What is Education for at This Moment in Time and Place?

This is a program for anyone who enjoys listening and learning with others to consider and broaden their own perspective. It’s for anyone who is pondering what it might mean to engage their worlds and work with a sense of accountability and hope at this moment in time. If you are thinking about being an educator or K-12 teacher, this program is for you.

We’ll begin this inquiry by taking stock of the ideas we carry with us into the program - asking ourselves: “How do I currently think about the purposes of education? Why? How have I come to this way of thinking? What aspirations, values and tensions come to mind? What do I wonder?” From here we will seek out and engage with community perspectives related to our questions. We will learn about and practice using qualitative research methods.

To inform and stretch our ideas about whose and what knowledge is important, we will engage with perspectives from: stories, art and essays; conversations with community members and community educators; explorations of music and community arts; Olympia’s Hidden Histories Walking Tours and other in-person and virtual field trips. We will dig into ideas from philosophy, history, sociology and from socio-cultural, situated, and Indigenous perspectives on learning and education. Through these many voices, texts, and artifacts we will consider what it means to be “educated” and how education is outside the classroom and lives in communities, community members/elders, and place. We'll consider the potential for arts and literacy in education. And we'll consider the qualities and goals of a democratic, culturally sustaining and just education. These many perspectives will help us practice a habit of mind called "inquiry as stance" which is grounded in the “idea that educational practice is not simply instrumental in the sense of figuring out how to get things done, but also it is...social and political in the sense of deliberating about what gets done, why to get it done, who decides, and whose interests are served” (Cochran Smith & Lytle, 2011).

Throughout the program, you’ll have opportunities to use both written word and a variety of art methods to make sense of and show what you are learning. You’ll (i) represent, consider and relate ideas you find relevant to our inquiry; (ii) you’ll engage in regular reflections that examine and explain how your ideas are clarified, complicated, and challenged; (iii) you’ll explain and practice some qualitative research skills; (iv) you’ll engage in collaborative arts experiences and dialogues to connect with and consider what ideas help to reveal our inquiry. We will also work together on a collaborative arts-based synthesis capturing what we heard from communities who have shared their ideas and aspirations for education (e.g. documentary theatre). If you choose to continue the program in the winter you will have the opportunity to explore further in an area of interest that is related to the question, “what is education for” and that makes use of the habits of mind and practice that we have been exploring.

We will meet as a program on Tuesday afternoons from 2 to 5pm and Fridays from 9 to 3pm. An example of a week in the program would be a workshop/seminar informed by text and field work; a workshop related to inquiry processes and an experiential session (e.g. guest speakers, theatre workshop, virtual field trips). Homework will likewise include a range of reading, written and visual reflections and experiential activities. [Note: we have the opportunity to go to the Northwest Teaching for Social Justice conference in Portland on Saturday, October 21st.]