Tag Archives: Student Posts

EDST Blog: Call for Papers (and Introduction to Editorial Board)

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The EDST blog editorial board is pleased to invite EDST students, staff, and faculty to submit contributions to the EDST blog.

 

Department head André Mazawi described EDST as our “common home,” “in the sense of a space we all share in the pursuit of our work, studies, and contributions.”

The EDST blog serves as an extension of this shared space, where authors can:

  • Start conversations and raise questions
  • Reflect on university life and student issues
  • Discuss others subjects within education

Watch the video below for more details, then scroll to the bottom to this post to find the full call, and introduction to the blog’s new editorial board!

Questions about submissions can be directed to Jessica Lussier at edstblog.editor@ubc.ca.

Call For Papers

 

Introducing the Editorial Board

Many thanks to previous GAAs and EDST students who volunteered as the blog’s editorial team. The blog warmly welcomes Silas Krabbe and Yotam Ronen as new members of the editorial board.

 

Silas Krabbe is a PhD student in EDST working within the philosophy of education. His research attempts to understand unintended cognitive violence between the educator and educatee, through the lenses of race, phenomenology, and theology. When off campus, you probably won’t find him; he’ll be out skiing or sailing with his wife and daughter.

 

Yotam Ronen is a PhD candidate at EDST. His research focuses on how radical educators during the early 20th century used education to realize their ideology of a free, egalitarian, and cooperative utopian society. He is also a bass player, currently playing live all over Vancouver with the Sam Rocha Trio, and bakes way too much bread.

 

Questions around Community

  • How are communities formed?
  • What does it mean to live, work, learn, or educate in community?
  • What goals might educative communities hold in common?
  • How does the research you are currently doing shape how you understand community

 

EDST students, faculty and staff are invited to share further questions they’d like to pose around the theme of “community” below in a shared Padlet.
Instructions to post: You can click on the plus sign to add a message, your name and a visual if you wish. 

 

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Reflections on UBC’s Masters of Education, Adult Learning & Education

