Dawning of hope: Practice of and reflections on indigenous teacher education in Taiwan

Abstract

Teachers more familiar with students' culture tend to use culturally relevant teaching methods to smooth students' learning. Most pre-service teachers in Taiwan lack sufficient training for multicultural competence to enable them to embrace indigenous students' culture and appropriate teaching approaches. In 2013, the Education Act for Indigenous Peoples was revised thereby requiring teachers of indigenous education to comply with the act within five years. It created huge changes and modifications to indigenous teacher education and required teachers who work in indigenous areas to complete ethnic culture and multiculture courses. All levels of government have to institute the Acts requirements within five years. Given the significance of the crucial keys to success of teaching indigenous students, it is important to understand how the government values the development of teachers' multiculture teaching abilities. Following an outline of the tribal critical race theory (TribalCrit), the status quo of indigenous peoples' education and teacher training in Taiwan were identified in a discussion of social justice. To make indigenous teacher education more suitable to indigenous peoples' needs and build up a good foundation for ethnic culture development, the experiences of qualified teachers of indigenous education in the US, Canada, and Australia will be mentioned as examples. The goal for this research is to provide some useful reflections on the subsequent implementation of such efforts, and to get some inspiration for Taiwan's aboriginal teacher education in fulfillment of the Education Act for Indigenous Peoples.