The Peripatetic Journey of Teacher Preparation in Canada

Rosa Bruno-Jofré, Joseph Stafford

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781839822407
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: History of Education

The Peripatetic Journey of Teacher Preparation in Canada situates teacher training, preparation and education in Canada within national and global histories. The authors lead the reader through an exploration of the objectives of schooling, the contextual role of teachers, and the political undercurrents sustaining various educational conceptions and policies.
Taking a 'longue durée' approach, the authors begin by considering traditional practices in Indigenous nations encountered by the colonizers of Canada, including the role of the community as an educator. Tracing teacher preparation through colonization, the authors then move on to the formation of the educational state, the development of educational sciences and educational debate, the professionalization of teaching, its feminization at the elementary level, and its integration into the university, along with changes that emerged out of the 'long 1960s.' The book closes with a discussion of the process by which Indigenous people are reclaiming control over their education, and with it their spirituality, as well as gaining control over the formation of their own teachers.
Placing the historical analysis of teacher preparation within prevailing political and socio-economic processes, the authors showcase a series of overlapping discourses and internationally relevant educational trends.

Chapter 1

From a Social and Emotional Educational Process to Missionary Conversion and Schooling: The 1600s to the Fall of New France in 1763

Joseph Stafford

Introduction: A Difficult Encounter

In traditional Indigenous communities, “teacher preparation/education” was embedded in the very nature of the communities themselves. Parents, older siblings, members of the extended family, and the elders assumed the role of teacher. Similar to European societies, teacher preparation often took the form of an apprenticeship process, both informal and formal, at the end of which a new generation of “teachers” emerged. Once the French established colonies, the merchants and missionaries disrupted the Indigenous world, changing the lives of the Indigenous peoples forever. A new form of teacher preparation was introduced, that of the missionary who was trained to convert the Indigenous peoples to Christianity. Yet they failed overall in their conversion efforts, facing an obstacle that they were unable to overcome, namely, an Indigenous world view different from their own. ¹ Possessing a new, emerging world view that began to divide the human self from the surrounding world, the missionaries failed to understand the extent to which the Indigenous peoples possessed an entirely different world view. ² For Indigenous peoples no such division existed with the human psyche understood as profoundly integrated with the natural world, a world that possessed its own meaning and purpose. ³ No amount of teacher preparation ever enabled the missionaries to overcome the “obstacle” of the Indigenous world view.

This chapter then examines teacher preparation in terms of the French inhabitants. During an era when education was not understood as a major responsibility of secular governments, the Church was in charge of education, and therefore teacher formation, with different religious orders playing major roles. A major emphasis of teacher preparation was religious and moral doctrine since a fundamental purpose of education was the development of the students' moral character. Basic literacy skills were another major focus since the ability to read and write was deemed essential to a religious education. During this period the focus of education and teacher formation was also practical in nature, and aimed at preparing students, especially students of the emerging artisan and merchant class, for everyday life. Overall, however, teacher preparation was not a major priority during this period. An underlying assumption was that any educated person could teach with little or no formal training. At a time when teaching had not yet achieved anything near an enviable professional status, and when most teachers were poorly paid, many individuals became teachers out of economic necessity, remaining in the “profession” only until they found more lucrative work.

A shortage of teachers was a constant problem, especially in rural areas. As a result, many teachers failed to meet the two accepted basic standards of teacher preparation, namely, a good “moral character” in the eyes of the Church and a sufficient degree of literacy themselves. Throughout the period, the colonial government relied heavily on France for both teachers and teacher preparation. At the same time some religious orders began to recruit Canadians with the process of teacher preparation adapted to the frontier conditions of New France.

Traditional Indigenous Education and the Missionaries: The First Teachers of New France, 1600–1663

Long before the European explorers arrived on the shores of what became known as Canada, the Indigenous peoples had already established various forms of teacher preparation despite the absence of a structured school system in the European sense. The role of “teacher” did not refer to a specific occupation, but was fulfilled by many different individuals within the community, especially the elders. In this, Indigenous communities were much like most human societies where for centuries most people did not attend a formal school. The forms of teacher preparation were also deeply embedded in their way of life, and reflected the values and skills deemed essential to community life understood as integrally connected to the cosmos. Since Indigenous epistemology was closely associated with their “psychological connectedness to their cosmology,” knowledge was not only secular, but possessed a sacred nature. ⁴ As such, values were embedded in knowledge itself, rendering it difficult to distinguish between moral messages and empirical content. ⁵ In terms of knowledge, then, the empirical, based on experience, and the normative, based on social values, were intimately intertwined. ⁶ What was fundamental to Indigenous teacher preparation was the interplay between the changing empirical knowledge and the changing social values. Indigenous teachers, that is the “knowledge holders and workers,” needed to observe carefully their natural environment and improve on their own knowledge, especially concerning “wild life forecasts” and medical treatments, in order to maintain their own credibility and status within the community. ⁷ Despite what European setters, and later Euro-centric scholars believed, Indigenous education was not static or “traditional” in the sense of being immutable, but rather was a dynamic process involving a continual effort to understand the natural world and the people's place within it. ⁸

Even though at least 50 Indigenous nations existed, divided into numerous groups with wide-ranging different cultures, including the sedentary Iroquoian peoples, the nomadic Algonquin, the semi-nomadic and hunters of the Plains, the peoples of the Pacific northwest, and the Innuit of the Far North, Indigenous peoples shared similar forms of teacher preparation. ⁹ Since there was no distinct separation between the “secular” and the “sacred,” children were taught in a holistic fashion with parents assuming a critical role as teachers. ¹⁰ As such, teacher preparation was embedded in daily life since children were trained to be “teachers” while they matured into adulthood and became teachers themselves, transmitting the values and skills of stable and self-confident cultures to the next generation. ¹¹ Teacher preparation involved a “life time activity that only grandparents and Elders could be said to have fully undertaken.” ¹² One of the most important values that all Indigenous societies emphasized was “individual autonomy,” even for young children. Following a principle of “non-interference,” Indigenous peoples were reluctant to impose their will on another individual. They used embarrassment or “warning stories” as methods to encourage young people to adhere to the customary values and modes of behaviour rather than physical punishment or the denial of privileges. Subtle persuasion was deemed more appropriate. ¹³

