Category Archives: Diversity

International Something: Why You Should Care #DigPed



flickr photo shared by andreas.klodt under a Creative Commons ( BY-NC-SA ) license

This article was co-authored over THREE timezones, by Maha Bali (in Cairo, Egypt), Kate Bowles (in Wollongong, Australia) and Paul Prinsloo (South African currently in Virginia, USA) and refers to a workshop we are co-facilitating at the Digital Pedagogy Lab Institute in UMW. You can watch live (or recorded) at this YouTube link (we hope YouTube works or at least streams well enough in your country). The workshop takes place Thursday August 11 at 4pm EDT (Virtually connecting website converts to your timezone – because we know we all live in different timezones – it will already by Friday for Kate!)

Yesterday, in a Virtually Connecting conversation, Ken Bauer commented on having virtual participants located in Mexico, Austria, South Africa and Egypt, compared to a regular VC hangout where most people were usually from the US. He asked how we could create more such conversations. Audrey Watters commented on the importance of this given the limited US-centric views of ed tech. Jesse Stommel and Maha Bali talked about intentionality: recognizing the importance of internationalism and acting upon it are very different things.

A while ago, Digital Pedagogy Lab co-directors Jesse Stommel and Sean Michael Morris asked Maha to create a hybrid workshop for DPLI UMW on “something international”, to invite other facilitators and organize it however she saw fit. This invitation is encouraging: it recognizes the value of having international voices be part of such an intensively local event, with the freedom to speak for themselves, including in quite critical ways.

Maha invited Paul Prinsloo from South Africa (who will be onsite) and Kate Bowles from Australia (who like Maha will be a virtual participant). Working in various-sized education systems outside the US we’re all familiar with complications of wrangling international digital pedagogy out of faulty internet connections, language confusion, and above all timezone mismatches. This is also the infrastructure of our research and professional networking; for us, working as academics means international-first, not as an afterthought. So we responded enthusiastically.

Our collaboration in developing this workshop has itself been about the practicalities of working internationally. Sometimes we’ve all been online at the same time; just as often we’ve left messages for each other to find on waking up or getting to work. And while doing this, we’ve learned about each other’s work schedules, life histories and work spaces, as we’ve become sensitised to the work-life rhythms of our three lives. We use some but not all of the same channels, so even our three-way conversation isn’t completely contained anywhere. We don’t use the same digital devices and this has had a surprising impact on how we each work when we’re away from our desks. We can work together in English, but we’ve had to look things up to fully understand their meaning. And even though we’re familiar with each other’s work, it turns out we’re still unfamiliar with important elements in each other’s political, cultural and national context.

Since 2012 critical educators have been hearing regularly about how open digital pedagogy or social networking expands access to learning to everyone in the world. This is now such a familiar claim that we don’t need to name the edtech visionaries and entrepreneurial capitalists who’ve been relentlessly promoting it—it has become a defining truism in digital pedagogy. However, for most of us not in the US (or the UK), this vision has often signalled top-down, US-to-world, Anglo-oriented, decontextualized, culturally irrelevant, infrastructure-insensitive, and timezone-ignorant aspirations, even when the invitation for us to join in may be well-intentioned.

We want to rethink this one-way flow of benefits, and argue instead that all learning is enriched when we have the opportunity to hear from voices markedly different from our own. We want to suggest that when US culture and educational systems are the default for MOOCs and similar platforms, international voices are exoticized, marginalized and silenced at once. We also want to challenge the tendency to call something “global” when only two or three countries are involved, often including only participants from powerful institutions, and everything is in English.

But even for those learners/educators outside the US who do have both the internet and the English to participate, there are power dynamics that need to be made explicit. Whenever you connect online, you connect on someone’s terms, and in digital pedagogy these are often the terms designed by educators who enjoy the network infrastructure and cultural capital associated with US institutions. And while overcoming technical access barriers to the internet is critical for learners around the world, access on US terms or to spaces and platforms controlled by US assumptions can often introduce new cultural barriers for learners outside the US. Being more sensitive about these issues also allows us to recognize the fact that we often disregard issues of access and the different cultural and class barriers and the (in)visible fault-lines of race, gender and class in the US.

