects in faculties of education (Efthymia, Vasiliki, & Konstadinos, Reference Efthymia, Vasiliki and Konstadinos2012; Inwood & Ashworth, Reference Inwood, Ashworth, Scott and Reis2017).

From the outset, these installations were collaboratively created by OISE’s preservice teachers and faculty, but some have also involved local K-12 students and teachers. Involvement in their creation has been positive and participatory, with everyone welcome to contribute, regardless of previous art-making experience or level of expertise. Cognitive, affective and somatic dimensions of learning have been integral to the process of creating these installations, helping those who participate experience first-hand that art-making is a rich learning experience that involves multiple domains of learning (Inwood & Kennedy, Reference Inwood and Kennedy2020). In this, the process of making each installation has echoed engagement in environmental projects and actions more generally, as even those who do not identify as artists or environmentalists have found a supportive learning community in which to explore new ideas and activities that help the shift towards sustainability. To ensure an alignment between the message of the installations, and the media and techniques used to create them, sustainable art practices have been utilised, from minimising and capturing painting waste water, to using low impact materials like watercolours, to working with natural materials like clay.

These artworks were purposefully installed in the margins of an under-used space in the OISE building: its main stairwell. There were good reasons to consider the potential of using the stairwell as a viable location for integrating art education with environmental action. Encouraging community members to walk the stairs helps to reduce elevator use and conserve energy, while simultaneously improving the individual health and well-being of those able to do so. As a marginal, yet public, space, it was considered to be strictly utilitarian, so no one objected to the addition of art installations in it, allowing those involved to experiment freely. Perhaps not surprisingly, given their location in a faculty of education, these have inspired similar installations as OISE preservice teachers take the ideas they have learned into their own classrooms to inspire collaborative art-making with K-12 students on environmental themes.

There is no doubt that these installations have brought environmental learning to OISE in both experiential and aesthetic ways. A recent study (Inwood & Kennedy, Reference Inwood and Kennedy2020) demonstrated that preservice teachers’ involvement in the creation of these artworks helped to build a sense of community, modelled sustainability practices, and most importantly, instigated further environmental activism for those involved. They have also contributed to a developing understanding of pedagogical strategies for environmental art education in PTE, which includes utilising an experiential and collaborative approach to creating each installation, modelling the tenets of sustainability (such as working with natural materials, or low/no VOC paints), engaging all domains of learning to strengthen an authentic experience and framing art-making as a form of environmental activism.

Finley (Reference Finley2003) would recognise these environmental art installations as ‘useable and responsive’ research that can lead to action in a community as well as spark ‘visionary critical discourses…that examine how things are but also imagine how they could be otherwise’ (p. 293). Others are seeing them in a similar light, as a compelling means of manifesting in physical form the experiential and constructivist theories that inform ESE. In this, they have become a symbol of using the margins of university spaces as one way to let ESE take root and grow in importance over time. These installations will continue to engage diverse members of the OISE community, raising their awareness of environmental issues and inspiring action, one step at a time.

Université de St. Boniface: Culturally sustaining, community-based ESE

The Université de St-Boniface (USB) in Winnipeg, Manitoba supports French-language culture and communities within a francophone minority context.Footnote ² USB’s faculty of education is responsible for preparing French-language educators in Manitoba and, more generally, to educate for reconciliation (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015). Demographically, Manitoban francophone communities are evolving from being primarily descendants of (Catholic) French-speaking voyageurs and the Métis to being more religiously and culturally diverse. For the francophone communities’ sustainability, there is a recognised need to enlarge the francophone presence in the province (Rocque, Reference Rocque2011). Targeted immigration has welcomed newcomers, particularly from European (28%) and African (57%) francophone countries (Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, 2018). These changes have brought vitality, opportunities and challenges (Piquemal, Bolivar, & Bali, Reference Piquemal, Bolivar and Bahi2009). To respond to these, USB’s PTE programme offers mandatory education courses with cultural foci that are relevant to the communities served and the context in which USB is situated. These courses facilitate ‘an appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development’ (UN General Assembly, 2017, p. 1). Pedagogical approaches are community-focused and community-based, addressing social and cultural aspects of ESE (Block, Sims, & Beeman, Reference Block, Sims, Beeman, Karrow, DiGiuseppe, Elliott, Gwekwerere and Inwood2016).

A cultural diversity course explores issues around ethnicity, socio-economic status, religion, sexual orientation, and gender, and their impacts on classroom teaching (Banks & McGee Banks, Reference Banks and McGee Banks2016). Doing a ‘diversity walk’ (Sims & Falkenberg, Reference Sims and Falkenberg2013) invites preservice teachers to become more aware of the diversity in the community. During a visit to a francophone school, preservice teachers witness how teachers and schools are responding to the changing demographic and pupils’ needs. Community and educational leaders describe francophone immigrants’ and refugees’ experiences and challenges living in this minority context (Piquemal et al., Reference Piquemal, Bolivar and Bahi2009). LGBTQ educators share experiences and strategies for creating safe, inclusive learning environments.

