The Faculty of Education Summer Institute (FESI) 2022 will take place on Aug. 15 and 16, exploring Collective Dreaming: Co-Constructing Conditions for Liberatory Education.
FESI 2022 will focus on the meaning, vision, and conditions for liberatory education, which is centered on principles for social change and transformation, such as raising collective consciousness, understanding power imbalances, disrupting oppressive forces, and cultivating individual and collective agency.
This annual event will address timely and relevant needs for students, communities, school boards and the Ontario Ministry of Education. The Institute’s belief is that a variety of stakeholders must contribute to this dialogue in meaningful and powerful ways to ensure that collective knowledge is generated and mobilized, resulting in a plan for action towards significant systemic changes for all students.
“There is some important work being done to dismantle harmful structures in K-to-12 schooling contexts. As we dismantle, we also need to put our energy and thinking towards creating the spaces, structures, and possibilities for all students, families, and educators to bring more of their full selves into classrooms and communities. FESI 2022 invites us to dream into educational futures in which we all belong, learn, thrive, dream, experience joy, question, and advocate for more justice and humanity,” says Faculty of Education Assistant Professor Vidya Shah.
The two-day event will feature workshops, panellists and will focus on actualizing liberatory education through the following questions:
- What questions must be asked in order to move towards liberation?
- How must we think differently about current practices? What systems must be abolished for more liberatory approaches to education?
- What practical changes are needed for more liberatory approaches to education?
- What is the place of the relationships, the emotional realm, and the spiritual realm in education for liberation? What is the place of healing, love, and joy in these efforts?
- How do we need to relate to this work differently and prepare ourselves differently to dream collectively?
- How might we draw on multiple knowledge systems to challenge Eurocentricity in schooling and offer different insights within education?
- What possibilities still need to be imagined and created?
- How do we dream collectively with families and communities?
FESI aims to highlight local knowledge and local solutions that are relevant to young people in Ontario, with a belief that harnessing the wisdom of the local collective is key to enacting change for the betterment of our most vulnerable students. These discussions happen with a recognition of discourses, dialogues and actions operating globally, historically and presently.
Faculty of Education members can attend the event for free (50 people max) by registering at the following link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfiIbpdwc3ukMO7EGCq3OBqBtZZ683-2JdGb3er4-4KtL9VFg/viewform?usp=sf_link.
For additional information, visit the FES 2022 website. Event registration is available online.
Article originally posted in the August 2, 2022 issue of Yfile