Rodrigo's ID

The following material is a piece of advocacy to promote the Assessment AS Learning. The material here is meant to set the foundation and direction for work that will hopefully create conditions that are favorable for the students that are doing this work to exercise the Assessment AS Learning. However, the Assessment AS Learning is a descriptive set of circumstances that are the result of a process, so, as teachers, it is our prerogative to work toward building that environment that is favorable to exercising Assessment AS Learning.

I do not know about you, but in my early life as a student and until late into my experiences as a student, I never really had to think about how I was being taught, let alone how I was being assessed. Currently, with experience and training as an instructor, I can think back on several of those experiences. Some were good, some were bad and all of them were during a different time. I am not saying that, in hindsight, I had all terrible teachers, although I am also not saying I had all amazing teachers, but the demands and expectations of teaching were very different than they are now.

My hope for everyone involved in the learning processes would be for everyone to be mindful and aware of how we experience this practice, and this includes how we are assessed, how we assess the process of learning, and what we are our expectations as a result of assessments should be. Dwayne Harapnuik refers to the New South Wales Education Standard Authority’s distinction of Assessment of/for/as learning, is a useful tool to consider what we are aiming for during this experience.

I have thought of the distinction between assessment of/for/as learning through an analogy that I hope works for you when thinking about how these three objectives of assessment can be understood through enjoying a piece of content. I, personally, went for music, because I love music and had a piece of literature more-or-less top of mind to rely on, but it can be any form of content or media you feel more comfortable engaging with. Simply put, and referencing a YouTube creator I enjoy, there is no “right” way of enjoying music:

For me, and I hope this serves as an invitation for you to rethink how we practice and engage assessment, it is a matter of being mindful and aware of how we go about assessing our experience when learning. I think it is important to note that the deciding factor to identify whether assessment of learning is better than assessment for learning and/or better than assessment as learning, and the other permutations of this ranking, is the circumstance during which assessment is happening. In other words, there is a time and place for assessment of learning just as there is a time and place for assessment for learning and a time and place for assessment as learning. If you agree, then I think we can also agree that the real challenge then lies in knowing which one to use in the right moment and that is where I reiterate my calling for mindfulness and awareness to use the assessment TOOL that best suits you in the moment.

[For anyone interested, you can check the script and sources here.]

REFERENCES

Harapnuik, D. (2021, August 16). Assessment OF/FOR/AS Learning. https://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=8900

12tone. (2021, July 30). You don’t need music theory [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/zm01bKJpvFc?si=_PaUqLLlLFklwhuk

Copland, A. (1939). What to listen for in music. SIGNET CLASSICS.

CBS Television. (ca. 1960). Aaron Copland 1970 [Photograph]. Wikimedia Commons. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Aaron_Copland_1970.JPG

The Wachowskis. (Directors). (1999, March 24). The Matrix [Film]. Village Roadshow Pictures, Groucho II Film, Partnership, Silver Pictures.

The following material is a piece of advocacy to promote the Learner’s Mindset. The material here is meant to set the foundation and direction for work that will hopefully create conditions that are favorable for the students that are doing this work to embrace the Learner’s Mindset. However, the Learner’s Mindset is a descriptive set of circumstances that are the result of a process, so, as teachers, it is our prerogative to work toward building that environment that is favorable to embracing the Learner’s Mindset.

I often butt heads with one of my parents who consumes Korean-media content most of the time. We are from Mexico, so you would be correct in assuming that no one in my family speaks Korean, so this would mean my parent would have to engage with the learning process that is studying a new language, which I regularly encourage them to do on a formal basis and to develop knowledge and skills to use Korean beyond what is possible with just watching Korean media. They refuse stating that “they are old and done learning.” I, of course, disagree vehemently, which is why I insist, as I genuinely and whole-heartedly believe having a learner’s mindset and being a life-long learner, regardless of circumstances, including age.

