Mas' Making and Pedagogy: Imagined Possibilities

Abstract

In this article I draw on an ethnographic case study that examined mas makers perceptions of the learning/teaching practices at work in the production of costumes for Trinidad and Tobagos annual Carnival celebrations. During the 2005 Carnival season I spent four months in the field, my country of birth, and collected data through participant observation, still photographs, and informal and semi-formal autobiographical interviews. I used Spradleys (1979, 1980) domain and componential analysis and Goodenoughs (1971) propriospect in my description, analysis, and interpretation of the data resources. In this article, I apply the notion of performance art pedagogy to these findings. In so doing, I explore imagined possibilities and implications for the institutionalized educational system that Caribbean scholars claim are in an era of re-conceptualization. I challenge fellow educators to reconsider what counts as learning and what learning counts (Green & Luke, 2006), in our efforts to provide education for all.

Making the Ancestors Proud:

“…Andre Tanker, yet another Caribbean musical artist, afforded me a release valve that I needed while trying to gain the courage to come clean about how that assessment meeting had affected me. Andre Tanker's Home (1970s), described as "a song of self-realization, a rediscovery of self," helped me to come to terms with why I leaned so heavily on the work of several Caribbean scholars in: my dissertation (Fournillier, 2005), my other publications (e.g., Fournillier, 2009), and the style of writing like Selvon's in the interior monologue, presented Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, Fall 2020, 12(2), pp. 60-72 ISSN 1916-3460 © 2020 University of Alberta http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/cpi/index earlier.…”