Systemic and discriminatory disciplinary practices and a teacher's struggle for a more socially just and equitable education system

grantor: University of TorontoThis thesis looks at how I became a teacher. I write about my experiences of, and implications in, different disciplinary practices of supply teaching and in various teaching positions I have held. Despite my resistance, I learned that to teach in a mass schooling system that some forms of discipline were necessary. I began to see the relation of teaching within the larger political and social context and to explore some of the discriminatory features of the education system called schooling and the limits that teachers function within. Racism, anti-racism and homophobia are some of the systemic relations of power that I look into. Streaming is another major systemic problem that I take up. What I wish to make central are the possibility and difficulties that a teacher struggles with to make teaching more socially just and inclusive in the face of the systemic, discriminatory disciplinary practices of the institution of schooling.M.A