Teaching Assistants' Training Program

Description

In December 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada released its Final Report, which included 94 “Calls to Action” for federal, provincial, territorial and Aboriginal government agencies, institutions, and peoples alike. In academic spaces, land acknowledgements, strategies to “Indigenize,” and calls to “decolonize” are common throughout the disciplines. Decolonization is not a metaphor, but as TAs we can acknowledge our role in (settler) colonialism and the oppression of Indigenous people in Canada, educate ourselves and our students, and learn anti-oppressive teaching and research strategies. In this workshop, participants will acknowledge their role in dominant settler culture through a discussion of how universities like UofT have contributed to the dispossession of Indigenous ideas and lands. Participants will also learn the differences between “decolonization” and “inclusion.” This workshop will provide structured group time for co-learning about how each discipline  benefits from and perpetuates (settler) colonialism. Participants will leave this workshop with a list of anti-oppressive teaching practices and strategies that can be utilized across the disciplines, in classrooms, tutorials, and labs.