Fookn Conversation - Talking About “Academicky” Stuff

In Episode 65 Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. James P. Burns an Associate Professor of Curriculum Studies at the University of New Mexico. Prior to joining the faculty at UNM, Dr. James P. Burns was an Associate Professor in the School of Education and Human Development at Florida International University and an Assistant Professor at South Dakota State University. His research interests include curriculum theory, Foucauldian studies, violence, ethics of non-violence, fascism, education policy, and masculinities studies.  We discussed the following: Whose knowledge is of most worth, his reflections on Israel, Gaza, epistemicide, truth, and the banality of evil, history, myth of the frontier, manhood, crisis of masculinity, industrial military complex, historicity of American violence, popular culture, attacks on higher education, his forthcoming book Myth, Manhood and Curriculum Towards Truth, Self-Cultivation, and Reparation, and so much more.

In Episode 64 Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Claudia Eppert a Professor of Secondary Education at the University of Alberta. Her research focuses on the ethics of witnessing social and ecological suffering and trauma through literary, aesthetic, and mindful, contemplative, holistic engagements, along with exploration of the possibilities of psycho-social transformation to a more just, compassionate, and regenerative world.  We discussed the following: her educative lived experiences,  teaching, graduate studies, literary studies and engagement, cross-cultural philosophical studies, memory work, life writing research,  historical witnessing, shadow texts and questions, mindfulness, Buddhism, non-dualism and basic goodness, ecological witnessing, species extinction, and so much more.

In Episode 63 Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Mark Priestley and Dr. Stavroula Philippou. Dr. Priestley is a Professor of Education at the University of Stirling. His research focuses in part on the processes of curriculum making across the different layers of education systems.  He is also the Director of the Stirling Centre for Research into Curriculum Making. Dr. Stavroula Philippou is an Associate Professor in Curriculum and Teaching within the Department of Education at the University of Cyprus.  Both represent their respective countries as national Representatives of the International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies (IAACS). Both are Co-convenors who support Dr. Majella Dempsey the Lead Convenor of Network 3-Curriculum of the European Educational Research Association (EERA). We discussed the following: educational and political differences in Canada, United Kingdom, Scotland, Cyprus, European Union and Middle East, their co-edited collection Curriculum Making in Europe, Supra, Macro, Meso, Micro, and Nano contexts of curriculum making as a social practice, collaborating on research with teachers as curriculum makers, navigating European Union Research Grants, their tenure as editors of the Curriculum Journal, implications of artificial intelligence for curriculum making, and so much more.

In Episode 62 Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Laura Forsythe a Michif Assistant Professor at the University of Winnipeg in the Faculty of Education. She is the elected Bison Local Chairperson of the Manitoba Métis Federation, the official democratic and self-governing political representation of the Red River Métis. Her kinship ties include the Huppe, Ward, Berard, Morin, Lavallee, and Cyr lines. Her ancestors worked for the Northwest and Hudson’s Bay Companies, fought in the Victory of Frog Plain, and owned Lot 31, the site of a contemporary Métis space called Pakan Town. Her research focuses on Métis-specific contributions to the academy, Métis inclusion efforts, Métis research methodologies, and educational sovereignty. We discussed the following: Our academic leaves, her journey toward becoming a Métis scholar, responding to the historical erasure of Métis women from the academy, sharing Métis  scholarship Around the Kitchen Table, honouring the intergenerational contributions and advocacy of Métis grandmothers and aunties, Pawaatamihk: Journal of Métis Thinkers, Mawachihitotaak (Let’s Get Together) a national Métis network, creation of Métis spaces, and so much more.

In Episode 61 Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Garry Gottfriedson and Dr. Victoria Handford. Strongly rooted in his Secwépemc cultural teachings Dr. Garry Gottfriedson holds a Master of Arts Education degree from Simon Fraser University and Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the Naropa Institute in Colorado. He has published numerous books of poetry. He has also been awarded two honorary doctorates from the University of Northern British Columbia and Thompson Rivers University. Dr. Victoria (Tory) Handford holds a doctorate in Education Leadership from OISE at the University of Toronto. She is a professor in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at Thompson Rivers University. She has co-edited and written several books that address the experiences of faculty in Canadian Universities. We discussed the following: The regional differences of the places we call home, importance of intergenerational relations to land and language, being a Secwépemc cultural advisor, leading professional (un)learning conversations on Truths before Reconcilia(c)tion, collaborations on teaching and writing, disrupting traditional forms of academic writing, poetry, short stories, children’s stories, Dangling in the Glimmer of Hope: Academic Action on Truth and Reconciliation, their hopes, and so much more.

