Teaching for Change: Teacher Candidates’ Anti-Oppression Elementary School Lesson Plans

Abstract

This paper explores pre-service elementary teacher candidates’ written reflections on an assignment for a mandatory Bachelor of Education course in Ontario, Canada. The assignment required the teacher candidates (TCs) to create and teach one 40-minute anti-oppression lesson (racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.) in a public elementary school with students in senior kindergarten to grade 6. Two key themes are discussed in the paper: first, the ways in which TCs found convenient excuses as to why they were unable to fully engage with a topic; and, second, the fears identified by the TCs in terms of teaching sensitive issues.