04/02/2018
Dear facilitators and fellow educators,
Have you ever wondered how to engage in a critical humanistic approach to learning? Or wondered how to listen differently to students, to think about emotions as a part of our ethics, or even how to better produce a safer space for true reflections on education and learning?
Teaching Outside the Box is a series of intimate conversations that will take place at New School, Dawson College, in the 8B Wing Lounge, on Mondays and Fridays in April, starting April 13th. We are very excited to invite you to join us, and to welcome all of you who are interested in partaking in an interactive set of conversations about critical pedagogy. Some of the workshops model our approaches, and some present interventions and theorizations of literature, of philosophy, and of education. All are part of our commitment to collaborative self-to-subject learning.
Guests from outside of the College are welcome as well.
Please R.S.V.P. on the session(s) you would like to attend by clicking on the doodle link below each session description.
Teaching Outside the Box: New School Conversations
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Friday April 13th (1pm, in the 8b Lounge at New School)
"Listening in Class: Music and Literature”
Louise Hill
In reply to the eternal problem of “getting students to do the readings,” Louise Hill, an English facilitator at Dawson College’s New School, will suggest that it is time to ask students to “do the listenings” instead. Her New School English BXE course, “Music and Literature: Listening to Joni Mitchell” is driven by the desire to reprioritize listening and orality in the classroom, to collapse the high-brow/low-brow walls between “poetry” and “song” (which, by historical definition, are the same thing), and to appeal to the multi-expressive ways (visual, auditory, tactile, and more) that we all think and learn. Her talk will discuss how she built her course, with the help of her students, and will include an activity that that merges close listening and close reading skills.
The ideal audience for this workshop is English educators, but my broader thoughts on reprioritizing orality and listening in the classroom may appeal to teachers in other areas as well. All are welcome! The workshop will be separate from my class time, but I will also invite my students to participate if they so wish.
RSVP: https://doodle.com/poll/5cyprtubi2c85bt6
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Monday April 16th (3pm, in the 8b Lounge at New School)
“New School and Old Ideas”
Jordan Glass
I will offer a short talk, intended to animate a discussion, about the role of the teacher in learning. I will present some of my research in the philosophy of education and discuss how teaching and research have been mutually reinforcing in my own work. I will offer some reflections, based on research and my experience, on what I see as the strengths of the New School and what it provides to students. The short talk will serve as a springboard to what I hope will be a fruitful conversation about teaching and especially about the role of the teacher. Although I have been hearing throughout the semester what my students think of these educational philosophies from their perspective as students at Dawson, I believe it could be especially interesting to hear reflections on these ideas from teachers working within real and concrete contexts.
The talk is intended for faculty and teachers.
RSVP: https://doodle.com/poll/wczhcz435wff4gsf
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Friday April 20th (1pm, in the 8b Lounge at New School)
"The ‘Power’ of emotions in the classroom"
Nadia Hausfather
Inspired partly by my experience facilitating a Humanities course at New School, as well as other teaching experiences and my PhD research about emotions and Quebec's student strikes, I will pose some questions about the interaction of emotions and power in the classroom. Through kinesthetic activities and discussion, we will explore our views about our emotions in relation to reason. Then, through role playing and further discussion, we will gently pick at some emotions entangled in both comfortable and uncomfortable classroom situations (e.g. different kinds of laughter/fun; whispering; stress; heated debates; student democratic control and strikes) that can complicate and enliven the classroom experience for teachers and students.
This is a kinesthetic and discussion-based workshop inspired in part by an Outside the Box workshop last semester. All are welcome!
RSVP: https://doodle.com/poll/9ncd6xqs47cgsbhi
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Monday April 23rd (1pm, in the 8b Lounge at New School)
"Group Dynamics: Bracketing and Safe(r) Spaces”
Nicola Morry & Rushdia Mehreen
Nicola Morry and Rushdia Mehreen, both Humanities facilitators at Dawson College’s New School, will co-facilitate a discussion on the need for safe(r) spaces and strategies for creating them in the classroom without shutting down discussion of more controversial or sensitive topics. Rushdia will discuss practical strategies of creating safe(r) space, and share a pamphlet that was partially adopted by her “Is Free Speech Fair Speech?” class that she is facilitating this semester. The pamphlet also draws on Rushdia’s experience in facilitating emotionally charged conversations with the Politics & Care group. Nicola will complement these practical strategies with a discussion on bracketing: “temporarily setting aside one’s own preconceptions or beliefs – is an essential step in the academic study of religion as it allows one to approach religions on their own terms even while retaining one’s own faith commitment.” (Smith, 1999, pp. 60) While the term ‘bracketing’ will be most familiar to scholars of Religious Studies, Nicola will suggest its applicability in all CEGEP classrooms.
This workshop may be most relevant to Humanities educators, but the importance of balancing the need for safe space in the classroom with critical inquiry into areas of potential sensitivity to students is universal. All are welcome! Rushdia’s current students and Nicola’s former students will be invited to participate if they so wish.
RSVP: https://doodle.com/poll/eaga4xxc4thvw3g3
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Friday April 27th (3pm, in the 8b Lounge at New School)
“From Self to Collective: Finding Care in a ‘Burnout Culture’”
Rushdia Mehreen
In this workshop we will create a space for care, comfort and confidence for teachers to discuss the pressures to be productive and efficient at all times. In addition to workload and classroom management, masking of anxieties, putting aside personal lives among others are part of a teacher’s “toolkit”. It is not surprising then that burnout stories about teachers are frequent and those who manage to stay afloat often hang by a thread. Many refer to this as a “burnout culture” where burnout is not a matter of if but when. This begs the questions: given how isolating the teaching experience is, what spaces and occasions do we have to support each other, emotionally or otherwise; how can we extend “same boat” solidarity to each other and collectivize the pressures in order to promote healthy and sustainable teaching community? In this workshop we will collectively reflect on practices of care, both self and collective, spend some time doing exercises related to (w)holistic well-being as well as brainstorm ideas for support and action.
Rushdia Mehreen is a Humanities facilitator at Dawson College’s New School and is a founding member of Politics & Care. For over five years, Rushdia has been facilitating collective care workshops, among others, for various groups and communities in Quebec and elsewhere.
The ideal audience for this workshop is New School Faculty, Facilitators and Dawson Teachers. All educators are welcome.
RSVP: https://doodle.com/poll/6v4ebbcwmiiu99y3
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Friday April 27th (8:30-4:30pm)
SELF-CARE FAIR
Conrods
New School Social Work Student Mikaela Rose Hodgson
Implementing my self-care media and morality project from last semester, I have been speaking and networking with other departments at Dawson and am happy to invite you to a Self-Care Fair at Conrods.
