Learning to be Learners Reflections from teacher learners

Katie Young, Global Studies Department Head, HTS & Donita Duplisea, Academic Director, HTS

a teacher was and how to encourage our students to learn. Often, we imagined that teaching was a process of culminating expertise the more you taught, the more you understood and were able to share with your students as experts in your field. The more knowledge that we acquired and could impart to our students, the greater impact we could make on their achievement. In this sense, teaching (and learning) was a one-way transmission from teacher to student that was perfected over the course of years in the profession. Could they give the ‘right’ answer on a test? Did students know the exact dates of the Battle of Vimy Ridge? Could they memorize and rewrite Macbeth’s final soliloquy (Shakespeare 5.5.19-30) on a final exam?

In 2019, those ideas fundamentally shifted when we were presented with an opportunity to start a course without a template and without walls or barriers both literally and figuratively. Our dream began with the idea of an interdisciplinary course in English and Social Justice, underpinned by a learner-centred and equitable approach. We embarked on a journey of decentring the teacher and creating a decolonized classroom¹ in which we all became learners. Our course no longer belonged to us; it was fluid to reflect the flow and urgency of social issues. Our course belonged to all our learners and we became facilitators, which sometimes required us, as teachers, to get out of their way. In doing so, our role shifted, allowing the students to explore and learn in a safe environment, while we learned alongside them and grew with them. In this dialectic relationship, one might expect that our students would be the most transformed, yet that is the furthest from the truth.

The main project of the course was to execute a social justice action plan that students created in an area about which they were passionate and in which they discerned an identifiable need. We expected that our learners would be enthusiastic about the content, knowing that it was in their field of interest. In truth, their work in the course redefined what we imagined was possible for a learner to achieve. Their projects were far-reaching and inspiring, and exemplified the highest

Transformations From The Hts Community

manifestations of learner engagement and local and global citizenship.

Now we think…

Having just completed the third year of this course, the most difficult part for us, as teachers, is that it is never the same from one year to the next. By the same token, the best part has been that it has never been the same. The students continue to mould and influence not only the learning of their peers but that of their teachers every day. The reality is that students have transformed every piece of the way we teach, learn and evaluate because we incorporated multiple layers of feedback loops.

Infinite possibilities exist for young people once adults step aside and when adults recognize what we can learn by listening to young people’s voices, interests and present needs. Not only did the content and subject matter of the course provide opportunities to value and foster the dignity of every human being, but by focusing on personal passion projects, the voices of young people were elevated and promoted. Difficult conversations continue to be engaged in, and power dynamics and systems, and cultural impacts and nuances are revealed. Authentic learning happens in a process of continual unfolding. By learning to be better teachers, we unlearned the walls and barriers that had been blocking students from deeper learning.