![Winter 2021 cover of The York University Magazine featuring Faculty of Education Assistant PRofessor Cristina Delgado Vintimilla standing outside in front of some trees.](https://www.yorku.ca/edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2021/05/20197_YorkMag_W21_Interim2_YFile.jpg)
Cristina Delgado Vintimilla is an assistant professor in early childhood education at York University. But you could just as easily call her a teaching radical. As the University’s first pedagogista – an Italian word denoting an educational leader with a pronounced pedagogical vision – Vintimilla dismantles the human-centric approach to education that has served as the golden standard since the 19th century, if not longer. “It’s the kind of neoliberal, hyper-individualized education you might find in an assembly line,” she says in accented English, making piquant her disdain, “taking information in, regurgitating it out. A system designed only to supply the workforce of tomorrow. We need to continue to unsettle this idea.” And Vintimilla is.
Instead of using education as a tool for socialization, she joins forces with other education theorists to advance a pedagogy that promotes a sense of interdependence with “more than human worlds.” The goal is to focus education less on personal achievement and more on developing a greater sense of awareness of the complexity and interconnectedness of humans living on the planet.
Read the full article in the winter 2021 issue of the York University Magazine.