Our workshop is therefore an attempt to talk openly about how things look like from our respective non-US perspectives. We’ll be sharing case studies of our own experiences that will demonstrate different angles on the complexity of transnational education. And we will invite participants (onsite and virtually) to consider ways to build more inclusive networked learning experiences. While we are talking particularly about networked learning, much of what we discuss will apply to both onsite and online international learners and teachers.

We also recognize that inclusivity and cultural relevance are not unique to international learners, but connect to issues of identity and difference that are pressing within the US. There are learners inside the US for whom language or technology access are immediate practical barriers; and learners whose experience is continually affected by educators with a poor understanding of their cultural context or their personal priorities.

And this is why after one hour of discussing internationalness, we will have a hallway conversation with Annemarie Perez, Chris Gilliard (both onsite) and Sherri Spelic (virtually) on how identity and difference shape their practice in digital pedagogy.

If you can’t come to our workshop, we encourage you to read this article by Maha which is detailed but not very long case study on the shortcomings of an attempt at global learning). But we hope you can join us, as we explore what can be achieved in a three-timezone workshop relying on a network of regional and domestic internet technologies.

You can watch the workshop live here:

And the hallway conversation following it here:

And we will be working on a Google doc if you can’t be part of the live session but would like to contribute: http://bit.ly/inclusiveDigPed

Call for Ideas: Envisioning Postcolonial MOOCs #pocomooc

By Maha Bali and Shyam Sharma, edcontexts co-founders and facilitators

Can we safely say that xMOOCs, for the most part, reproduce privilege? The privileged elite universities that can afford to create them, the privileged star professors who have the resources to build them, the privileged mostly Western point of view they perpetuate, and the privileged learners who can access them?

But can we also say we see a glimmer of hope in initiatives such as connectivist MOOCs that decenter authority (e.g. #rhihzo14, #rhizo15), MOOCs from non-Western origins (e.g. the Arab Edraak) and people who are able to challenge the xMOOC paradigm even while offering their MOOCs on places like Coursera (the Universiry of Edinburgh people who do #edcmooc and Jesse Stommel et al who did #moocspeare and Cathy Davidson who did #FutureEd)?

We (Maha and Shyam) are writing a book chapter with the title “Envisioning the Postcolonial MOOC” and we would like to solicit ideas from people everywhere on what that might entail. We do so because while we have our own ideas, part of our vision involves diversity and inclusivity. We also didn’t do a formal research study because we hope you are willing to make your responses open and attributable to you.

How do YOU envision a postcolonial* MOOC?
[* we understand postcolonial here broadly to mean anything that challenges the legacy of colonialism/imperialism, or even neocolonialism)

Let us know in the comments here, or tweet to #pocoMOOC or write a brief blogpost and link it in the comments here or on Twitter using #PocoMOOC. We will curate on edcontexts.org and hopefully find a way to use these ideas in our book chapter, attributing you appropriately.

Unfortunately we are only giving you one week (because we don’t have much more time) – even a one-line contribution can be valuable. So what do you think? You have until August 18. Go 🙂

Thanks for taking the time!

20150811-103912.jpg
Image “Magical Town of Tepotzlan Mexico-16″
by Christopher William Atach, retrieved from Flickr under CC-BY-SA license

Patriarchy — The Invisible Elephant in the Classroom!