Personally, being willing to “act on one’s intrinsic capacity to learn and respond to one’s inquisitive nature that leads to viewing all interactions with the world as learning opportunities” (Harapnuik, 2021), which has been conceptualized with the term learner’s mindset, is an essential part to how we engage with the world as constantly evolving and growing beings. It is both a matter and experiencing the world beyond the cave and being able to envision a reality beyond the one that is before us, whether that is through formal learning processes or through creative processes like the one Annalee Newitz mention in this TED Talk (2023):

Embracing a learner’s mindset is not just about enrolling to a new course or learning program, although that is one way to do it; it is about recognizing how an experience, likely an everyday one, can be an opportunity to learn. Whether that is an experience that is new, or constructive, or progressive, or alternative, such trying a new recipe, or a different way to brush one’s teeth, or pursuing some sort of academic degree, the learner’s mindset is to be open to experiences where one recognizes the ever-evolving nature of being an active agent in the world. Exercising a learner’s mindset is not always easy or painless, but I hope reading this will, at least, get you thinking considering making the openness, mindfulness, and humility that are part of the learner’s mindset as your way of navigating the world.

*Do not get me wrong, I understand there can be barriers to learning, but this is a case of a person who actively opposes the participating in a learning process. In other words, the are wrong and I am right.

[For anyone interested, you can check the script and sources here.]

REFERENCES

Butler, O.E. (1980). Lost races of science fiction. Transmission, Summer 1980, 17-18. https://www.are.na/block/27247277

Dweck, C.S. (2016). Mindset: The new psychology of success [eBook edition]. Random House

Dweck, C. (2014, December 17). The power of believing that you can improve [Video]. TED. https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2007). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

Harapnuik, D. (2021, February 9). Learner's mindset explained. It's about learning: Creating significant learning environments. https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=8705

Newitz, A. (2023, November). How fantasy worlds can spark real change [Video]. TED. https://www.ted.com/talks/annalee_newitz_how_fantasy_worlds_can_spark_real_change

Plato. (2021). The Republic (B. Jowett, Trans.). Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1497/pg1497-images.html (Originally published ca. 375 B.C.E.)

Hello all,

For this seventh and final post, I look to the future. More than anything, I feel like I’m chomping at the bit the exercise teaching, to get into a classroom and engage learners so as to refine my own teaching praxis, because I am looking to deploy ideas and concepts in practice. There is always so much to study and so much to learn. Part of me wants to get deeper into the philosophy of teaching and make a case as to the concepts that comprise my own schema of what teaching, as an act, should be like. I want to present these ideas to others so they can be scrutinized, challenged, and refined. There is so much to do, so many ways to do it, and so little time!

Take care of yourselves and those around you.

Hello all,

After reading more than half of the textbook, there is one issue that keeps rising up for me with this book: despite the fact that this is was published in 2015 there is a lot of content in this book that feels outdated. This realization feels even more prescient when you consider that, ultimately, this book is meant to be directed at an American audience. In part, I think this is a testament to how much has happened in so little time and how important what has happened has been. So many things have happened in this ten-year period that I wonder if Brookfield would feel comfortable putting this book as it is right now considering a whole lot of events that affect directly and indirectly the subject matter they’re addressing. There is probably an interesting rabbit hole to go down on looking into Brookfield’s thoughts and ideas regarding how the material in the third edition of The skillful teacher stands up to how they perceive the world as they see it in 2025.

Take care of yourselves and those around you.

Hello all,

I think about this question a lot: what do I want my future to look like? While I respect anyone with high-minded aspiration, I am at a point where I aim for simple things starting with regular, sustainable employment. It’s part of the reason why I am in the PIDP, because traditionally the practice is that during moments of economic uncertainty one goes to school to improve and update skills, which also serves to alleviate the uncertainty and frustration of the Sisyphean task that is finding employment in 2025. Furthermore, I hope to continue learning in some form in the near future, though in this moment I am not entirely certain what exactly is the next field of study for me. Finally, and this is a mix of personal and professional, I hope to be professionally and financially stable enough to be able to dedicate more time to music, both performing and composing.

Take care of yourselves and those around you.