A French education in minority context course highlights preservice teachers’ responsibility as linguistic role models, empowering them as agents for language viability. They learn about the historic struggle for French-language education in Manitoba. A focus is on schools’ role in community sustainability (Rocque, Reference Rocque2011). Kriel (Reference Kriel2003) explains how for minority languages, education is the institution that generates producers and consumers; hence, having French-language education increases its value as linguistic capital in turn increasing its viability. In the course, emphasis is placed on learning how to integrate francophone culture and community in genuine ways into classroom practice (Landry, Allard, & Deveau, Reference Landry, Allard and Deveau2007). Complementary to this course, two non-mandatory initiatives support the quality of French being taught and the successful integration of preservice teachers educated outside Canada. Living within a francophone minority context, preservice teachers often experience feelings of inadequacy around their language skills. Consequently, an as-needed French course was designed to advance preservice teachers’ language skills, build their confidence as linguistic role models and nourish their francophone identity. As for supporting successful integration in practicum experiences, USB provides opportunities for preservice teachers unfamiliar with Canadian classrooms to visit schools to observe various educational experiences/interventions/lessons. Accompanied by a faculty member, they discuss what they observed.

With the Indigenous perspectives course, a goal is to ‘live’ reconciliation by raising awareness and building relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities that are quite divided (Comack, Deane, Morrissette, & Silver, Reference Comack, Deane, Morrissette and Silver2013). Canadian colonial history and its impacts are explored through experiential activities; community speakers provide first-hand accounts on current issues. Preservice teachers participate in Indigenous community/cultural events and visit community organisations (Sims, Reference Sims2019).

When working in the linguistic margins, there are certain opportunities and challenges doing community-based work. In all of these courses, but particularly with the cultural diversity and Indigenous perspectives courses, there is a reliance on community collaborators to bring diverse, authentic perspectives and experiences to preservice teachers. This involves bringing speakers into the classroom and taking preservice teachers into the broader community context to build relationships with members of different communities. It also involves gaining a deeper understanding of contemporary issues and learning how to use the community-as-classroom, a foundational pedagogical strategy in ESE (Block et al., Reference Block, Sims, Beeman, Karrow, DiGiuseppe, Elliott, Gwekwerere and Inwood2016; Sims & Desmarais, Reference Sims and Desmarais2020). Among the preservice teachers, facing difficult issues together in an honest way, like discrimination and racism, if done well, helps build a community of learners. Building bridges between people often found in the margins reveals a common struggle for social justice and equity, highlighting how strength can be found in diversity. In meeting people and engaging around issues, people find commonalities; they come to care about issues that might not be conventionally considered ‘theirs’ (Sims, Asselin, & Falkenberg, Reference Sims, Asselin and Falkenberg2020). However, finding appropriate speakers and events that occur in French, particularly with the Indigenous perspectives course, is challenging. Many of USB’s preservice teachers are bilingual (English-French), but not all; finding ways to overcome this communication challenge is essential. While a strength at USB is its focus on building relationships between human communities, a shortcoming is its general lack of engagement with the land and natural environments (Beeman & Sims, Reference Beeman, Sims, Karrow and DiGiuseppe2019). A challenge at a faculty level, perhaps understandably, has been the prioritisation of cultural and linguistic aspects of sustainability at the potential expense of learning about other aspects of ESE, notably environmental education. Institutionally, the latter has not been a priority (Block et al., Reference Block, Sims, Beeman, Karrow, DiGiuseppe, Elliott, Gwekwerere and Inwood2016).

Finally, these courses reflect USB’s effort to create meaningful, equitable, culturally sustaining education that is relevant to the communities it serves. The cultural diversity and Indigenous perspectives courses help preservice teachers better understand specific needs of the changing demographic while contextualising education within larger societal issues. The French education in minority context course, along with the accompanying (as needed) language course and practicum-preparation observations, is meant to specifically support, on the one hand, French-language preservation, and on the other, the successful integration of francophone newcomers to Canada into the education profession.

University of British Columbia: The Orchard Garden

The Orchard Garden is a student and faculty-led teaching and learning garden on the central campus of the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, British Columbia. It is a joint project of the Faculty of Education, Land and Food Systems and the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, with Education playing the central role.

