MOTHERS AND TEACHERS: TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN?
RASHMEE KARNAD-JANI I
n 2005, as a second-year teacher in a GTA public school, I wrote, “My Indian-ness comes to me far away from home. It comes to me when people
speak to me LOUDLY, so I understand.” I was sitting in a sun-filled staff room in
May, confused after being asked repeatedly “What shall we do for South Asian Heri- tage Month?” Since my family’s arrival in the GTA in January 2002, I had begun to realize that my presence in my new home, Ontario, was one that came with many la- bels, some of which I did not even see. I had begun to notice how I received nods from teachers and others on supervision duty when I waited for my daughter outside her school. But when I worked at my school, people would engage with me conversation- ally. When I visited my children’s schools, or other schools in my school board for pro- fessional development, I would be asked if I was the lunch lady. As these are the people who watch over student safety during un- structured and semi-structured times, I did not mind at all. It was amusing though to see the back-pedalling when people realized that I was “the teacher” or “the presenter” at the professional development. Now as a K-12 Special Education
Consultant, when I visit schools in which I am “the only one,” these experiences are recurrent. Students also come up to me
and ask, “So, what are you? Where were you born? Where are your parents from?” I observe these experiences as they bring to light how I am seen in social-professional- academic spaces.
MOTHER-TEACHER: THE BLENDED STANDPOINT
My experiences with my children’s schooling improved gradually as I went from being a “newcomer” to becoming an Ontario certi- fied teacher and it is through the careful navi- gation of the schooling landscape as mother- teacher-racialized “South Asian” woman that I began to make meaning and breathe better. As I have seen my status become elevated through 19 years of living here gathering aca- demic and professional credentials alongside a social media presence, I continue to realize that women who look like me and talk like me, when devoid of the power labels I bear, do not experience the schooling of their chil- dren in the same way that I did. When I engage in social, professional
and academic spaces, I do so as a racialized woman whose spoken words bear the fra- grance of many languages of which English is one. When I teach, engage in community work, listen to professional development presentations or, in my role as a K-12 Special Education consultant, design and deliver professional learning, I inhabit what I have
E ELEMENTARY TEACHERS’ FEDERATION OF ONTARIO 23
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