Hello all,

After reading these chapters on resistance I keep thinking of Bruce Lee stating “be water,” which is amusing for me because I have never actually watched a Bruce Lee movie nor do I have much interest in them or that style of movie. I think this is because I agree with Brookfield that resistance cannot be eliminated in the classroom, but I’d go further in stating that resistance is actually an important element of classroom dynamics. One of the biggest challenges that any teacher faces and grows into is how to manage resistance in their classroom. Furthermore, I think that a certain level of resistance is beneficial in a classroom as it is important for teachers to questions and push their teachers as much as teachers should do so for students. Without resistance it is easy for teachers to fall asleep at the wheel and that is a problem for everyone in the classroom. To bring it full circle, teachers should not aim to eliminate resistance, they should learn to coexist with it as it can yield positive results for teachers.

Take care of yourselves and those around you.

For this chapter there are a few observations that came to mind while reading it, so here they go:

This chapter makes me wish this book was written with a Canadian content in mind.

2025 really takes a sledgehammer to this chapter. The recent news of that summit (?), conference (?) by Trump and Hegseth with all the US generals stating “We are the Department of War, not the Department of Woke” is silly, cringe, and terrifying.

My experience has been that one is never really prepared for how defensive privileged groups can be.

Am I an oral teacher?

The exercise of the newsprint dialogue is just Twitter with extra steps and I don’t know how I feel about that.

Take care of yourselves and those around you.

The word that comes to mind for me after reading Brookfield’s chapter 2 is platitudes. The core assumptions that Brookfield presents are reasonable and understandable, yet they are also broad and superficial. It is one thing to state that students should be treated as an adult, it is a much more complicated practice to actually do so. Fo me the first question that comes to mind is “how does Brookfield define an adult?”. Maybe in future chapters Brookfield will provide a definition as clarification but for the moment their statements have little substance. I don’t disagree with what Brookfield states, it’s just that Brookfield doesn’t really expound enough to make the core assumptions more than platitudes.

Hello all,

My name is Rodrigo. I’m originally from Mexico and have been as a settler in Turtle Island in Vancouver on the traditional and unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples, the traditional territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations for almost seven years. I am very privileged to have come to Canada to study a master’s program in Music Education at UBC and used the Post-Graduate Work Permit to transition into a permanent residence. I have been a teacher for more than fifteen years now and I’ve taught music, ESL, and a social service worker program.

I am halfway (14 credits) through the PIDP and have mostly finished the core courses.

I currently live in a constant state of stress because I strongly believe in most everything that is opposite to what is happening in the States and I’m always wary that Canada will follow suit. I believe it is a teacher’s job to teach empathy and critical thinking, which is why I adhere to the ideas of educators like Paolo Freire and Maxine Greene and it pains me that equity-deprived populations are under constant threat.

Since I have a lot to get off my chest lately, I’ll probably be using this Tumblr, so if anyone cares to engage in conversation, I’ll be more than happy to. I’ll try to keep things not negative, but good golly is that a challenge currently. Take care of yourselves and those around you.

Joe has been working as a mechanic for… a long time1. Now, as a fellow student in this course, Joe has found a few trends from his experience related to how he sees that both his field and education have changed.

Throughout our chat, we went through several topics, but I feel that the one that stood out the most to me that Joe shared with me was that of micro credentials. Joe has seen that as automobile technology has changed, so have the opportunities and demands places upon mechanics. Joe sees with concern the fact that mechanics nowadays are expected to follow a manual and instructions, rather than the more creative, albeit potentially faulty, process that was part of mechanic work and how one learns the trade.

In our chat, we talked about how the implementation of computers and AI has made the work mechanics do more about running a computer so as to be told what to do without much critical thinking from mechanics. In that same way, for Joe this also applies to education as he admits that he finds the use of technology overwhelming, but a challenge that he feels has been ultimately constructive, even if there might be reason to question whether there isn’t an overreliance of technology in education.

Joe admits that his process adjusting to new forms and experiences in education, has not been without grief, but feels that it has been rewarding. While he recognizes uncertainty as to where education or the field of mechanics are going, he recognizes himself as an optimist.

