Jill McClay, Colin Harrison, Lynne Wiltse, James Edgar and Clare Dowdall // Photo courtesy of Linda Stollings.
Taking inspiration from her experience teaching in First Nations communities helped Elementary Education professor Lynne Wiltse take top honours at the United Kingdom Literacy Association Education Awards.
Wiltse was conferred with the UKLA Wiley-Blackwell Literacy Award last month in Bristol, UK for her paper Not just 'sunny days': Aboriginal students connect out-of-school literacy resources with school literacy practices. Her experience teaching in First Nations communities in British Columbia motivated Wiltse to conduct the research which led to this paper.
"My teacher education program had not adequately prepared me to teach students whose cultural and linguistic backgrounds varied from the mainstream," said Wiltse, who is also the Department of Elementary's Associate Chair Undergraduate.
Rather than the "all-too-common" remedial approach to working with minority students, Wiltse's research and paper instead investigated which practices and knowledges of Canadian Aboriginal students not acknowledged in school may provide these students with access to school literacy practices.
The UKLA's panel that selected Wiltse's paper noted her approach of balancing the acknowledgement of barriers and challenges with the desire to make a difference.
"This study uses these frameworks to show how the project not only brought together teachers and students from very different cultural backgrounds, but also changed the school curriculum in ways that offered a template for moving beyond racism and exclusion towards inclusivity and social justice," said Colin Harrison, panel chair.
Wiltse is grateful for the recognition, but her focus remains on the impact for the students in the education system.
"That my paper was recognized with this award is encouraging for the many students who experience discontinuities between their lives in and out-of-school," said Wiltse.
"Viewing diversity as a resource rather than a deficit can open up literacy pedagogy for minority learners to a wider range of learning and teaching, increasing both student engagement and achievement."