Morning Keynote Speaker
Marlene Jennings
Title: Your Gifts Will Make Room for You.
The title of my speech, ‘ Your gifts will make room for you’, is a biblical quote I heard for the first time on a Saturday in February 2021 while watching a documentary. The term curious is just a polite way of describing being nosy and that is exactly me, a darn nosy Black woman. Since I was a child, I have always wanted answers to the W5; who, what, where, when and why. I also wish to speak about “Lifting As We Climb”, the motto of the Coloured Women’s
Club. These terms/quotes/mottos are pertinent when discussing education in times of transition.
Bio
The Honourable Marlene Jennings, who became President of the Quebec Community Groups Network in November 2020, is a retired lawyer and former Member of Parliament who is a valued contributor to Quebec’s English-speaking community on a wide range of issues ranging from education to health and access to justice. Until her election at the helm of the QCGN, she was the organization’s Treasurer and also co-chaired QCGN’s Access to Justice in English Committee. Until recently, she was the government appointed trustee at the English Montreal School Board where she accompanied the board in implementing governance reforms. In 2015, Marlene chaired the Elections Systems Study Panel which handed down recommendations that aimed to protect the constitutional rights of English-speaking Quebecers and the integrity of our educational institutions. Marlene currently sits on the Ministry of Public Safety, the Comité consultatif sur la Réalité policière that conducted public and private consultations and forums, as part of a bigger effort to modernize the Quebec’s police forces on the basis of modernity, efficiency and trust. She also sits Board of the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal and is a member of its Finance Committee which oversees an annual budget of close to $2 billion and some 17,000 employees
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Evening Keynote Speaker
Susan M. Brigham
Title: To think, to dream, to touch the sky: Adult education as a practice of freedom
In this talk, Dr Brigham will discuss the role of adult education in the face of the pandemic and ongoing inequities, violent acts against various groups, and perpetuation of oppression in society. Dr Brigham will draw on stories from her own teaching practice as well as from her current research projects, including with refugee youth, girls, and university students from traditionally under-represented communities, and refer to arts-informed methods, Africentricity and Indigenous ways of knowing to offer critical insights into adult education practices. What we teach (e.g., course content) and how we teach go hand in hand, yet the “what” often takes precedence in our formal education contexts. Dr Brigham assert that the “how” is equally necessary to attend to in order to extend our analysis and understanding of the structural aspects of societal problems, including racial divisions and conflict. She will discuss the importance of compassion, empathy, connectivity, creativity, open-mindedness, cooperation, and courage in the adult education classroom. She concludes that adult education must have an individual, communal, spiritual, and planetary focus if we are to have a societal transformation.
Bio
Susan M. Brigham, PHD is Full Professor in the Faculty of Education at Mount Saint Vincent University (MSVU). She teaches in the Graduate Studies of Lifelong Learning Program and the Inter-University Doctoral Program in Educational Studies. Susan’s research interests include adult and higher education, immigration, diversity, and gender. Susan has conducted research and presented her work in North America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and Europe. She is currently conducting research related to refugee youth and immigrant families funded by SSHRC/ Child and Youth Refugee Research Coalition (CYRRC), research projects focusing on African Nova Scotian learners (funded by NS government), a study related to girls’ learning through girls’ conferences and the effect of the pandemic on their lives, and a project examining culture and perspectives on University Sexual Assault Policies. Her co-edited books include Adult Education and Learning in Canada: Critical Legacies (2021); Building on Critical Traditions: Adult Education and Learning in Canada (2013) and Africentricity in Action (2012). She is associate editor with the Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education and the Alberta Journal of Educational Research (AJER). She is past president of the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education (2019-20) and a board member of the Delmore “Buddy” Daye Learning Institute (DBDLI), which is committed to excellence in Africentric education and research.
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Panel Speakers
Inny Accioly
Title: Pandemic, Genocide, and Barbarism: Freire’s contributions to popular struggles in Brazil and Beyond
Inspired by Freire’s pedagogy of praxis, this talk aims to critically analyze the rising of the fascist and ultraconservative forces in Brazil and beyond, and the scenario of barbarism and genocide unveiled by the coronavirus pandemic. It’s argued that the colonial and racist societal roots coupled with the expansion of a ‘banking education system’ laid down the foundations of the tragic limit-situation faced by a very large segment of the Brazilian population, especially non-white lower-class communities, in the fight for the right to the basic elements necessary to sustain livelihood with dignity. Freire’s concept of ‘appropriate anger’ and its pedagogical role is discussed as an important stance in constructing critical and revolutionary alternatives to transform society.
