How Karen Devonish-Mazzotta built a career in transformative teaching
Karen Devonish-Mazzotta holds multiple degrees and two decades of experience in education. With all this under her belt, she insists her students are her greatest source of learning.
“I enter into a symbiotic relationship with learners, and I learn as much from them as they do from me,” she explains. “For me, this is an act of transformative teaching where I learn how to better teach through being reflective and self-critical when teaching learners.”
Today, Karen is a Course Director & Practicum Facilitator at York University. She recently received the McGillivray Award from CPF Ontario, given to individuals who have actively promoted the development of French Second Language (FSL) learning in Ontario.
“I love that French has given me the opportunity to know more about Black communities in the diaspora. My children went to school for a period in Guadeloupe, and we have created lifelong friendships through those experiences.”
In high school, architecture briefly competed with teaching for Karen’s career focus. She felt fulfilled while teaching at her church or giving piano lessons to children in her neighbourhood, but she also enjoyed sketching and drawing. Teaching eventually won, but she was able to satisfy both interests when she arrived at Glendon to pursue a BA in Linguistics and a BEd in French as a Second Language.
“I spent hours in the stimulating environment of the beautiful art studio that used to be in Wood residence. I explored a variety of visual art techniques,” Karen recalls. “Our studio work was featured in an art show and displayed in the perfect setting of the Glendon Gallery in the Manoir. I will never forget it!”
Her decision to attend Glendon was largely influenced by fond memories of visiting her sister, Terrie-Lynne, who attended Glendon while Karen was in high school. There was the added appeal of getting a French-language education without leaving Toronto. When she started her studies at Glendon (after a year spent at Trent), she was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion and sense of community she felt on campus.
“My parents are from Guyana. As a Black family, we grew up within a multi-racial, pluri-linguistic community in Toronto. On campus, I met Black students from all over the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. At the time, I felt as though Glendon looked like my neighbourhood with this added value of French-English bilingualism.”
“I think universities are and will continue to be places where students have the opportunity to learn, unlearn, to deconstruct, to construct, to rethink, to wonder, to dream, and to explore. At York, I was encouraged to engage in inquiries that interested me, that provoked my thinking, and that were acts of resistance against ideologies that were imposed on me by rigid institutional thinking. Here at the university, I really felt liberated from staying silent about my experiences as a Black woman in Canada out of fear of ridicule or rejection. I did not feel that way when I was on other university campuses. Through various courses and experiences at York we celebrated and documented our lived realities in ways that were validated. As a Course Director and Practicum Facilitator, I try to recreate those same conditions for all the education students with whom I have the honor of working.”
“At Glendon, within one week, I would learn about sociolinguistics with Christine Besnard, deconstruct and rethink school institutions with Didi Khayatt, and then engage these ideas through teaching, learning, and observing students in my school practicum all to begin again the following week.”
In her current role as a Course Director & Practicum Facilitator, Karen is eager to be the kind of positive leader who creates a similar learning environment for her students.
“I remember an education professor once telling us that, “Parents send you – you meaning teachers – their best.” It’s a reminder to treat all students with care and dignity knowing that their families are sending them to school with hopes for the best.”
In addition to her degrees from Glendon, Karen holds an MA in Second Language Learning from the University of Toronto. After earning her master’s degree in 2001, she started applying for PhD programs before deciding she’d rather earn it later in her career. As someone committed to a synergistic approach to learning, it makes sense that she’d want to spend time learning through experience first.
“I will do it at the end of my 30-year teaching career. That’s a good thing, and that’s the plan.”