After several years of lobbying, public meetings and design and visioning charrettes, the Orchard Garden was established in 2010 by a team of graduate students and faculty members. The initial aim was to meet a perceived need in PTE for an outdoor classroom where preservice teachers could gain experience teaching and developing curriculum and pedagogical approaches outside a typical school classroom in the many school garden outdoor classrooms that had been developed across Canada since the late 1990s. The Orchard Garden aims to support PTE through helping new and experienced teachers learn to teach across the curriculum in a school garden (with the garden as co-teacher), support academic research on garden-based ESE and promote university/community engagement through knowledge mobilisation with the broader educational and schools communities.

This work followed the lead of garden-based education research coming forth in North America, Australia and Europe at the time, in connection with a growing international movement for school gardens as learning spaces (Cutter-Mackenzie, Reference Cutter-Mackenzie2009; Desmond, Grieshop, & Subramaniam, Reference Desmond, Grieshop and Subramaniam2004). Many of the studies in garden-based learning (GBL) focused on the benefits to school-aged students in terms of improved food literacy and nutrition (Parmer, Salisbury-Glennon, Shannon, & Struempler, Reference Parmer, Salisbury-Glennon, Shannon and Struempler2009), a more engaged relationship with the science curriculum) and improvement in academic scores as indicators of learning (Berezowitz, Bontrager Yoder, & Schoeller, Reference Berezowitz, Bontrager Yoder and Schoeller2014).

At the Orchard Garden, with a focus on university-level learning and PTE across the curriculum, there has been an interest in GBL for curricular and pedagogical development with preservice teachers. The Orchard Garden’s cross-curricular approach engages with GBL across school subject areas, exploring teachers’ and learners’ relationships with other people and the greater-than-human world, in dialogue with Indigenous cultural traditions. Practices developed by the Orchard Garden team have been informed by studies in GBL and its beneficial effects on mathematics education, art education and ecoliteracy. The Orchard Garden’s programmes are supported by studies of the role of GBL in promoting positive environmental stewardship (Mayer-Smith & Peterat, Reference Mayer-Smith, Peterat and Winograd2016), cultural diversity (Cutter-Mackenzie, Reference Cutter-Mackenzie2009) and Indigenous relationships with plant nations and greater-than-human kin (Hauk et al., Reference Hauk, Williams, Bluehorse-Skelton, Kelley, Gerofsky and Lagerwey2018). The design of Orchard Garden projects has benefited by its engagement with studies dealing directly with the institutional and educational effects of university campus learning gardens and of learning gardens in PTE in particular (Gaylie, Reference Gaylie2009).

The Orchard Garden is a small physical space (400 sq. m) on the edge of the central campus of UBC, but it is also a learning text, a community and broad range of programmes that support teaching and learning, research and engagement. Over 500 UBC graduate and undergraduate students have participated annually in Orchard Garden programmes for each of the past 11 years; 5500 teachers, urban farmers and community activists have had an important part of their academic and professional formation with the garden.

Orchard Garden teaching and learning programmes include credit courses in the university calendar. Each year, our student/faculty team leads two intensive 3-week Community Field Experience practica for preservice teachers, where we collaborate in garden-based teaching and learning activities with the garden and plan and carry out Saturday workshops and a Summer Solstice public celebration together. The Orchard Garden has supported and hosted undergraduate and graduate directed studies courses in the faculties of Education, Land and Food Systems and Landscape Architecture, and a national summer institute course for early childhood educators. A highlight of each academic year is the series of eight Saturday Workshops for preservice teachers, hosted by graduate and undergraduate student team members, which leads to an informal certificate. Research projects by faculty, undergraduate and graduate students based in the Orchard Garden have led to publications, conference presentations and international conference symposia held in the Orchard Garden as venue (notably, the American Educational Research Association, April 2012; Children and Nature Conference, April 2017; and World Environmental Education Conference, September 2017). Over a dozen graduate theses and dissertations have had research venues in the UBC Orchard Garden.

Research in and of the Orchard Garden includes work in education, global resource systems, landscape architecture and sustainable agriculture. Recently, the Outdoor PLAYbook project (Fox et al., Reference Fox, Brussoni, Gerofsky, Ostertag, Herrington, MacKay, Scott, Sept, Ramsay, Grimson and Brunelle2016) brought together UBC landscape architects, advocates of risky play from the Faculty of Medicine and educators, all connected with the garden, to create a web resource for schools and parents that won a Canadian Society of Landscape Architects national award of excellence. Undergraduate research papers from the Orchard Garden include a study measuring the effectiveness of biochar in organic agriculture, a study of the integration of the learning gardens with university food systems and the viability of a rooftop learning garden at the new university student centre.

Teaching and programming in the Orchard Garden are always a collaborative undertaking, with graduate, undergraduate, community and faculty team members working side by side with the garden itself. There is a degree of freedom in working at the margins of a large institution like UBC, allowing for greater experimentation, the blurring of boundaries and the piloting of initiatives that may 1 day have more official status within the university.