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| The present and moving forward is all we have |
I am moving to Atlanta! What a week…
I considered writing two blog posts as
there are two parts to my time there: there at an academic conference and there
as a tourist. Ultimately the two experiences somehow have merged into one in my
processing. Astounding is the core melody pulsing through my thoughts, while at
the same time gentle tunes of feeling incredibly humbled.
Much of the music which drives me these
days hangs on the cords of thinking about any situation from multiple
perspectives, while at the same time listening to the songs of others without
passing judgment. Was it Atlanta, or is it the beat that makes me dance through
my life these days? Ok enough with the music analogies and to the essence of my
blog post: the reason I decided to combine my experiences into one blog was they
were both about seeing people, processes and places without prior judgement, or
at least trying to.
Since my main purpose for being there was
to attend the ISSOTL conference, I will open my rendition (sorry couldn’t help
going back to the music) with my summation on that aspect of my trip. I have
been to many a Geography conference over the years, especially the Annual
American Geographers conference in the US, but this was my first SoTL
(Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) conference. The first three days of my
time in Atlanta, Sunday-Tuesday night, were spent in an intense collaborative
writing workshop. Essentially a group of academics writing a paper together. I
had participated in one of these last year with three other geographers and
enjoyed the process, but this was six of us from completely different academic
backgrounds. We had met each other virtually on a number of occasions and
submitted an outline for our paper on ‘power and critique’ in academic journals
focused on the scholarship of teaching and learning. Our focus is to look at
the power imbalance in the relationship between faculty and students in how we
present and receive critical feedback. Meeting people face-to-face is such a
different experience as people’s individual quirks come out in the negotiation.
It was wonderful to participate in something where I felt so contented seeing
myself as a novice, one without any predetermined notions of how the process
should go. We now continue our writing virtually once more with a deadline of
March to finish our paper.
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| My poster and I |
I presented a poster! For those of you who
are not versed in the ‘culture’ of the academy and conferences, posters are
often seen as a second-class citizen to giving a paper. Well at least this is
how it was always constructed for me in Geography. A mix up with our
application (I had applied to present along with a UBC colleague on our work on
Augmented Reality field trips) meant that we were offered a poster rather than
a paper session. I was disappointed but choose to go anyways given my
participation in the writing workshop, and in doing so I learned that in the
SoTL community such a hierarchical distinction is not evident. Indeed, this was
my main takeaway from the entire experience at the workshop and conference, I
had found myself part of a community for whom relationships were more valuable
than ego in the academic profession. What bound us all together was a deep
devotion to education and therefore to the students we teach, but also the
learners within ourselves. It was refreshing and exhilarating to hear others
use the same ‘language’ as me for why they became academics in the first place,
it is and always should be about the students before anything else.
I set a preamble that what I am going to
express below could be interpreted as controversial: nonetheless I
have been exploring the role of privilege which really struck me in my
touristic endeavors in Atlanta. Education is the all equalizer in my mind and is
one of the main motivators for me pursuing the career track that I do. Why education?
Going through formal education provides us with a broader knowledge of the
world around us. More than that though, good education gives us a sense of self
and the tools and ability to ask the why questions. Education enables us to say:
‘Why is a situation not just?’ or ‘I want to make a difference in society beyond
myself’. Good education is not only formal education though, it involves having
a support system around us that enables us. This is the thought that resonated
with me as I walked around the Center for Civil and Human Rights Wednesday
morning in awe of the many incredible people who have fought for others all
around the world. The truth though is that the majority of these people came
from a background that granted them a form of privilege, from both their education
but also the status and support of their families. Martin Luther King Jr.,
Mahatma Ghani, Daisy Bates, and Malala (to name just a few) all came from privileged
backgrounds in the sense that they had education and family support: the tools
they needed to ask the why questions. Please don’t mistake my comments as
meaning that they did not take incredible strides often at great personal cost
in order to voice the injustice they experienced and observed, my observations
are to acknowledge the broader support network they were/are in. I raised my
thoughts with a group of conference attendees that afternoon to find that some
of them had been to the Martin Luther King Jr. Museum and walked away with
similar thoughts. You might infer that of course a group of academics have the luxury
to make such observations, but I hope that what I am conveying in my writing is
an appreciation of the role of good education, support system and the ability
to voice injustices.
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| Mural at the Center for Civil and Human Rights |
When privilege is used to better one’s
community as well as one’s self that is when we see really difference in the world
around us. I was continuously made aware of this throughout my time in Atlanta,
both in terms of my own privilege and how to use it, as well as the actions of
many individuals in the life course of the city. Martin Luther King Jr. framed
most of his rhetoric on fighting poverty and inequality, of whom he saw the
black community being disproportionately a part of. Robert Griggs started a
movement to save a neighbourhood (Inman Park) because he had the means to buy a
house there. A national movement and a local movement started by two
individuals changed the lives of many.
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| Martin Luther King Jr.'s birth-home |
It is key that those of us who find
ourselves in very privileged positions use that status to be the voice for
those whose voices go unheard. That said, this privilege only becomes truly
powerful when we truly listen and empathize with the world around us, and this
comes with trying not to make assumptions or judgments. As I prepared for my
trip to Atlanta I reminded myself that it was a city I had no knowledge of and
therefore I had to go with an open mind. The first few days were a struggle as
we sat in an air-conditioned room with no windows in the Marriot Hotel in
Downtown Atlanta. As with any big business focused city, the Downtown of the
city was soulless and sterile. The sterile view of the city shifted as I had
the opportunity to visit Piedmont Park, Midtown, Castleberry Hill, The Old Fourth
Ward, Cabbagetown, and Grant Park. As with any large city the diversity of the communities
and the narratives became apparent to me. I found a city that had strong voices
advocating for the different narratives. I of course saw inequality and
injustice, but I also saw pride and community. My first ‘real’ trip to the US took
place in December 2011 to February 2012 when I travelled on Amtrak (US Railway
company) down the West Coast across the South and up the East Coast. During
that trip I found myself really acknowledging and questioning my own preconceived
ideas of what the US was, based on contexts I had been a part of, and seeing
Hollywood movies and TV shows. Now each time I return to the US (most recently Portland,
Washington DC, New Orleans, Atlanta) I am struck with how much I need to learn in
order to unpack my own biases. I want to hear the narratives of the places I
visit, trying to avoid judging them with what I see as ‘truth’. I hope that in
doing this I am using my own ‘privilege’ to generate understanding.
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| Piedmont Park |
I finish with an acknowledgment of the
greatest pleasure in life: interacting with other people. In Atlanta I met and
interacted with the most phenomenal people, both at the conference but more
importantly in my activities outside the hotel. The service staff who served me
my meals, the Uber drivers who shared their stories, and the incredible guide
Robyn I had on my solo bike tour on my last morning in the city. If we begin by
listening to the songs of other’s lives, we can find true joy in relationships
generated through finding a common dance.
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| Street art in Cabbagetown |
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