Writing childhood place stories to learn about planning for teaching as planning for placemaking

Janine Tine; Julia Ellis

Authors

Janine Tine University of Alberta https://orcid.org/0009-0001-4617-0932
Julia Ellis University of Alberta https://orcid.org/0009-0009-0032-0526

Keywords:

Place, children and place, identity, belonging, childhood place attachment, wellbeing, sense of place

Abstract

This two-part MJE Forum piece explores how writing and sharing childhood place stories in a “Children and Place” course can support reconceptualization of planning for teaching as placemaking. Part one presents a childhood place story that Janine Tine wrote as a graduate student in the course. Part two highlights key ideas about place and about children and place, considering examples of these ideas in Janine’s story. Her summers spent at her grandparents’ acreage reveal key elements of childhood place attachment and the grandparents’ role in socially constructing the place it became for the children. The course invites participants to consider parallel opportunities for teachers’ social constructions of classrooms as places that evoke students’ place attachment.

Author Biographies

Janine Tine, University of Alberta

holds a PhD and MA in Curriculum Studies from the University of Alberta (U of A), a Post-Degree Certificate in Education from the University of Saskatchewan (U of S), and a BEd from the Saskatchewan Urban Native Teacher Education Program at the U of S. Her doctoral dissertation is entitled "Parents’ Ethnotheories of their Bicultural Children and of Parenting: Interpretive Case Studies with Three Intercultural Couples in Canada." Her publications include topics such as Indigenous conceptions of childhood, family language policy, interpretive inquiry and interviewing, and the Young Indigenous Women's Circle of Leadership at the U of A. janinetine500@gmail.com

Julia Ellis, University of Alberta

is professor emerita at the University of Alberta. Her research interests include: creative problem solving in the classroom; children and place; narrative inquiry with children and youth; a hermeneutic interview protocol to support interpretive inquiry; using pre-interview activities; mentorship programs for children; and perspectives of “difficult students.” Previous books include: Ellis, J., Small-McGinley, J., & De Fabrizio, L. (2001). Caring for kids in communities: Using mentorship, peer support, and student leadership programs in schools; and Ellis, J. L. (Ed.) (1998). Teaching from understanding: Teacher as interpretive inquirer. Ellis is currently co-editing Working Narratively in Qualitative Research with Derek Stovin. jle@ualberta.ca

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Writing childhood place stories to learn about planning for teaching as planning for placemaking

Authors

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Abstract

Author Biographies

Janine Tine, University of Alberta

Julia Ellis, University of Alberta

References

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