Monthly Archives: January 2013

01/23/13

Learning through Food.

Today was a super productive day (I’m noticing a trend among my Wednesdays) but not in the academic sense, but the learning sense.

I helped harvest, cook, and enjoy a community meal with the Aboriginal Health program on campus. I rediscovered the wonder of the food system and just how much we as a society are detached from our food. Working together to create a delicious meal was absolutely enlightening.

I sat down in the student cafe in my main faculty building on campus and ran into some of my classmates from my degree program. We talked about dreams, passions, and ideas for what we would like to see happen on campus. And lofty wishing aside, we started to form plans to make those dreams into concrete goals.

We want to create a series of workshops for our program classmates outside of class to help each other realize our potentials, come together as each other’s greatest resources, and share our inspiring passions with the rest of the group. Having a sense of solidarity with others who are in the same graduating boat as I am made me feel like the ocean wasn’t so scary to sail off into anymore.

We want to start a UBC Community Food Initiative – one where all of the food/sustainability clubs and organizations can come together to help improve the health of students on campus and also foster a community in this city we call UBC. This, we think, can be in conjunction with the project I’m working on (Community Student Kitchen in the new SUB).

Just that hour of excited chatter taught me so much than any lecture. I know I repeated this sentiment last Wednesday but it’s so powerful that I need to repeat it again and again.

I managed to squeeze in a quick run at the Bird Coop (hooray!) before heading off to Vancouver City Hall to attend the monthly Vancouver Food Policy Council meeting. I learned about a ton of amazing things happening around the city on the topic of food (and even got in touch with working with the council members in my free time :D).

So I came back home all smiles. I had woken up feeling like today was going to be a fantastic day and oh boy was I right. And somehow, everything I experienced and learned today relates to one another. I’m really liking this idea of fostering community and public health through food and cooking (via kitchens). I think it’ll have a big role in what I choose to do (or what lands in my lap) when May graduation rolls around.

Food just has a way of bringing everything together.

01/16/13

This is what learning should be.

On Wednesdays, I only have one class. It’s not even really a class – it’s like a gathering for everyone in my degree program. We meet. We discuss one topic together and we put our ideas to action. These classes always leave me in a state of inspirational euphoria as I imagine the grand possibilities that we as students can make into reality. I think that’s what I loved most when I transferred out of the Faculty of Science. I found a community on campus to which I could belong to. And I’ve learned more here by talking to people than I ever have in any silly 300-student lecture.

I’ve taken this take on learning as a collective – teaching one another – as my favourite way to learn anything. Being abroad for a year, I can safely say that although my lecture classes in Norway were fascinating, they weren’t the most valuable tidbits of knowledge I gained on my journey. 4-hour bus rides talking with a friend about our passions and education, debating the similarities and differences between Norway, India, and Canada in terms of development issues, along with the street smarts I gained whilst travelling solo are what I keep with me. Conversation. Action. The world outside the standard lecture classroom – one with interaction and discussion are my teachers.

So courses I’m taking this term?

1. Urban Studies seminar. Completely interdisciplinary. Free reign of course readings, discussion and research topics. The professor sits among us as we face each other in a circle. And we talk. We learn.

2. Urban Research lab. This is hands on. Interdisciplinary again, which is great. You get to work with numbers and facts although knowledge of such things are not a prerequisite. You learn from each other and work together to work on specific research projects based on issues in the real world. Research that can actually impact reality.

3. Public Policy. This is a lecture style. But it’s interactive. Half the class is brainstorming and talking amongst ourselves. We are expected to think and speak up instead of absorbing everything like silent sponges. How it should be.

4. Directed Studies. This is an amazing opportunity to work on a project outside of the classroom and get credit for it. For this, I chose to research and survey how to deal with the logistics of creating a student Community Kitchen in the new SUB. Hands-on project. Practical experience. Interaction with the outer community and other stakeholders as a team. No silly lectures. And I get credit for it.

I guess if I’ve discovered anything by my last term at UBC, it’s how I learn best. How I think anyone should learn. I know so many students who aren’t aware of how flexible their university education can be. It doesn’t have to be one straight way. Yes, I’m lucky to be in a faculty (and program) that supports such flexibility, but I know of so many people in other faculties who have found a way to make their education their own too.

So in a really rambling way, what I’m trying to say is that we should really think of education as something out of the box called ‘the classroom’. Or at least, reshape what we think of a classroom to be. In the end, students will come out being better thinkers, leaders, and more confident individuals.