Preparing pre-service teachers to teach literacy in remote spaces

Remote Indigenous communities are often seen as challenging places in which to teach for a range of reasons. Student attendance is erratic, and teachers can feel that their work is not effective. Additionally, remote communities are culturally as well as geographically very isolated, with limited access to services (Price K, Teacher education for high poverty schools. Springer, New York, 2016). Hence, it is often difficult to attract and retain teachers, and those teachers who do take up jobs in remote schools may not feel they have been adequately prepared to work in those settings. In recent years, universities and education departments have put in place a number of initiatives to attract and retain “good” teachers in these communities. For example, several universities offer placement experiences for pre-service teachers to help them develop some understanding of what it means to work and live in remote communities and for them to develop their pedagogical skills to work effectively with Indigenous learners. In this chapter we examine the kinds of knowledge and skills that pre-service teachers need in order to work in the literacy space in remote schools. Our study refers to data from interviews with pre-service teachers, community members and school personnel. It focuses on preparedness for teaching literacy in remote settings, the disconnects between the pre-service curriculum and the expectations of schools and departments and pre-service teachers’ expectations versus the realities of their lived experience on community. Data is drawn from a broader study which sought to understand how we might better plan, implement and prepare pre-service teachers for remote teaching placements so that we might provide guidance for universities, jurisdictions and policy-makers.