A two-day conference designed by York University’s Faculty of Education to bring together educators, teacher candidates, parents and community members will focus on the theme “Relationships to Canada 150: Paradoxes, Contradictions and Questions.”
The Faculty of Education Summer Institute (FESI) 2017 will run Aug. 23 and 24 at the Keele campus, and invites various stakeholders to learn from and with one another to engage in relevant and critical conversations involving the achievement and well-being of youth. The annual event works to mobilize for individual and collective action in education by offering a variety of workshops.
The stakeholders include community partners, youth, teacher candidates, parents/guardians, and educators in various capacities and from various schools boards/organizations who will exchange ideas about how they have been working with and meeting the educational needs, interests and aspirations of young people.
With this year’s theme in mind, the conversations will focus on Canada 150, and participants will be invited to engage in critical discussions about the purpose, impact and quality of education and social outcomes.
Keynote presentations and workshops will consider questions such as:
- What perspectives and ways of knowing have constituted spaces in which young people engage in educational, social and recreational activities in Canada over the past 150 years?
- What has been silenced?
- How might these perspectives and ways of knowing have impacted youth differently over the past 150 years?
- In considering education more than 150 years ago, and in considering education for the next 150 years, what possibilities exist for resurgence, reconciliation and justice?
Day one, which runs from 9am to 4pm, will focus on “Problematizing Canada’s Relationship with Indigenous Peoples.” This portion of the conference will explore historical and contemporary relationships between Indigenous people and colonial settlers, as well as Canada’s history of cultural genocide.
Participants will have an opportunity to engage in deep learning, unlearning and relearning in workshops such as: The History of Colonization, Treaties and Land, Residential Schools, Inuit Education, Métis Education, Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, and much more.
Day two, which runs from 9am to 4:15pm, will focus on “Problematizing Canada’s Relationships with various Communities and Considerations for Beyond 150.” On the second day, participants will have an opportunity to further problematize the historical and contemporary relationships of various diverse communities of Canada that have settled in this country for various reasons.
As well, participants will engage in current and relevant research that impacts student achievement and well-being. Workshops will focus on promising initiatives and programs working to address systemic barriers.
This year’s keynote speaker is Mahlikah Awe:ri Enml’ga’t Saqama’sgw (The Woman Who Walks In The Light), a Haudenosaunee Mohawk/Mi’kmaw drum talk poetic rapologist, poet, musician, hip-hop MC, arts educator, social change workshop facilitator, performance artist, artist mentor, radio host, festival curator and more.
For more information, visit fesi.blog.yorku.ca.