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Samantha Robinson
As I approach graduation from the Masters of Education, Adult Learning & Education program at the University of British Columbia (UBC), I find myself in a moment of pause as I intentionally take time for reflection. What have I learned over the last two years in this program? What made sense and was anything surprising or unexpected? Are there things that I still want to learn or areas of adult education that I want to explore in a more fulsome way outside of my degree? Was there something missing from my experience that I think would have been beneficial to learn more about? All of these questions are worth exploring in the months leading up to graduation, especially as I think about how I would like to continue on my own personal journey of lifelong learning. More practically, however, I believe it is imperative that I take this time for reflection as a professional staff member at UBC, where I am responsible for supporting current undergraduate students with their own experiential and lifelong learning outside of the formal classroom setting. Through this period of reflection, I have determined several key lessons that I am taking away from this program and one critique that I hope to name and continue expanding upon as my journey of adult education continues post-graduation.
The most prominent lesson that I am taking away from this program occurred during my first class ever in September 2019, which was in EDST 503. This lesson pertains to the fact that learning is a lifelong process and occurs in much of our day-to-day lives as adults. One of the first readings that I completed in this program was Rubenson’s “Adult Education Overview” (2010) where they provide various definitions of adult education and learning, including the definition of lifelong learning provided by UNESCO (United Nations Educational and Scientific Organization). In addition to defining lifelong learning, Rubenson (2010) shares the three fundamental attributes of the term, which include:
  • “It is lifelong and therefore concerns everything from cradle to grave;
  • It is lifewide recognizing that learning occurs in many different settings; and
  • It focuses on learning rather than limit itself to education” (Rubenson, 2010, p. 5).
Prior to considering the concept of lifelong learning, I believe I had a fairly limited mindset on what could be considered ‘education’. In reading Rubenson (2010), my eyes were opened to the fact that almost anything one does as an adult can contribute to their learning and overall development. This lesson was even more solidified when completing additional readings throughout the MEd program which highlighted learning opportunities in many different contexts, including participating in community organizations, organized sports, and engaging in movements toward social justice. While I hope to remember this lesson as I continue on my own journey of lifelong learning, I also recognize that it should be at the forefront of my mind when supporting student leaders at UBC in my staff role. When connecting with student leaders supporting UBC’s orientations programming, I hope to highlight the many ways that their daily activities, including volunteering, holding club executive positions, and even the conversations that they have with their peers, are all contributing to their own learning and development. These moments of learning can sometimes go unnoticed and holding space with student leaders to reflect on those experiences and the growth they have experienced is something that I am looking forward to continuing in the future.
This brings me to the second lesson that I am taking away from this program, which is in regards to how our experiences with social justice and global movements can contribute to the process of lifelong learning and the role that university institutions can play in educating students on the problems being faced by society today. Similar to the above lesson, which highlights the fact that learning is a lifelong and lifewide process, I had not previously considered all of the ways that individuals can learn and develop through participating in social movements or in moments of activism, or the responsibility that post-secondary institutions have when it comes to tackling society’s greatest challenges.
In terms of the forms of learning that can occur through participation in social movements, including attending rallies or protests, participating in community-based programs directed toward helping those in need, and even coordinating local cleanup crews within one’s neighbourhood, it is clear to me now that the opportunities for learning are endless. Scandrett (2012) discusses the different forms of learning that can evolve out of participation in a social movement. From “the structured educational processes which are sometimes employed within social movements… [and] the informal and incidental learning and knowledge generation within social movements through political practice, repertoires of contestation, and collective reflection” (Scandrett, 2012, p. 42). Hall (2006) also highlights the fact that social movement learning can include “learning by persons who are part of any social movement and… by persons outside of a social movement as a result of the actions taken or simply by the existence of social movements” (p. 6). In reading both Scandrett (2012) and Hall (2006), my eyes were opened to so many forms of learning that can take place through social movements, whether one is a key organizer or simply viewing the movement online as it develops and progresses. I see this lesson coming to life in my own work at UBC through the professional development opportunities that we create for student leaders which include conversations about anti-racism, supporting students in distress, responding to disclosures of sexual violence, active by standing, and so on. While these topics may not all be directly related to social movements specifically, they do create opportunities for current undergraduate students to delve into the material and to learn more about how they want to show up as leaders in the world. My hope is that by engaging student leaders in these conversations, they are able to gain additional insights into some of the wicked problems being faced by the world and the role that they can play in finding solutions, potentially leading them to become more involved with initiatives within the local or global community.
With this hope in mind, the third lesson that I am leaving this program with is the belief that universities themselves have a significant responsibility when it comes to educating students about the challenges being faced by society today and on how they can contribute toward finding potential solutions. Cordero et al. (2008) argue that “higher education… has an important role to play in educating students about climate change, and connecting it to the variety of social dimensions, including access to food, drinkable water, and sustainable energy” (Cordero et al., 2008, p. 870). They go on to state that “action-oriented learning designed around the ecological footprint can improve university students’ understanding of the connection between personal energy use and climate change” (Cordero, Todd, Abellera, 2008, p. 865). While this example focuses exclusively on the current environmental crisis, I believe the key takeaway can be applied to any form of education on social movements and/or challenges being faced by the global community.