In their data briefing published in October 10, 2024, The Conference Board of Canada states “appropriate training and guidance is critically needed” (p. 14) regarding post-secondary educators using AI in their classroom. There are a lot of sources that talk about how revolutionary and, to a point, inevitable AI is in the classroom for educators, such as in Stanford’s 2024 AI+Education Summit, or on the other, more general polar-opposite, side of this endorsement spectrum of AI is the podcast Better Offline that talks about the rotten, hypocritical, contradictory, and, even, borderline fraudulent nature of AI.

In thinking and talking about AI in the classroom and how it is becoming a more and more common place occurrence in the classroom, I personally believe that it is important to think of AI as a tool. There are many differing opinions on how AI benefits or impedes work, but a lot of these feel like they operate from the just about science fiction1 assertion that AI will replace teachers in the upcoming future. While I do think that there are individuals who would love to start that business2, I do not think nor have seen any indication that this is going to happen anytime soon.

Referring once again to the 2024 AI+Education Summit, Pat Yongpradit muses “Coming out of COVID, with teacher shortages and all that, there’s this huge burnout level, and so what’s the teachers’ biggest pain point? Time and energy.” Yongpradit goes on to make the point that AI tools can address this. I do not find this assertion to be incorrect, as I believe any professional would, I appreciate tools that help them save time and make their activities, planning, and preparation easier. However, this works off of the assumption that is oblivious to a very important point that Yongpradit casually brushes over: if there is a teacher shortage in North America, why not train and employ more teachers?

Ultimately, this is my biggest complaint with how people are thinking about AI in education, because it presumes a very abusive relationship where the supply of teachers is limited, without trying to consider the more mundane and human reasons of why the teacher shortage even exists: it is simply not worth the grief of being a teacher in 2025 for people and so, people are looking elsewhere for professional options. I feel a lot of people are thinking in binaries of either AI does everything and we get rid of teachers, the people; or we discard the use of AI and let teachers manage however they can.

There has to be a middle ground in the use of AI for teachers and in classrooms, but this middle ground is in opposition to objectives like growing the valuation of companies like OpenAI, which as of 2025 stands at more than $300 billion USD (Hu, Tong, & Vinn, 2025), that demand exclusive, universal, unquestioning use of their product because otherwise there is no realistic way they can make any sort of profit. From a capitalistic point of view, this a zero-sum game where it is perceived as not possible to increase the human capital, i.e. train more teachers, and so the tools and services are the only option to hopefully improve the teaching experience and process.

As teachers I think it’s important to keep up to date with the latest developments. As professionals, we have an ethical responsibility to be as informed and trained as possible. This requires a system that supports and invests in people, which is always a proposition that has no assurances. People are weird, wild, wonderful, and wicked, and investing3 in them is never a certain expenditure which makes many uneasy because resources are perceived as limited4. It is an appalling state of affairs when teachers have to claw and fight for every little scrap of support they can get and posing AI as a way to reduce the amount of support that should be given to teachers is worth talking about and challenging.

I do not think it is in anyone’s best interest to adopt a Luddite approach toward technologies and tools such as AI, but I also think we need to be critical of how we implement them and how they are instituted in settings such as classrooms. Ultimately, people should be supported as people and any support given to them should be support they acknowledge as one they need5, not one that sounds futuristic and impressive in paper but not in practice and reality.

References:

The Conference Board of Canada. (2024). How are educators navigating the AI revolution?. https://fsc-ccf.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/educators-navigating-the-ai-revolution_2024.pdf

Stanford HAI. (2024, February 14). 2024 AI+Education Summit: What do educators need from AI? [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/9E8vikWgyeU?si=GozBzd_g7XldKYvQ

Zitron, Ed (Host). (2024-present). Better Offline [Audio podcast]. Coolzone Media.

Hu, K., Tong, A., & Vinn, M. (2025, January 30). SoftBank in talks to lead OpenAI funding round at $300 billion valuation, sources say Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/openai-talks-investment-round-valuing-it-up-340-billion-wsj-reports-2025-01-30/

1 – Purposeful emphasis on the word fiction.