Common to most Indigenous communities were specific teaching methods used to develop needed skills, and to instill the desired values. For young children parents systematically employed games as “purposeful play” according to gender. ¹⁴ On the Plains, Cree boys were taught how to use bows and arrows by playing a game where a wheel was thrown and the boys tried to hit it. Innuit girls were taught to make dolls and to make their own clothing. A dominant teaching method among all Indigenous was the “phenomenon of emulation” whereby children copied the skills of their parents and other adults. One of the favourite activities for Copper Innuit girls was to cook some meat to share with their friends. In agriculturalist communities such as the Huron and the Iroquois, young girls learned skills needed to plant and harvest crops by playing with sticks. On the Pacific Coast, young boys, after accompanying their fathers on fishing trips and learning mainly through observation, played a competitive game to practise how to fish by shooting arrows at floating weeds with an elder deciding who won. ¹⁵ Such purposeful play introduced Indigenous children to the skills that they would need as adult members of their community.

Even as children, then, Indigenous peoples engaged in a process of apprenticeship, a concept central in their education. ¹⁶ At times this apprenticeship was informal where a family member taught a specific skill to younger members of the family; at other times, the process was more formalized as with medical knowledge where the elders often selected the most promising young individuals as apprentices. ¹⁷ After a period of observation and learning, they eventually participated in healing ceremonies. ¹⁸ An apprenticeship process also existed for story telling since the oral tradition was the most effective way to transmit Indigenous culture to the next generation.

According to Indigenous educator Cora Weber-Pillwax, stories were always told with a specific meaning or message to convey:

Stories may be for and about teaching, entertainment, praying, personal expression, history and power. They are to be listened to, remembered, thought about, mediated on. Stories are not frivolous or meaningless; no one tells a story without intent or purpose…words are not carelessly spoken. ¹⁹

Any adult could participate in the oral tradition by recounting stories that explained the history of a family or clan, and that conveyed important lessons concerning values and social behaviour, but for what was considered “sacred knowledge,” a more formal apprenticeship was required. ^{20, 21} Only specific elders were permitted to recount stories or legends involving sacred knowledge, or some other designated individuals whom they had trained. Selected by the elder, these individuals were entrusted with passing on this sacred knowledge. ²² Some of these stories and legends were so sacred that they were only told during major celebratory events such as the Sun Dance of the Plains nations. ²³

An important part of the apprenticeship process and the overall oral tradition was the learning of the different types of Indigenous ideographic literacy. Among the Micmac of the Atlantic coast, for example, several forms were adopted in order to record and store valuable knowledge: pictographs, petroglyphs, notched sticks, and wampum. ²⁴ Using the available natural materials such as birchbark, rocks, wood, and shells, the Micmac were able to supplement their oral tradition since these forms of literacy enabled them to invoke memory and thereby help to maintain these traditions. ²⁵

Several French missionaries remarked on the extent to which the Micmac possessed a symbolic literacy. In 1652, Father Gabriel Druilletes recorded that they used coal for ink, birchbark for paper, wrote with strange characters, and made “certain marks, according to their ideas as a local memory to recollect the points, articles, and maxims which they heard.” ²⁶ A year later, Father Bressani, reported that they used

…little sticks instead of books, which they sometimes marked with certain signs…By the aid of these they can repeat the names of a hundred or more presents, the decisions adopted in councils and a thousand other particulars. ²⁷

According to another French missionary, Father Christian Le Clerq, many Micmac children possessed a symbolic literacy since he noted in 1677 that “some children were making marks with charcoal upon birchbark, and were counting these with the fingers very accurately at each word of prayers which they pronounced.” ²⁸ Given the widespread use of this symbolic literacy, most likely Micmac children became literate at home, being taught by their parents or older siblings. ²⁹ For more sacred knowledge, especially dealing with medicine and spiritual matters, a more formal apprenticeship was followed, involving a “long and rigorous” process of learning how to read and write the sacred symbols that were needed to conduct the rituals and chants necessary for many religious functions. ³⁰

Overall, most Indigenous “teacher preparation” was informal as parents taught their children essential values and skills within the context of family life, fully aware of the importance of purposeful play. Adhering to the principle of individual autonomy, Indigenous youth were not forced to adopt certain values or social behaviours, but rather encouraged to do so by observing and learning from the adults within the community. In terms of sacred knowledge, however, a more formal apprenticeship process existed that involved learning the sacred forms of literacy that were essential to assuring that the oral traditions were transmitted to the next generation. When...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• About the Authors
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 From a Social and Emotional Educational Process to Missionary Conversion and Schooling: The 1600s to the Fall of New France in 1763
• Chapter 2 Teacher Preparation in British North America before the Establishment of Normal Schools, 1763–1840
• Chapter 3 Teacher Preparation in French Quebec, 1841–1975
• Chapter 4 The Creation of the Educational State, the Normal School and the Formation of a Polity in the Emerging “Age of Empire,” 1841–1918
• Chapter 5 Teacher Preparation in English Canada in the Interwar Period: 1918–1945
• Chapter 6 Shaking Teacher Preparation/Education: The Post-war Period and the “Long 1960s”
• Index