This brings me to my primary critique of the MEd ALE program, which is with regards to the required courses. As an uninvited guest learning and working on the land of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples in both a student and staff capacity, it is my responsibility each day to consider the role that I have played, and continue to play, in a colonial system and how I can work toward reconciliation. While this is my individual duty and one that I take to heart, we are operating within a colonial system and all institutions and organizations have a responsibility to do the same. The Canadian education system is no exception, as it has been built as part of the colonial system with historical intentions of erasing Indigenous ways of knowing. For instance, Atleo (2009) states that “Canadian education begins where Aboriginal people are not: from a Euro-institutional perspective of pedagogy in the context of formal Western schooling” (Atleo, 2009, p. 454), which highlights the fact that much of the education being taught in this country is with a very specific, colonial perspective.
UBC is a world-renowned institution with a newly introduced Indigenous Strategic Plan (2020) and encourages common practices directed toward reconciliation, such as providing land acknowledgements at events and gatherings. While these are certainly steps in the right direction, I think the university as an institution should be doing more and individual departments and programs can also take action in how they design and offer their programs. One way that the MEd in Adult Learning Education (ALE) graduate program could take further steps toward reconciliation is in reconsidering what courses are required in order to graduate. Currently, the three required courses of this program are EDST 503 (Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Adult Learning and Education), EDST 514 (Adult Education Program Planning Theory), and EDST 518 (Theory and Research on Adult Learning), in addition to one research methods course (ex. EDUC 500). These required courses focus quite a bit on colonial ways of knowing and learning, with readings centered on Indigenous theories being included by the choice of each individual instructor. Notwithstanding, I argue that this is not enough. If the institution wants to continue taking strides toward real and ongoing reconciliation with local communities that are impacted daily by our histories of colonial violence, I believe it should be required for students to learn more about Indigenous ways of knowing and how they can inform, enrich and expand our approach to a lifelong and lifewide education. One course that I completed during my time in the ALE program, EDST 546 (Indigenous Epistemology and Methodology), focused on Indigenous ways of knowing, and was taught by Professor Maggie Kovach. I learned the most in this course as it was entirely new material that I had not ever been exposed to in all of my years of education, including the importance of building strong relationships with communities as a starting place for conducting research, and various forms of Indigenous methodologies and frameworks, such as Indigenous Storywork (ISW). This methodology, originally developed by Archibald (2019), emphasizes the importance of intergenerational storytelling as a form of resistance and asks researchers to “pay serious attention to how stories can be used in research and education” (Archibald & Parent, p. 4, 2019). I believe that there are many ways that Indigenous ways of knowing could be included as a core requirement for the MEd ALE program, and including Indigenous methodologies like ISW as one of the research methods taught in required courses could be one way of doing so.
It is such a privilege to be able to further my experiences with formal education through the MEd ALE program at UBC and one that I am truly grateful for. Not only because I have learned so much along the way and connected with so many fantastic folks from around the world, but also because I am wrapping up my time with a keen awareness that the learning will not stop once I cross the stage at graduation. My journey of lifelong learning will continue through informal conversations with peers and colleagues, engaging in important discussions pertaining to some of our society’s greatest challenges, and in all of the moments in between. I am looking forward to continuing my own journey with adult education, expanding my learning edges and embracing other ways of knowing and teaching and hope to do so by taking part in forms of education that I haven’t yet done, including becoming engaged with a community organization and bringing some of my lessons learned into conversations with friends and loved ones. I may be preparing to complete my Masters at UBC, but I believe that I have only just begun this new personal chapter of adult learning and education and am looking forward to seeing what comes next.
References
Archibald, J., Parent, A. (2019). Hands back, hands forward for indigenous storywork as methodology. In S. Windchief, & T. San Pedro (Eds.), Routledge, 3-20.
Atleo, M. (2009). Understanding aboriginal learning ideology: through storywork with elders.
Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 55(5), 453-467.
Cordero, E. C., Todd, A. M., & Abellera, D. (2008). Climate change education and the ecological
footprint. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 89(6), 865-872.
Hall, B. (2006). Review of the state of the field in adult learning: Social movement learning Canadian Council on Learning.
Rubenson, Kjell. 2010. “Adult Education Overview” in Penelope Peterson, Eva Baker, Barry
McGaw, eds., International Encyclopedia of Education. Volume 1, pp. 1-11. Oxford: Elsevier.
Scandrett, E. 2012. “Social Learning in Environmental Justice Struggles – Political Ecology of
Knowledge.” In Learning and Education for a Better World: The Role of Social Movements. Vol. 10, International Issues In Adult Education). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
University of British Columbia (2020). Indigenous Strategic Plan. 22 March 2022. Retrieved from
https://indigenous.ubc.ca/indigenous-engagement/indigenous-strategic-plan/.
Villacañas de Castro, L. S. (2015). Critical pedagogy and marx, vygotsky, and freire : Phenomenal
forms and educational action research Palgrave Macmillan.
Author Bio:
Sam Robinson (she/her) is currently preparing to graduate from UBC’s Masters of Education, Adult Learning & Education in May 2022. In addition to attending UBC Vancouver as a student, she is grateful to be a UBC staff member working alongside all of the wonderful folks responsible for planning first-year orientations!
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The Courage to Step into Comic Vulnerability