2 - Because it would make whoever manages this would become ludicrously rich.

3 – I personally, strongly dislike using the verb invest when it comes to people, even if it is contextually appropriate. It feels de-humanizing, as if people are just one more resource to manage and that upsets me.

I found chapter three of Adult learning: Linking theory and practice by Sharan B. Merriam and Laura L. Bierema to be… an uneven read. I will focus on the final point made in this chapter where the authors address the critiques made toward andragogy.

I do not think it’s necessary to provide concrete definitions to terms and specific, manual-like implementations of tools and skills, particularly those of the intellectual sort, but I do feel that if you are going to write on the topic to present in in a textbook then you need to be fully in said concepts corner and be ready to respond to critiques beyond “yep, people did make some points.” It’s not that critiques shouldn’t be acknowledge or presented, but the way these criticisms are presented, they feel disqualifying of a topic the textbook just spent more than pages presenting.

In addition to this, I even found more things to be unsure about regarding andragogy as its use of assumptions instead of tenets or rules or whatever making andragogy an interesting series of ideas at best, but not something like a school of practice. The way the authors present andragogy seems reasonable but not all too realistic. While there are some important points that intersect with preparing teacher work, such as “make your class material problem-centered so that adults students work towards more immediate, practical application” (p. 56) these points hardly seem ground-breaking enough to put them under the term andragogy.

Ultimately, and a bit paradoxically, I feel the book does a great job capping off this chapter in the last sentence where it states “An even more pointed critique of andragogy’s context-free orientation is from Sandlin (2005), who states that an educational context is never value-free or apolitical, that all learners do not look and learn the same, that race, class, gender, and culture1 all influence learning” (p. 60) I understand that for many it might be frustrating that you can’t just pick up a manual, read it, and be ready to teach, but teaching and learning are human endeavors in all their weird, wild, wonderful, and wicked glory. The textbook doesn’t do a great job of settling the tumultuous nature of discomfort enough to make it make sense and make it worth the readers’ time.

There are two or three more points I could focus on from this chapter, such as the problematic nature of the term andragogy or a reflection on why I feel “solution-focused” is a better term than “problem-focused,” but this is how I engage on a deeper level with the text, not something I am required to do, so I’m not quite sure those are worth fully worth my time pursuing. Maybe if I get a bit of a manic episode, I’ll pound one of those out.

Somewhere, in the nebulous space that is nuance, there is a practical middle ground between the demand for certification and the reality of people to actually do a job and the ways we can reasonably monitor and set expectations for the job they do and the paperwork they have to have to do it. However, as things stand there is a clear favoring of certifications over intent. I want to clarify that I am not advocating a stance for anti-certifications for anyone to do any job the want to and this applies to teaching.

As of January 15, 2025, the BC Ministry of Education reports that there are a total of 77, 440 certified teachers in the province and 756 individuals who hold a Letter of Permission1. Out of a total population in British Columbia of 5, 698, 430 as of October 1, 2024, we can parse that nearly one percent of the population in BC is a teacher and one percent of that one percent is teaching with a Letter of Permission. I figure there are a couple reasonable questions to extract from these statistics which are ‘how much is that?’ and ‘is that enough?’. According to an announcement by the provincial government of BC, the answer is no. The British Columbia Teachers Federation has been one source of advocacy toward the current situation of what they call “a critical teacher shortage”.

Simply put, if people in British Columbia want to keep operating with a basis on what I call ‘certificationism’2, then something has to be done to foster it. As The Tyee reports through data obtained from the BC Public School Employers’ Association: “Fewer B.C. teachers left the profession last year [2024] than in the 2021-22 school year, […] (sic) But those who did leave were more likely to be resigning, rather than retiring or finishing their contract positions.” There is a very real issue on how education will be addressed3 in the long term to ensure education in British Columbia continues to be reliably provided and provided at the standard that it is expected to be provided.