By Sushmita Maryam, Bangalore, India

Patriarchy is deep rooted in cultures around the world, in all kinds of social institutions, including education. It qualifies male gender to be the head of the family or society reflecting the belief upon which it stands – male is superior of all genders.Most societies function within the patriarchal framework. The idea of male superiority is fed into the human mind at a very young age- primary feeders being the parents, immediate members of the family and teachers. Children imbibe rigid ideas of gender roles based on patriarchy that eventually become their psychological make-up and foundations of their identity as they grow into adults; men- the primary decision makers and women – the primary homemakers. They live by it further cementing the social structure and propelling biological and social evolution in that direction. The human mind has thus evolved for generations’ now preserving patriarchy; it has become the fundamental structure of living – in subtler forms in some societies of course, but always present.

Links to some interesting blogs that look at the origin of patriarchy, as I was researching the topic are here and here. Most studies point to gender roles as the origin of the patriarchal system and not to natural biology of human race. This lays bare the belief that biologically male is the superior gender suited to lead and so patriarchy is the natural order of being for humankind. Superiority of male intelligence is more an idea than a fact. No studies have been able to conclusively establish it. There sure are biological differences in the way a man’s and a woman’s brain is, structurally. Studies suggest that these differences could also be attributed to the way human brain has evolved, both biologically and psychologically owing to the repetition of roles the genders have been engaged in over generations.

It seems that gender roles in the ancient times emanated from the then circumstances when survival and sustenance were the aim of life for humans. A woman’s life was attributed more value owing to childbearing and nursing – for sustaining and further building the human community, while men were considered more dispensable in that context. Hence they were in a position to put their lives at risk fighting threats in the wilderness in the egalitarian (gender equal) hunter gatherer societies.

These roles however when extended beyond those times in which they were relevant, gradually solidified into a psychological social structure. Along the way the idea of male superiority might have set in because men may have been more visible outdoors in the wild, as the face of family and the voice of decisions in the community. This social structure that originated from need based gender roles of the past however began determining gender roles of the future, firmly hinged on the idea of male superiority, sustained by the elements of power and pleasure, spreading its roots in the human psyche as the norm.

It is only reasonable to state that man is not superior or inferior to other genders. He is, as they are. Patriarchy framing him in the image of a superior being has almost irreversibly affected human relationships and not in the best way. It has piled up the expectations of a man to unreasonable levels, coercing him to alter his sense of self, reducing it to an idea that is not realistic and does not exist. The superhero movies are exaggerated reflections of the image of the male gender and of the expectations from him– the savior, decision maker, the problem solver, the charmer, the powerful, and the doer etc

The constant pressure to live up to being the ‘man’ is a lifelong one for men.  This entails hiding his natural self behind the image of a ‘super human’ and struggling to live that disconnected identity and live up to the expectations from himself and everybody around him. It is most suffocating also because it is disguised in the cloak of superiority. And that blinds him to what it does to him. To me that is the one of the biggest challenges of patriarchy; why society as a whole and men themselves are much less aware of how patriarchy impacts this gender.

The typical expectations of men (e.g. in India) are disguised as the privileges that come with being the head of the family or society. Some of these expectations, depending on which part of the world he is in, are to be the breadwinner at any cost, to financially provide for the immediate and extended family, to live with an unduly inflated ego and aggression, to be smarter and more intelligent than the girlfriend/wife, to seem superior to those around and, the worst of all, to suppress ‘human’ emotions.

Having to suppress feelings and emotions is the most unreasonable of all expectations – also because the other expectations mean that he is in a constant state of stress and confusion – a state which is not as obvious as a state of conflict because of its constancy and normalcy. Constantly suppressing emotions is a contradiction to being human and hence a prime source of inner conflict. Also severely stressful is to live a life disconnected from self to prove to oneself and to everybody around one’s worthiness to belong – in this case to one’s gender. A huge part of male aggression may be generating from this intense inner conflict which may even have become inherent to the male psyche through evolution. And what could be powering the aggression further is his resorting to his ego, reminding himself of his superiority to justify it all.