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Gabriella Maestrini


Stepping into any kind of comic relationship as teacher, researcher or artist is an act of vulnerability, death and courage. Vulnerability in letting oneself be open to the comic teachings and possibilities which come with a piece of death of oneself to meet an ‘other’ and an act of courage to speak up on unspeakable matters.
The following two pieces are moments of encounter in Mexico City while researching disaster humor at the UNAM, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. The first one is called Vulnerability: Entering skin first; the second one Vulnerability, Death and Research. In this last one, Candle stands not only in as alias for the live-in housekeeper but also to illuminate the role she has played for my research. She has been a guiding light in many ways.

 

© MAGA 2020 Leopard Spots – skin maps and markings

Vulnerability: Entering skin first

I move through the world skin first
I turn increasingly whiter as my spots progress.
As I sit in the scorching Mexican heat and my skin tans,
I show up to my own skin maps and writings
Unable to decipher the hieroglyphic markings.
Maybe they lead to what I seek.
Leopards – Jaguars are revered – are messengers – carry spots within spots marking not only their fur but also their skin. Revered in Mexico, the jaguar of the same family, has been depicted since Meso-American times as messenger between light and darkness.
The leopard spots on my own skin do not camouflage me as I enter the classroom, the research or the conversation; rather, they render me hypervisible.

 

Jaguars: Tenochtitlan – Teotihuacán – Pyramids

Even from the bus I can hear the call…
Vendors at the pyramids display carved jaguar heads
blowing into them to recreate the eerie rattling call of this elusive animal.
I feel a connection
To the spots,
To the elusiveness
To the eerie calls
That mimic the animal
To scare
To connect
To recall
To …
As I ascent the steep steps up the sun pyramid
Among others who have chosen to be there early on this hot day,
I hear the luring call.
Standing atop, I can feel the echoes of the calls far below in the valley
The space between the sun and the moon
Held together by the plumed serpent.
I let the sheer immensity of the valley,
The closeness to the sun descend
onto my skin and into my being as
I connect with energies that encircle these ancient creations.
My skin tingles to the rhythm of the calls
My own spots burn in the morning sun as
I turn toward the moon
Bringing my presence as a gift.
Why, do you ask, am I speaking of skin when I research humor? La blanca?  The privileged one?
I am thinking with Ahmed (2003), through my own skin as I enter my research/ teaching space in Mexico. White skin, or fair skin, seen as desirable, as superior, as privileged is marked on my own as different, as diseased, as dis-eased since many do not know what or who I carry. Am I diseased? Am I contagious? Am I an insider/outsider to my own skin?
Connecting my skin to humor makes sense as Mexicans pride themselves with a form of teasing toward obvious or prominent mental, physical or other distinctive features. Being at the receiving end of such teasing, makes you stronger, makes you belong or, in the other extreme, makes you an outcast. In my case, it made me both.
‘The spots of the leopard reflect selective advantages for its natural habitat’ Dimmendaal (2015, p. 2) clarifies. Although one might think there is but one adaptive explanation for the rosettes of the leopard, I may attach meaning to why the spots exist through a plethora of others. My strategies are humor.
Bromearse or teasing as a form of humor, brings not only laughter and care but also violence into the relationships that we might perceive as derogative and demeaning. During one of my first encounters with the students when talking about Mexican humor, I indicated that I might be called a ‘leopard’ or a ‘jaguar’ because of the spots on my skin. Self-deprecating humor, in this case, was a way to enter the classroom, to ease the tension of a foreigner coming into the students’ space in vulnerability.
Through my own self-deprecating humor, I helped elucidate two aspects: one, how to break the ice in a foreign research and teaching moment; two, how to acknowledge my own difference through vitiligo. In breaking my skin, in speaking first, I render myself vulnerable, expose myself to teasing and mockery opening the book to my own skin courageously in my own vulnerability.
Can a leopard change its spots? Can we ever change our skin?

Vulnerability, death, and research.