After all that context, I refer to this article in The Walrus regarding the material realities of teaching. Teaching as it was seen in media in the past as a life-long profession is becoming a thing of the past. The idea that a person can be the local, grade-whatever teacher for generations is no longer a reality. Teachers are likelier to resign from burnout brought on by stress and harassment than they are to be able to retire from teaching because they did the job for decades as it was a reality in the past. Canada is a corporate welfare state, meaning that while a whole lot of services are provided by the government, they are still funded by money, usually from sources such as taxes, meaning they have a cost. That overly simplified explanation of the source of services is important, because we think of possibilities based on the availability of resources, mainly money. If more resources, again specifically money, are not going to be made available, then other concessions have to be made such as allowing those without the proper certification to do the job. This concession is also usually at the expense of safety mechanisms such as union membership, long-term support, professional development, among others. To be a bit dramatic, the system is letting people in and then chewing them and spitting them out with, if they’re lucky, a thank you for their service because of the high turnover in the teaching profession.

This text on Article 24 from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and how it has affected teaching environments in BC by Tara Ward, pairs well with the aforementioned The Walrus article. It is, in my eyes, an example of how ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions.’ It is admirable how we have a stated intent to have education be available and accessible to everyone. However, what does this mean when those providing said education feel like their struggling and literally have to use foam shields to do so? To be abundantly clear, I do not think Canada, or anyone for that matter, should ignore and discard Article 24, but it is frustrating and upsetting to see how it is “implemented” without the recognition that said implementation requires appropriate support. It sounds great to be able to state that everyone receives an education regardless of their needs, but it is a whole other matter when we consider what that means for the material realities of those teaching and those receiving said teaching.

I don’t feel my reflection in this instance into the matter is enough to lead me to propose a sort of concise plan to address this issue, this is, still just a reflection. Nevertheless, I feel confident in saying that there are two things that essentially need to change and be ensured: support and safety. No amount of resources and money are ever going to make the job worth it when you have to deal with people confronting a teacher before, after, and even during class, a student harassing a teacher, or seeing the effects of discrimination, bullying, and/or hate in the educational setting. We can’t reasonably expect to have a long-term, sustainable educational system if we have the people on the ground feel that they are putting their lives on the line to do keep said long-term, sustainable educational system going. Schools and classrooms should not feel like warzones where people are fighting some sort of epic battle, they should be welcoming spaces where people create community and grow as individuals.

References:

BC Ministry of Education. (2025, January 20). Statistics about valid certified teachers. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/k-12/teach/standards-for-educators/statistics

BC Ministry of Education. (2024, July 25). Letter of Permission. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/k-12/teach/employer-support/letter-of-permission

BC Stats. (2024, October 1). Quarterly Population Highlights. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/data/statistics/people-population-community/population/quarterly_population_highlights.pdf

BC Gov News. (2024, August 26), More certified teachers coming to B.C: schools. https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2024ECC0105-001373

BCTF. (2024, October 31). New BCTF research report highlights teacher mentorship in BC schools. https://www.bctf.ca/news-and-opportunities/news-details/2024/10/31/new-bctf-research-report-highlights-teacher-mentorship-in-bc-schools

The Tyee. (2024, December 6). Teacher Resignations Are on the Rise in BC. https://thetyee.ca/News/2024/12/06/Teacher-Resignations-Rise-BC/

The Walrus. (2025, February 19). You Can’t Solve the Teacher Shortage by Pretending Anyone Can Do the Job. https://thewalrus.ca/you-cant-solve-the-teacher-shortage-by-pretending-anyone-can-do-the-job/

The Canadian Encyclopedia. (2015, August 13). Welfare State. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/welfare-state

Capstone Magazine. (2024, February 12). BC’s Teacher Shortage and the Inclusion Paradox: A Critical Analysis of Canada’s Article 24. https://capstone.capilanou.ca/2024/02/12/bcs-teacher-shortage-and-the-inclusion-paradox-a-critical-analysis-of-canadas-article-24/

United Nations: Department of Economic and Social Affairs – Social Inclusion. (1989, November 20). Article 24 – Education. https://social.desa.un.org/issues/disability/crpd/article-24-education

1 - “A Letter of Permission is a special permit that allows someone to teach without a certificate in a particular school district, independent school authority or for a First Nations Council for up to one school year. It is only to be used when a certified teacher (also known as a certificate holder) is not available to fill a vacant position. The employer and the applicant each submit a part of the application form. It is the responsibility of the employer to help guide the applicant when applying for the Letter of Permission.”