Fear of failure in conforming to the social image of ‘man’ because it would invariably lead to his rejection otherwise, may be seen as a dominant emotion that drives his action and the action of those around him. My ex-colleague was asked by his earning wife to leave home for his inability to earn a steady income; my friend and her mother bully her spouse for her not having the freedom to give up her job as his career is unstable; my friend who is well placed in his career is always struggling to reach a higher goal, compromising on his peace of mind, his present and his relationships – because he needs to be the best, as he was brought up believing. Action that comes from fear and insecurity is bound to create conflict within oneself and within one’s relationships.

Domestic abuse, dowry crimes, pornography, rape, gender discrimination, female foeticide and infanticide, prostitution, honourkillings are some of the most visible manifestations of patriarchy. The passive conflicts that patriarchy fuels, causing relationships to breakdown, whether within families, in work spaces or elsewhere, are rarely given the attention they deserve, although every person has suffered and suffers it – it is everywhere – a reflection of how deep rooted it is in the human psyche.  Unfortunately, despite this, patriarchy is not explicitly addressed by educational curricula in most places, but it is an elephant in the classroom nonetheless.

One of the things that have limited the seeing of the real impact of patriarchy on relationships is looking at it through the lens of women’s rights alone. It promotes the general and popular view that patriarchy is pro men. Unfortunately, not understanding this structure and its manifestations in its wholeness is inadvertently limiting relationships, blocking the emergence of sustainable solutions for a more coherent world.

Patriarchy is as imprisoning for men as it is for women. The only difference is, as previously mentioned, for men the superiority disguise makes it almost impossible for him to see that it is imprisoning him, and in his case in his ego. To add to that the conveniences of not having to take as much responsibility for the physical aspect of raising children and not having to take equal responsibility for the chores around the house make it even more difficult to acknowledge it, even if he might see glimpses of what he is stuck in. For women it is as clear and direct as it can get when she is told that she deserves less because of her gender, that it restricts her freedom to be the person that she is.

Also important to note is, transgender persons are completely invisible in the patriarchal system, one of the probable reasons why they are not represented or actively considered in the policies and laws of many countries, and are not visible in the eyes of many people.

What is the point in patriarchy when it is completely blind to a gender (transgender individuals); forces a gender (men) to live a life of illusion and coerces a gender (women) to be the subservient one – stealing everyone’s basic freedom to be one’s own self; locking all in a lifelong struggle to cope? Individuals have different capabilities which are irrespective of their gender. However, they are to live by the rules that patriarchy lays for them – altering and manipulating their capabilities, skills, sense of self and perceptions to suit these gender norms. What is even more baffling is women and men are then expected to come together and form ideal families and build peaceful and stable societies on this shaky fragile and rigid foundation. Relationships cannot get more twisted and complicated than that, can they?

Looking at the relevance of social constructs and ideas in the context of human relationships is imperative because quality of our life is dependent on the quality of our relationships– whether with oneself or with others. We tend to discount that the chaos and conflict in society or the world is reflective of conflicted and chaotic human relationships.

Patriarchy at some point in the past may or may not have made sense; there is no way to establish the certainty of that.Spending time and energy, dissecting the past or imagining the future is not as effective in finding sustainable solutions for the challenges that we live with in the present.  Let us look at situations in the present because that is where we are all the time.

Is patriarchy making sense in the present?

Is it not time that educators and other responsible adults around the world began addressing this elephant in the room?

[Editor’s note: readers may be interested in reading bell hooks’ perspective on how patriarchy affects men as well – her book The Will to Change is highly recommended — MB]

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About the Author:
Sushimita Maryam
Sushmita Maryam is a Mediator and a Conflict Resolution Practitioner who has co-founded the ‘We are Peace’ network that works with Educational Institutions in facilitating awareness of conflict and peace using tools of dialogue and skills of mediation among teachers, students and their parents in an effort to awaken youth to being peace promoters their personal lives, homes, communities and the world at large. Sushmita is the chosen participant from India for the United Nations Alliance of Civilisations (UNAOC) summer school 2014 that brings together 75 youth from across the globe, to address pressing global challenges, within the context of cultural and religious diversity.