Bio
Dr. Inny Accioly is professor of Education at the Fluminense Federal University (Brazil). Her research focus on critical pedagogy in a multidisciplinary perspective that relates environmental education, grassroots movements, policy analysis and international and comparative education. She is the Program Chair at the Paulo Freire Special Interest Group (SIG) of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). She is editing with Dr. Donaldo Macedo the upcoming book: Education, Equality and Justice in the New Normal: Global Responses to the Pandemic.
Walter Omar Kohan
Title: Why Paulo Freire more than ever?
In this presentation, I will try to think about this question and some others like the importance of reading and thinking with Paulo Freire in this present moment. I will present some elements of what I would call a “childlike pedagogy of the question” inspired in the Pernambucan educator to unfold the politics of the educational task.
Bio
Dr. Walter Oman Kohan received his doctorate from Iberoamericana University, in Mexico City, in 1996. His mentor was Matthew Lipman. He did post-doctoral Studies in Philosophy at the University of Paris. Dr. Kohan was a research fellow at EPCD, at the University of British Columbia, 2017-8. He has also been visiting professor at different universities in Italy, France, Argentina, Mexico and Chile. Since 2002, he has been a Full Professor of Philosophy of Education at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Since 2000 he is a Senior Research member of the National Council of Scientific and Technologic Development (CNPQ, Brazil) and of the Foundation of Support of Research of the State of Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ, Brazil). Since 2003, he has been the Director of the Center of Studies in Philosophy and Childhood (State University of Rio de Janeiro, www.filoeduc.org).
Dr. Kohan was president (1999-2001) and member of the Advisory Board of the International Council for Philosophical Inquiry with Children (ICPIC) and, since 2002, and he has been the co-editor of Childhood & Philosophy, the ICPIC journal (http://www.e-publicacoes.uerj.br/index.php/childhood). Dr. Kohan has presented papers or lectures in more than 200 conferences all over Brazil and Latin America, and in countries like Canada, United States, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, France, Portugal, Italy, Iceland, Greece, New Zealand, Romany, Moldavia, England, Russia, South Africa, India, South Korea, Japan and China. Since 2002, he has organized the Biennial International Colloquiums of Philosophy and Education in Rio de Janeiro. He has published over 100 peer reviewed articles, chapters and books as author, co-author or editor in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, English and French. Main books: in English, Philosophy and Childhood: Critical Perspectives and Affirmative Practices. (Palgrave, 2014); Childhood, Education And Philosophy: New Ideas For An Old Relationship (Routledge, 2015); The Inventive Schoolmaster (Sense, 2015); in Portuguese: Paulo Freire, mais do que nunca (Vestígio, 2019), Manifesto por uma escola filosófica popular (NEFI, 2018); O mestre inventor (Autêntica, 2013); Infância. Entre educação e filosofia. (Autêntica, 2003); In French: Socrate. Enseigner, ce paradoxe (L´Harmattan, 2013). In Spanish: Infancia. Entre Educación y Filosofía (Barcelona: Laertes, 2004), Filosofía: la paradoja de aprender y enseñar (Buenos Aires: Libros del Zorzal, 2008), Sócrates. El enigma de enseñar (Buenos Aires: Biblos, 2009), La escuela pública apuesta al pensamiento (Homo Sapiens, 2013); Infancia. Política y Pensamiento (Paraná: La Hendija, 2014); El maestro inventor: Simón Rodríguez (Miño y Dávila, 2014; 3a Ed. Ediciones del Solar, 2016); Viajar para vivir: ensayar (Miño y Dávila, 2015).
Walter’s new book: Paulo Freire: A Philosophical Biography will be launched in English soon. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/paulo-freire-9781350195998/
Eluza Gomes
Eluza Gomes is a master’s student in Adult Education at UQÀM (Université du Québec à Montréal). She has recently finished a graduate diploma in Adult Education at the same university. Eluza has taught in many levels of formal and non-formal education in Brazil and Quebec. Presently, Eluza volunteers for the Byenvini Project – an arts-based education programs for refugee children. Her research focuses on storytelling and women educators.
Eluza Gomes will be performing a song to open the panel. She will also be reciting a poem about diversity and Freire.