2 – I personally (as my quick Google search did not provide any sources on a link for reference on the matter) ‘certificationism’ the over- and blind reliance of certifying people to then allow them to perform a certain duty or profession.

I want to start by stating that it is likely this point I'm about to make is a but too much of this time (2025) for this book written in 2013 (if you must, I guess), but the book fails in ways that show it colonialist biases. I might have to eat my words if I look further into the sources this textbook pulls from to present the material it does, but is seems there is little effort to reach for more in this book beyond the US, Canada, and Europe (and Western Europe, at that). I've mentioned previously how the work of Paolo Freire is very much in line as a source for the material in this book, and I feel this is not the exception.1

In the Sunday, February 16 episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (season 12, episode 1), John Oliver points about the hypocrisy of Donald Trump’s administration charge against DEI, “within sixty days of this order… terminate… all DEI…offices and positions…” and Donal Trump stating “Our country is going to be based on merit again, can you believe it?” while at the same time the host discredits this by stating “That is a wild thing to say in front of a portrait of your whom you inherited a real estate empire from.” Simply put, the assault on DEI, as it is being called, such as by Mark Hillsdon for Reuters in this article, is a hypocritical, nationalistic attempt to have those from more equity deprived demographic categories have more opportunities taken away from them.

Simply put, initiatives like DEI, affirmative action, equal opportunity, or a critical-race theory approach  have always been recognized as imperfect, such as by Martin Luther King Jr. in this chapter from the Harvard LatinX Law review, because  those types of approaches create a zero-sum game, meaning that someone must loose for the other to gain something. Simply put, the idea that one must take away from the other to pull themselves up is an excellent way to create resentment.

Whis brings me to the point I want to make about the book that stood out to me in this chapter.

One of the ways that we can understand the constructivist approach to education is that the teacher is not only the facilitator, as education and learning are processes of construction, but then also becomes a sort of curator of the educational or learning experience. The teacher must make a choice on what resources they pull from so as to create the environment for learning. The authors pull mostly, if not only, from authors and scholars that are from the US, Canada, and Europe, as stated before. It is fair to recognize that there is a lot of material from which the authors can pull from, particularly in these beginning stages of the textbook, but, while I mention Paulo Freire, Freire is only one option of authors and scholars outside of the US, Canada, and Western Europe bubble that one can easily enclose themselves in.

I feel that, if one sets themselves to make a textbook that is intended for post-secondary education, then it is important to think about ideas beyond a reduced intellectual space because that is how hegemonical environment are built and, it might be just me, but I feel educators, and specifically teacher educators, must make the effort to broaden that horizon, not only for themselves, but for their students.

That’s how I feel about that.

This kind of text is what happens when non-educators write to tell others how to educate. The context on this text have been in question for centuries, think of the word and how it was used to describes individuals accomplished when referred to as self-taught, and, even more to the point, the work of Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed comes to mind. I will also admit, that I feel it is not totally fair the critique this article as an educator as it is directed towards health-care practitioners who want to improve their teaching. Nevertheless, I still feel that if someone is going to put their name to a text and the ideas therein, then it is fair game to pass judgement.1

I want to clarify that I am very much in favor of what the article is addressing, except for one point that I will write about further down this text. I agree that developing self-directed learners is important, but it comes down to how we understand the act and the moment of learning. Depending on who you ask, learning can be doing (I should put a citation here, but nothing specific comes to mind and this is just a Tumblr post), so being able to self-direct one’s own activities could be argued to be engaging in self-directed learning by that logic. It is a stretch to present as I did, but the point stands: as the textbook mentions, there is value in recognizing the continuum of formal and informal learning (p. 29). Furthermore, I can only hope that the suggestions and advice the text presents are not eye-opening for anyone because that is all very basic teacher training.

