M09 - Workshop on Teaching the Everyday: Innovative Assignments and Everyday
Date: Jun 13 | Time: 08:30am to 10:00am | Location: 680 Sherbrooke St. West 1051
‘We pass them every day’: Monuments as a Human Rights Teaching Tool: Kristi Kenyon (University of Winnipeg), Saad Khan (University of Winnipeg)
Abstract: Like many Canadian cities, Winnipeg’s urban space is punctuated by monuments that impress a particular narrative on the landscape. In July 2021, in the wake of the discovery of unmarked graves on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, a prominent statue of Queen Victoria was toppled. This event ‘brought home’ the larger debate of monuments and representation to many in Winnipeg. To connect the content of a course on Human Rights in Canada to students’ every day experience of navigating the city, we developed a central monument-based assignment scaffolded by resources, guest lectures and an experiential ‘do it yourself’ field trip. In the assignment students were tasked with identifying and visiting a local monument. They were asked to conduct a visual analysis of the monument (including description, location, portrayal, interpretive materials), to examine the ways in which the monument told or obscured a human rights story, and to identify who was represented and who was missing in this account. Over 2 years and 7 course sections we assessed this activity through surveys at the beginning and end of term finding that the assignment changed students’ perception of their urban environment and resulted in an improved self-assessment of analytical skills.
Teaching the everyday through 'Canadian' fiction: Alison Smith (University of Toronto)
Abstract: Canadian politics in Canada has often been taught with a strong emphasis on institutions, including federalism, the Constitution, limitations on local governments, and the Charter of Rights of Freedoms. These these institutional and structural realities of Canadian politics are of great importance to students’ understanding of the political world around them, but it can be challenging to relate them to their daily lives. An effective, exciting, innovative approach I have tried in recent years has been using fiction to teach students about Canadian politics, especially failures of the welfare state in Canada. Novels that I assign include "This House is Not A Home" by Katlia, "Scarborough" by Catherine Hernandez, "Brother" by David Chariandy, "Ragged Company" by Richard Wagamese and "Five Little Indians" by Michelle Good. These novels bring the everyday realities of life in Canada to light in a way that I am unable to through lectures.
In the assignments, I ask students to relate the books to content from our classes, and explain what they learned from the book. Many students share that they identified directly with a main character. Others did not directly relate but gained a powerful inside look into the life of another, whose “everyday” is very different from their own. When assigned early in the semester, I find this assignment elevates the quality of future classes, as students will discuss failures in the healthcare system by talking about the experiences of Francis from “Brother”; about the importance of local involvement in policy by referencing Ms Hina from “Scarborough”; and will recall the role of housing policy as a tool of colonization by referencing Ko’s story from “This House is Not A Home.” I believe this assignment has allowed students to practice using their own voice and to gain insight into ways that Canadian politics has shaped “the everyday” of people across Canada.
The Unexpected Role of the Everyday: Lessons from Integrating Community-Based Policy Research with Experiential Learning Practices: Elizabeth Schwartz (Memorial University)
Abstract: In this paper I explore the process and outcomes of a recent pilot project in which senior undergraduate and Masters students designed, conducted, and presented research on the current housing crisis to support the work of a community partner: Municipalities NL (MNL), Newfoundland and Labrador’s municipal association. In Fall 2023, I decided to experiment with a new approach to teaching local politics. Municipal Connections was conceived as a way to use experiential learning pedagogy to connect research expertise at Memorial University with NL municipalities and municipal sector organizations.
Municipal Connections didn’t start out as a project to centre the voices of students and their lived experiences, but that’s what it quickly became. Although MNL staff presented a broad research question about the role of municipalities in addressing the ongoing housing crisis, students had leeway to tailor their projects to suit their own priorities and expertise. We had expected that most teams would focus on the many legal, fiscal and social constraints municipalities face, but instead many students chose topics that reflected their diverse perspectives and highlighted their own experiences.
This course was not supposed to be about teaching the everyday. It was supposed to be a means of using my position at the university to “harness” the under-recognized research capacity of undergraduate and graduate students to benefit community partners as they address current challenges. But as it turns out, municipalities’ “current challenges” are students’ everyday struggles. For the student researchers, this class project was not a way to explore interesting intellectual puzzles. Rather, it empowered them to recognize and articulate the injustices they face in their own lives. And as a result, they taught me, the course instructor, that “community” is not necessarily – or perhaps ever – outside of our everyday experience.