In Episode 60 Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Joel Westheimer a Professor of Democracy and Education at the University of Ottawa, musician, and the education columnist for CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning Show. He is the author of What Kind of Citizen? Educating Our Children for the Common Good. We discussed the following: family, what brought him to the teaching profession, election campaign and day in United States, the Presidential Inauguration, political and economic mobilization of young men via social media, censorship, freedom of speech, backlash against universities, academic freedom, facilitating debates and pluriverse perspectives in the classroom, his new book, examples and differences between and among responsible, participatory, and/or social justice-orientated forms of citizenship, role of schools and teachers teaching for Democracy, authoritarianism in the gilded age of tech plutocracy, and so much more.

In Episode 59 Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Andrea Sterzuk a Professor of Education at the University of Regina which is part of Treaty 4 and resides on the traditional territories of the nēhiyawak, Anihšināpēk, Dakota, Lakota, and Nakoda Peoples, and homeland of the Michif/Métis Nation. She is a former French immersion and Core French teacher with classroom teaching experience in Saskatchewan and in the Northwest Territories. Dr. Andrea Sterzuk grew up in rural Saskatchewan. When she was a child, most adults in her town were white settlers, bilingual and either immigrants themselves or children of immigrants. Most of her generation spoke only English. Her early educational exposure to multilingualism, family language shift and the effects of language-in-education policy continue to influence her present-day research interests and teaching in language education, particularly as it relates to settler colonialism. As an adult, teacher educator, and educational researcher she has worked at learning French, Spanish, Cree and Ukrainian as additional languages. We discussed the following: some of her life history and educational journey, her use of story in research, teaching, and writing, philosophical dispositions toward learning Indigenous languages, community collaborations, Indigenous language revitalization research, programming, ethical relations, and so much more.

In Episode 58 Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Lisa Korteweg and Tesa Fiddler. They work as educational researchers, teacher educators, colleagues, and friends in Thunder Bay, on the traditional territory of the Fort Williams First Nations-Anemki Wajiw (signatory to the 1850 Robinson-Superior treaty).  Tesa Fiddler is Anishinaabekwe from Kitchinuhmaykoosib Inninuwug and Onigaming First Nation in Northwestern Ontario. Tesa Fiddler is currently on secondment as an Education Officer for the Ontario Ministry of Education from her role as the Coordinator of Indigenous Education for Thunder Bay Catholic DSB. Dr. Lisa Korteweg is an associate professor at Lakehead University. Her community-based work focuses on questions of how schools grapple and teachers engage with the socially unjust realities of Indigenous youth who daily contend with anti-Indigenous racism and colonial inequities in education.  We discussed the following: The confluences of their different life histories, negotiating, resisting, and challenging settler colonialism, Treaty education, citizens, and relations, brave conversations, professional development and their research projects that seek to cultivate settler educator accountability to the TRC’s Calls to Action, our roles and responsibilities, and so much more.

In Episode 57 Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Margaret Macintyre Latta, Dr. Bill Cohen, Terry Beaudry, & Dr. Jody Dlouhy-Nelson.  They work at UBC Okanagan and co-lead a SSHRC Partnership grant titled Co-Curricular-Making: Honoring Indigenous Connections to Land, Culture and the Relational Self.  We discussed the following: importance of storying the wisdom that sits in the places we live, unlearning and learning with Syilx Okanagan Elders, Knowledge Keepers, Residential School Survivors, community members, teachers, and students, food, water, land, mental health and wellness securities, (Re)Syilx(izing) educational knowledge, curriculum and pedagogies, co-creating knowledge, climate change, travels across Turtle Island along its rivers and tributaries, story of the Residential School Monster, human reconciliation with the more-than human-world, captikʷł story and knowledge system, impacts of experiencing openness, vulnerability, listening, and ceremony as professional (un)learning, troubling settler colonial systems of public schooling, what each has learned with, from, and alongside others through co-curriculum-making during the SSHRC Partnership Project, and so much more.

Fooknconversation talking about “Academicky” Stuff Description for Episode 56 (Dr. Melanie Janzen): In Episode 56 Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Melanie Janzen a Professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at the University of Manitoba. Her research uses critical perspectives to explore the inter-related workings of power and discourses, particularly as they relate to the experiences of teachers and the marginalization of children. Dr. Melanie Janzen was a classroom teacher for 15 years. She is life-long Winnipegger, living and working on Treaty One Territory. We discussed the following: National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, historical contexts of Winnipeg, impacts of electing Wab Kinew, Nahanni Fontaine, Bernadette Smith, and the teachings and scholarship of Niigaan Sinclair, the current political contexts of Manitoba, the Canadian Human Rights Museum, educational stigmatization of children in care, impacts of neoliberal educational policies,  learnification, the challenge of ethical obligations when caring for and teaching children and youth, solidarities in protesting Bill 64, restorying teachers’ stories, and so much more.