MJE Special Issue: Taking up the Calls to Action of the TRC in Teacher Education

In making public the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) Senator Murray Sinclair noted that “Reconciliation is not an aboriginal problem, it is a Canadian problem. It involves all of us” (Sinclair, as cited in Off & Douglas, 2015). More than a year since the publication of the TRC’s final report (2015), we wonder how its Calls to Action are being taken up by all of us within teacher education.

In this wondering we conceive of teacher education broadly. It is what occurs:

• in faculty of education graduate and undergraduate education programs;
• in college programs focused on education;
• during professional development programs at the national, provincial/territorial, and very local levels;
• when educators–pre-service, in-service, administrators, post-secondary–meet and have conversations.

Our own conversations–with each other, with colleagues, with the students we teach–point to the complexity of the TRC’s calls, as well as what they do and do not explicitly address. We wonder how it is we might teach so that future generations “can live together in dignity, peace, and prosperity on these lands we now share” (TRC, 2015, p. 13). For this special issue of MJE we wish to open up these conversations, so that we can get a better sense of the complexity and range of processes set in motion by the Call to Action in the context of teacher education.

We invite submissions that:

• engage with and recognize the complexity of the process of implementation with an interest in what has worked well and what has not gone as planned
• foster deeper learning about the history of residential schools in Canada and their ongoing effects on relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples;
• identify obstacles and barriers that are in the process of being addressed (and how they are being addressed), as well as obstacles and barriers that remain unaddressed;
• consider short term solutions as well a longer term sustainable approaches to truth and reconciliation;
• assess the calls for healing in terms of taking up the calls to action and/or taking up the calls to action as a form of healing;
• bring a critical lens to the TRC and its calls to action, recognizing that like all processes and documents it is incomplete, a partial story/partial truth that necessitates difficult work and complex conversations;
• consider the two-way process laid out in the TRC and how this comes with responsibilities/obligations that go beyond checking off a curricular requirement towards responsible and collaborative ways to action within academia, communities, and schools;
• apply a decolonizing lens to the process of taking up the calls to action in teacher education;
• draw on and/or point to the role of Indigenous wisdom/languages/ways of knowing, being, and doing in this process;
• reflect on movements such as Idle No More and #NoDAPL and what they tell us or imply about taking up the calls to action of the TRC, truth and reconciliation, and, justice for Indigenous peoples in Canada;
• recognize that truth and reconciliation involves not just changing relationships between people, peoples, and communities but also with the land (TRC, 2015).

In keeping with the MJE’s section policies, we are seeking scholarly articles, notes from the field, and contributions to the MJE Forum that address the theme of the special issue. Contributions in English and French are encouraged and welcome. We welcome multimodal formats such as embedded video, image, or sound. We encourage submissions by K-12 educators, school administrators, Elders, researchers, teacher educators etc. For more information about the different types of submissions and please see http://mje.mcgill.ca/about/submissions#authorGuidelines.

This special issue is of MJE is being organized by an editorial collective including:

Lyn Daniels, Kawacatoose First Nation, Surrey School District

Sandra Deer, Kanien’keha:ka, McGill University

Dwayne Donald, Papaschase Cree, University of Alberta

Bronwen Low, McGill University

Dawn Wiseman, McGill University

Submissions are due June 15, 2017. Please submit your manuscript online (http://mje.mcgill.ca/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions), indicating that this is for the TRC special issue in the comments to the editor.

For all questions, please contact Sylvie Wald, Managing Editor, at mje.education@mcgill.ca.

References

Off, C., & Douglas, J. (2015, June 2). “Reconciliation is not an aboriginal problem, it is a Canadian problem. It involves all of us.” As It Happens, CBC Radio. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-edition-1.3096950/reconciliation-is-not-an-aboriginal-problem-it-is-a-canadian-problem-it-involves-all-of-us-1.3097253

TRC. (2015). Canada’s residential schools: Reconciliation, Volume 6. Montreal, QC: McGill University Press. Retrieved from http://www.myrobust.com/websites/trcinstitution/File/Reports/Volume_6_Reconciliation_English_Web.pdf