#IfMalalaWasMyStudent

This post is republished with permission from Sherif Osman’s blog, and we invite readers to use the hashtag #IfMalalaWasMyStudent on Twitter and their blogs, and Sherif and Edcontexts will compile responses and storify them, then publish here.

by Sherif Osman, Cairo, Egypt

I was watching the Jon Stewart show [the other day] and he was interviewing Malala, interestingly enough we were just talking about her at work that morning. It got me thinking, what if Malala was a girl in my class? Would I realise her potential? Would I encourage her? Would I be intimidated? Would I differentiate for her? Would I modify my teaching?

A better way to think about this, if one of your students was a Nobel peace laureate and has an international fund raising organisation dedicated to education access and educational reform. Would you feel you had to up your game? If so, does that mean that teachers need students that will challenge them in order to excel? What does that mean for ‘low ability’ group settings? Is that beneficial for students or teachers if that’s the case? Hmm…

As I continued to watch the show, I was intrigued. Her knowledge and vocab were excellent for a student her age; you could tell it wasn’t something she’d practiced, her wit and confidence shone through. I’ve met many students who surprised me with their knowledge, or their passion, or their confidence, or their attitude, or initiative, but rarely all those combined. I began to remember certain students, and wonder what they were up to now and if they had realised their potential? Are they enjoying what they are doing?

Earlier this year, a colleague at work asked me to write an article about an incident that happened to me as a student and how that affected my teaching. Since writing that article, I frequently started thinking about my time in the classroom as a student and what I can learn from it now as a teacher.

This got me thinking that I am who I am today because of my interactions in the classroom for a large portion of my life. My interactions with the teachers and other students have had a massive impact on my life and hence who I am today. That then begs the question, could I have been much better at something had my teachers or one of my teachers realised my potential in a particular area? A more positive way to look at this, have I excelled at something because someone helped me realise my potential? Who where they and what did they do differently? Perhaps this reflection can help me help my students.

When speaking to a colleague at work about this post idea, she suggested that I follow this post up with several posts where I reflect on those incidents and how they affected me. She then jokingly suggested I start a twitter movement #ifMalalaWasMyStudent where people can post their views on this. I liked the idea so much that I am going to do it. So I invite you all to share your stories or reflections on this hashtag. I will try and compile all the responses in a blog post to follow this up.

#ifMalalaWasMyStudent

About the Author:
Sherif Osman
Sherif Osman (@the_sosman) currently works as part of the Pedagogy & Assessment team at the Center for Learning & Teaching at the American University in Cairo. He also teaches a range of courses at the Professional Educator's Diploma, a teacher education program at the same institution. Sherif has a rich background that encompasses academic and professional experiences in education. He holds a Master of Arts in Education along with the Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) from the UK where he also taught in a range of schools. Teaching in different cultures and contexts fuels Sherif's passion towards education and educational research.

There’s a Place for Us

By Yin Wah Kreher, USA; Singapore

I was born and obtained my undergraduate education in Singapore, “the little red dot” or “the Lion City.” In late 1999, I relocated to the USA and have had much adventure navigating cross-cultural zones of change. As a Singaporean Chinese, I am often perceived as someone from the Republic of China, which is not a problem or a bad thing at all. It is when I am expected to exhibit behaviors that go along with that misperception that things get awkward and challenging. What follows are little snippets of the faux pas some people have committed in an attempt to relate to me. These illustrations highlight the fact that there is substantial work to be done in the area of education and awareness about dealing with difference.

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American White Male prof: “The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was wonderful. Those Chinese girls didn’t smile at all while performing.” (Looks at Yin to explain why.)