March 20, 2019 – I sur/re/n/der myself vulnerable –
I opened up
guided by this Candle
who treated me like any other gringa at first … it bothered me…
For some reason I wanted her to like me…
We lived in the same house … but it took vulnerability … my own …
my own tears … they changed everything.
On my mother’s birthday I woke up crying
not knowing that the Candle was in the kitchen…
tears streaming down my face as I reached for coffee
Her little frame, long grey hair… haltingly walks over, embraces me
As we stood there in shared grief …  just two women … crying together
She had lost her brother… way too soon… we shared the how, the when and the why … as grieving people do…we shared…we hugged…we embraced across oh so different bodies…
I hugged the dogs … they knew … always…
nothing     mattered
Time stood still
Time stood still
Time               stood             still
Even if for a moment, my mother’s presence and passing transported me back to when I got the news … I couldn’t breathe…
I learned the Mexican word for it: ella falleció… [she was missed, she left, she passed on, she expired, she disappeared, she stopped existing] — yet present…
The Candle, a devout believer in the Virgin, urges me to go to church …. she would even go with me if she could … to see the ‘big one’ dedicated to Guadalupe … the Virgin … the Black One … The one woman we can relinquish our plights to …
She will listen, the Candle says. She will make it easier…
I fight the urge … I resist those Catholic roots … I am reminded by those around me that it might help to relinquish my grief … nothing else …
just abandon myself to a moment of vulnerability … just a moment…
just to have
time      …      stand             …        still       …
I went to church that evening … to a Catholic Mass… something I had not done in years.
The only foreign body among locals … la gringa… I laugh to myself. Whether I want to or not. …. I shake my head … at ease and yet so out of place
The mass starts with the acknowledgement of those that have passed … lent … resurrection … the body of Christ … my mother’s body lying in the sun for a stranger to find….
I shiver, feel sick, feel
my
body
burn

Memories

Embodied Moments of Recollection

Memories

I sit in the most uncomfortable wooden pew… the ancient timber digging into my sacral bones …
…. I have trouble following the familiar yet so foreign prayers in Spanish … I still remember them…[f**k] … so much work to forget, so little needed to evoke…
After Eucharist a tiny woman clad in black moves toward me taking my hand in both of hers … she extends the ritual … she mutters words I do not grasp … I silently accept her gesture…. Do I belong now? A sign of peace – finally?
The ceremony closes … for a while, I rest in the church plaza with soft wind rustling through the trees … I observe the night sky, feel the wind on my wet cheeks …. the evening hustle of people moving through this space with whom I have no connection … only the death of my mother has brought me here.
Finally, something makes me move…. a somnambulist among the awake …  I hesitantly make my way back to the house… tourists and locals alike cross my path as I continue through the plaza de los coyotes with the fountain releasing sprays of multicolored droplets….
Coyotes …. Tricksters …. reminding me in their spirit form that there is humor even in the darkest of times ….
…. their playful presence a reminder of my strength, of my abilities to survive, to conquer, to strive … … to flourish?
Cobblestones await me – the unevenness – the darkness of the unfamiliar streets too… as I turn the corner to Calle Escondida, the secret, the hidden street, …. I hear the tamale vendor in his nightly call:
! tamales! … ricos tamales Oaxaqueños ,
… tamales…
……………….. for ten pesos I give in to his seductive call.
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A ‘Hidden’ Crisis: The Cost of Power