This brings me to the point I mentioned before: the presentation of the results. In general, the text feels short-sighted because it mentions that some of the results were not great, but fails to recognize that a lot of this is the way we have all been inculcated to learn. Paolo Freire talks about banking education, in which the teacher is in charge of placing, depositing if you will, the knowledge in their students so that they are now at liberty to use it. Again, Paolo Freire wrote this in the 1960’s. To state that these strategies for self-directed learning failed to produce results fails to consider, in this case, the historical context as well as the trends in education such as Taylorism, in which the results need to be quantifiable so as to see numerical or graphical improvement.

This text is a quick, interesting read, but it worries me that this is where the educational principles come from for certain disciplines as it can be so much better.

[I'll try to write this in a connected cohesive way, rather than bullet point, but I'm not sure how this will go.]

The first thing that stood out to me in the first chapter of our textbook Adult learning linking theory and practice by Sharan B. Merriam & Laura L. Bierema, as an introduction to the topic this text is addressing, I feel 1 the book does not do a great job of defining topics that I think are essential to its topic: adult and education. What even is an adult? Do we define that based solely on age and numbers or is it something more complex than that? What about those people who “never grow up”? I have been thinking for more than six years in what the word “adult” means and have yet to come to a relatively concrete definition. Add to that the term “education” and things get even more complicated: are we just referring to teaching individuals of a certain age? Yes, the book does give a definition of “adult as part of the term adult education” but as such a big topic, “activities intentionally designed for the purpose of bringing about learning among those whose age, social roles, or self-perception, define them as adults” seems like it is putting it mildly that this is a way to “broadly define” (p. 25).

This, in fact, brings me to another one of the issues that jumped up at me in the textbook, which is that this book doesn’t feel like it has a substantial intersectional approach. Yes, the text does mention things like gender and race, but frustratingly fails to address more substantially class and economics. In my view 2, one of the biggest, if not the biggest, obstacle to accessing education, wherever that lies in the formal and informal continuum (p. 29), is the class and economic context in which a learner finds themselves. Simply put, it is not the same experience to learn when you have a house with no mortgage to pay and you can choose which car to use today, as opposed to being a single parent who has to support three children while working two or three jobs. I feel this recognition is even more relevant in 2025 than others brought up in the text, such as globalization.

This brings me to the next item of note in this chapter, which is that the book feels outdated. It is a book published in 2013 and a lot has changed in the more than a decade that has passed since its publication. The textbook mentions iPods! I’m hoping I can muster the effort to put together a bit of research to look at updated statistics that the book mentions as I feel there may be considerable changes since this was published.

I’ve managed to make this text connected in a relatively cohesive way and can now touch on my final point which is connected to the second one: this book is a bit insidious in its colonialism. This, I feel, comes out in a sentence that has stuck with me since reading this chapter a couple days ago: “There is still much to do to address the basic needs of marginalized people and nations before all can benefit from participation in this digitalized, globalized, knowledge society.” (p. 20). One of the premises of decolonializing practices like education is the fact that, while there may be practical advantages, this doesn’t mean this is necessarily the best or most useful way of providing and accessing education. Simply put, the way and learning needs of a person in Kitsilano in Vancouver are not necessarily the same as those of a person who lives in Fort Nelson. One person might benefit from incorporating cutting-edge technology to their learning process while the person might have no need for that at all. Again, this is a process of decolonializing education because, ultimately, this is a barrier to learning that is implied and can be problematic.

I stated the previous paragraph was my final point, but I want to finish on a positive point. I feel the author’s distinction in the perception of the words “education” and “learning” are thought-provoking. As the textbook states: we have been so conditioned to thinking of learning as something that takes place in an educational institution that our learning at work or in our everyday life does not seem to count as part of our learning (p. 28). One of the aphorisms I present to my students often is ‘words matter’ and I feel it’s important to interrogate the terms we use as communication is a skill for a reason. I appreciate the fact that the book engages with this and how the words we use affect our engagement with the educational or learning (whichever term you prefer) setting are important to consider.

1 - Very important word in what I am writing.