Yin: *scratches head* [couldn’t explain to prof]

Note: This is a faux pas that tends to happen because most people see me as Chinese, but I am a Singaporean. My grandparents migrated to Malaya (pre-independent Singapore was a part of Malaya) and then to Singapore.

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American White Male: “You speak such good English compared to other Chinese. How is that so?”

Note: Again, this is a social blunder that happens because most people see me as a Chinese from China, but I am a Singaporean. And there is a presumption that Chinese internationals don’t speak or write good English. This is an overgeneralization. I’m always amused more than offended to see the shock on people’s faces when they read my writing or hear me speak.

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American White Male: “So do you eat dog meat or cat meat?”

Note: This is a bad joke. The perception and assumption that I’m Chinese is associated with the idea that Chinese people eat strange stuff like monkey brains or dog meat. This is an overgeneralization.

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International Female faculty client. I interacted with her substantially at our Center’s training sessions. I presented her my business card and offered to work with her. She subsequently chose to work with a Female White designer.

Note: This is not an indictment of the faculty decision. She has her reasons for her choices. I chose to include these next three examples because I want to highlight that sometimes, we may not be aware of our unconscious decisions. In Singapore, for instance, we were a colony of Britain and at times, the colonial mentality remains and is exhibited in some behaviors. Some Singaporeans consider Caucasians to be superior to Asians and look to them for solutions to their problems. It could work the other way too; people may be intimidated by the supposedly model minority, Asians.

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Black Female client contacts African colleague to work with her on accessibility issues after checking out our web bios. She was redirected to me.

Note: People are comfortable with people who appear to be more like them. It’s human nature.

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White Female client was assigned to work with me. Emailed me subsequently to say she was going to switch and work with another Female designer (who also happened to be White).

Note: Same rationale as above.

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Invited to a large corporate firm for an interview which was then delayed for some time. At the meeting, interviewers made snide remarks about my being overqualified. I was subsequently not hired.

Note: This happened quite frequently to me and my international friends who were selected for interviews to meet diversity requirements. Unfortunately, I think this is how people play games to beat bureaucracy.

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Diversity. Accessibility. Inclusivity. These are buzzwords in higher education. We hear them mentioned so often, I wonder if they lose their meaning for those in privileged circumstances. To me, diversity includes supporting accessibility, that is, the ability to access information and services. More often, it relates to the design of products and services for people with disability. Our VCU Institute for Inclusive Teaching planning committee regards inclusivity as a fluid concept:

Moving towards inclusivity includes an intention of reflecting on ideas and assumptions, and becoming aware of differences in order to gain insight and transform our practices.

How is accessibility related to diversity, many might ask? Individuals with disability are often not able to participate or have access to information and services because of differences that require special accommodations. When I think of diversity and accessibility, I include the discussion of people with disability too, because to some people with disability, disability is not pathological nor an impairment. It is an identity they proudly embrace and I support their desire to be a community of their own with their specific norms and values. Society is filled with individuals and groups with different traits, norms, values and ways of communicating, and it may be maddeningly chaotic, but perplexingly charming at the same time. It is okay to be different.

Personally, I was desensitized to these popularly used terms (that is, diversity, accessibility, and inclusivity), because I grew up in a multiracial society in Singapore and race was hardly an issue. I became aware of the need to be culturally responsive when I increasingly encountered these social blunders in America, began working on my dissertation and when I first got involved with a planning committee that does work related to inclusivity (which to us encompasses diversity and accessibility).

To be a tad more precise, I believe my advocacy and work for inclusivity began when I first taught a deaf student in Singapore just before I came over to the USA. I experienced first-hand the challenges of designing lessons for her without adequate training in inclusive design. Another watershed moment for me was when I worked with a faculty member to design his first online course. He had mobility and vision challenges, the severity of which I was ignorant of until I met him in person. Little wonder he took so long to reply to my emails! He had to use a screen reader and a screen magnifier which expanded small portions of text, a chunk at a time. With mobility challenges, he could not use the mouse easily. For those of us without any disabilities, such challenges are not the first things we think of when we wonder why someone does not respond to our emails. After all, we scan web pages and skim for content without much hesitation.