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Jed Anderson

“Technique has penetrated the deepest recesses of the human being. The machine tends not only to create a new human environment, but also to modify man’s very essence.”
-Jacques Ellul[1]
The Technological Society
On a starless night in August, I drove with a clergyman friend through a lightning storm into what seemed like hell on earth.
Racing through a downpour on the backroads near Worsley, Alberta, my hope of catching a glimpse of a starry sky was obliterated by a black blanket of clouds and offset by blinding lightning. This was an exciting alternative to stargazing – fireworks of a different sort. Our route through Treaty 8 Lands passed through the traditional territories of the Dane-zaa and Woodland Cree, through family farms carved out of boreal forest. I chose it for the lack of light pollution.
After a day spent reading books along isolated lakes, watching moose plough through muskeg, avoiding roadside deer, and drinking beer, I had hoped for a glittering quiet drive across the invisible border into British Columbia. Instead, the glow of apocalyptic red flames began to light up the undersides of the clouds, even as forks of blue-white lightning continued to lance down around our small Volkswagen, occasionally hitting so close that we needed to brake as thunder rattled the windows.
Passing into BC, we were treated to the reality of fracking and the LNG economy.
In a landscape devoid of natural light other than lightning, the belching flare-stacks gave everything the character of Tolkien’s Mordor. Flames from metallic towers licked the sky and the stench of petroleum and chemical by-products was heavy in the air. None of these sights, sounds, and smells were alien to me. I have lived in the Peace Country before, although typically it’s grainfields and boreal forest that define the norm. This aesthetic combination of fire and thunder, after years spent in the numbing cocoon of Vancouver, was a brutal reminder of the ongoing crisis. It was an education from the land, a sort of fever nightmare that affected the rest of the trip.
The next day we walked along the edge of the valley which the half-constructed Site C Dam will eventually submerge, obliterating an entire landscape. Protest signs from First Nations and local ranchers line the highway, pleading for someone to “Stop Site C”, but the trees are already being clear-cut. Concrete pilings and towers for a future bridge rise in a farmer’s field, soon to be underwater.
We then went to look at the W.A.C. Bennett Dam, which provides between a quarter and a third of BC’s electricity. The construction of the dam in the 1960s flooded the homeland of the Tsay Keh Dene First Nation, broke up caribou herds, altered whole ecologies, and ended a way of life for thousands of people. The W.A.C. Bennett reservoir is one of the largest in the world and the scale of the destruction its creation wrought is disturbing.
Travelling south from the dam, we passed open-face coal mines, logging operations, and pulp mills. I’m a bit numb to these industrial operations. I live several blocks from the Parkland Refinery in Burnaby, where Vancouver gets most of its gasoline. But it has been some time since I’ve been pressed up against the full reality of raw resource extraction in BC, since I’ve smelled hydrocarbons burning off from active wells, heard the buzz of thousands of hydroelectric gigawatts, or seen the reality of large-scale coal mining in progress. In northern BC and Alberta, one is confronted with the hungry mouth of capitalism chewing through the land, rather than the flatulent residue of consumption and digestion that we tend to witness in Vancouver.
The solution to the crisis which we are most commonly sold is to remove that flatulence.
The electric car, for example, will give us cleaner skies. But last month, Elon Musk’s calls for nickel production were answered eagerly by Vancouver-based Giga Metals, which owns the proposed Turnagain Mine, 70 kilometers east of Dease Lake, BC. Vancouver’s air will be cleaner, at the expense of another tailing pile, another road, another leachate pond. Giga Metals promises a cutting edge environmentally conscious mine, British Columbians would be wise to be suspicious.
All of these things are a ‘hidden’ crisis – both environmental and human. BC casts judgment on Alberta while committing equal or worse acts of environmental destruction. These acts are kept far from the eyes of those who might otherwise take action against them. Indigenous people in northern BC have seen little to no return from the billions of dollars siphoned off from these lands, and non-indigenous communities have had their entire essence oriented to the extractive economy.
It is not an accident that Vancouver is the ‘mining capital of the world’, with hundreds of firms here, many with dubious operations in nations with poor human rights or regulatory oversight. We have had practice on ourselves. UBC is funded with the tax proceeds of fracking, mining, and logging, but can revel in its green leafy malls far from the unattractive sights of such exploits. A huge portion of the power that lights our homes and classrooms is derived from the flooding of another people’s homeland. We’re doubling down on this destruction with Site C, new pipelines, and new mines.
This is a crisis.
In Jacques Ellul’s book, The Technological Society, he describes the nature of technique and the technical society we all live in. It is an unsettling picture of a disturbing monism, where everything in our world is made to serve ‘the machine’, where centralization is an inevitable outcome of technique. Ellul suggests we have made a Faustian bargain for a taste of power and in the hope for a technological ‘paradise’. It was just this type of exchange I was reminded of, as I rolled past small country churches, through darkest night, into silent sulphurous flames, and a stench that the mythological figure of Charon would have enjoyed.
[1] Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society (New York: Vintage Books, 1964), 325.
Jed Anderson Bio:
Jed Anderson is a PhD candidate (ABD) in the department of Educational Studies at UBC. He is studying higher education in northern British Columbia and is interested in similar cases in other northern regions in Canada and Scandinavia. Jed is curious how non-metropolitan, rural, and peripheral institutions are created and how higher education relates to regionalism and northern development. His research at UBC has led to a greater focus on the role imperialism and individualist-oriented capitalism plays in maintaining spatial inequality in BC.
jed.anderson@alumni.unbc.ca
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