Congratulations to Dr. Anne Phelan & Dr. Bill Pinar on a very successful two-day symposium in October 2017 entitled Reconceptualizing Teacher Education Worldwide: A Canadian Contribution to a Global Challenge. The symposium was supported by a SSHRC Connections Grant. Over 60 invited participants included representatives from the Ministry of Education, the British Columbia Teachers Federation, teacher education programs across British Columbia (e.g. University of Victoria, University of the Fraser Valley) as well as UBC faculty and graduate students.
Presenters from the Universities of British Columbia, Manitoba and Ottawa as well as Simon Fraser, Queens, McGill, and Bishops University focused on three key themes:
- academic erudition | teaching as a learned profession with responsibility for the intellectual growth of the young and continuing study by teachers.
- civic particularity | teachers as interpreters of cultures, mediators of history, and protectors of particularity within communities.
- ethical engagement | teachers exhibiting moral conduct and resolve amidst conflicting and sometimes demoralizing political demands.
Presentations were punctuated by roundtable discussions facilitated by doctoral students from the Universities of British Columbia and Ottawa. The key question guiding the discussions was: What curricular conditions would need to prevail for teacher education to foster teachers’ intellectual leadership, an appreciation of civic particularity and historical circumstance, and a capacity to engage ethically (pedagogically) with students’ histories and ideas?
For further information about the symposium please click to view program abstracts.
Check back to this site to read graduate student blogs entries recounting themes and issues emerging from the roundtable discussions.
Drs. Phelan and Pinar wish to thank the UBC and Faculty of Education Offices of Research and to the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy for their wonderful support .
Event organizers: Dr. Anne Phelan, EDCP, Dr. William Pinar, EDCP; Dr. Ruth Kane, University of Ottawa; Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook, University of Ottawa