During doctoral studies, I joined the Access Project team, an interdisciplinary research and community education project directed by Professors Marjorie DeVault (my dissertation advisor), Rebecca Garden and Michael Schwartz (faculty members at Syracuse University and Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY). Combining perspectives from law, social science, and health humanities, the Access team explored communication access in health care (DeVault, Schwartz & Garden, 2011). Drawing from Schwartz’s research on deaf people’s perspectives (Schwartz, 2006), the team engaged in research and community outreach activities meant to illuminate and address the social and organizational barriers to quality health care for deaf patients. The central goal of the project was to engage healthcare professionals with deaf perspectives on the healthcare encounter, and our discussions raised questions about the most effective approaches to designing and delivering healthcare education in this area.

In VCU, I missed the opportunity to work with the community as I had done during graduate school. I was grateful to be invited to be a part of the  Institute on Inclusive Teaching (May 18-22, 2015).

It is one work project that keeps me going, even on days when I feel irrelevant and wonder what all my 30 years of specialized training in Instructional Design is for. When I do anything, no matter how small, for the project, I feel that I’m making a difference, and I know that what I’m doing will have a ripple effect, through time. There are real problems to solve, awareness to create, educational sessions to design and facilitate. There is a reason why I’m there, in the committee. There’s a reason for all those years of education.

When I’m with the committee, I work less at making people understand the implications of diversity. I don’t have to negotiate so hard at the intersections. People in the committee have been misunderstood in some way by someone (unintentionally?), have lived experiences of these issues and thus know how important it is to be inclusive and to educate people to be inclusive. I am at home in such a diverse multicultural setting like Singapore.

“If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.” – Charlie Parker, musician.

Among my committee friends, I find myself. And in turn I can help others to find themselves and not feel lost.

The Institute focuses on issues of access and equity in education, core goals of education. We touch on issues of social justice, stereotype threats, solo status, inclusive learning design, international students’ acculturative stress and facilitate the transfer of this knowledge to instructors’ design of courses. A week is not enough time to learn everything there is about inclusivity, but we try our best to design and model a learning experience that has the potential to make participants rethink their perspectives towards making their classrooms more inclusive.

At the 2009 UNESCO World Conference on Higher Ed, the OECD Secretary-General said:

“The first priority is access and equity… the second priority area is efficiency and effectiveness [and] the third area is quality and relevance.”

– Angel Gurria, OECD Secretary-General.

Access and equity. These are two priority areas that make me get up in the morning to go to work. If I don’t find myself in a position to fight for these causes anymore, I think my work will have lost a significant bout of meaning.

By highlighting challenges of difference that many others and I face, I work at contributing to and becoming a part of the solution; at using education to create awareness. Working on the Access project with my professors, I saw that litigation could not resolve the complex challenges that deaf patients face; it could not narrow health disparities between them and other ethnic or minority groups. Addressing the top priority area of concern in education does not eliminate the need to work on other priority areas. As a learning innovation designer, efforts to innovate and transform education can also serve to improve access and equity. I look forward to a society that increasingly recognizes that difference is not a problem, but a beautiful gift that contributes to creative expression and transformative learning experiences.

 

About the Author:

Yin Wah Kreher profile picture

Yin Wah Kreher 
I am a learning innovation design specialist at Virginia Commonwealth University. A multifaceted border-crosser, I believe that breakthroughs happen at intersections! I like to look for the exquisite in writing, design, learning, arts, life; to explore cross-cultural/cross-field engagement, creativity, cognition, arts. Originally from Singapore, I've spent most of my professional life anchored in the field of learning sciences. I write about learning design, mind, culture and life as it unfolds at http://justywk.blogspot.com