In Focus: Fall/Winter 2006
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in Focus F A L L / W I N T E R 2 0 0 6 EDUCATION edition Kinesiology Outreach History Critical Consciousness Community Mutli-media Culture Language Acquisition Human Rights Environment Leadership Research Technology Cognition Geography Emancipation Democratic Educational Psychology Sustainability Inclusive Education Physical Education Social Studies Behavioural Studies Citizenship Cross-disciplinary Knowledge Management Critical Pedagogy Growth Rehabilitation Science Integrated Studies Global Learning Empowerment Social Justice Media Curriculum Development Identity Art Evaluation Counselling e-Learning Social Responsibility e Mathematics Youth Morals and Ethics Multi-culturalism Library and Information Studies education:education: letlet usus shareshare ourour visionvision THIS ISSUE i Where in the World are our 6 Our Faculty at the Forefront 14 A Year in the life of your DAUR Education Alumni now? Department Faculty of Education 8 Exceptional Education Alumni 3700 McTavish Street, Montreal, QC, ii 150 years of Teacher Education 16 Homecoming 2006 H3A 1Y2, Canada 10 Our Donors Make a Profoud Canada Post Corporation 1 Dean’s Message Difference 18 What’s New with our Alumni? Publications Mail Agreement 40613662 2 Students on the Move 12 Highlights from the Faculty 20 Messages from the DAUR Department Where in the world are our Education Alumni now? Enlightening minds around the globe! Anguilla Croatia Iran New Zealand St Kitts/Nevis Australia Dominican Rep Ireland Nicaragua Sweden Bahamas England Israel Nigeria Switzerland Bahrain Ethiopia Italy Northern Ireland Taiwan Barbados Finland Jamaica Pakistan Thailand Belgium France Japan Peru Trinidad & Tobago Belize Gambia Kenya Philippines Turkey Bermuda Germany Korea (South) Portugal U. S. A. Brazil Ghana Kuwait Qatar United Arab Emirates British Virgin Isles Greece Malaysia Saint Lucia Uruguay Brunei Guyana Mexico Scotland Venezuela Canada Honduras Morocco Sierra Leone Wales Chad Hong Kong (China) Nepal Singapore Zambia China India Netherlands South Africa Zimbabwe Congo (Dem Rep) Indonesia Netherland Antilles Sri Lanka Faculty of Education Newsletter Fall/Winter 2006 Co-Editors and Coordination: Ling Yuen | Anita Nowak Faculty of Education Copy Editor: Helen Dyer Development, Alumni and University Relations Writers: Martin Horn | Anita Nowak | Jennifer Coutlee | Christine Zeindler 3700 McTavish Street, Montreal, QC, H3A 1Y2, Canada Photographs: Daniel Shipp Tel: 514-398-3457 Layout/Designers: Ling Yuen | Eliot Edwards Fax: 514-398-1527 Special Thanks to our timeline advisors: Norman Henchey | Margaret Gillett Email: [email protected] Glenn Cartwright | Bruce Shore | Lynn Butler-Kisber | Helen Amoriggi | Ted Wall www.mcgill.ca/edu-alumni EDUCATION i After the Technological Shock? Dean’s Message was privileged to have been invited by my colleague Don McLean, Dean of McGill’s Schulich School of Music, to attend the Future of Music Policy Summit’s opening forum entitled “The State of The Nation.” I Amongst the assembled panelists was Peter Jenner, former manager of Pink Floyd and current manager of the British musician Billy Bragg. I was taken by his descriptions of the profound impact of new digital download technologies on the music industry. The impact, he asserted, was akin to the impact of the invention of electricity. The industry is caught in a chaotic scramble to keep up with new consumption preferences and practices, adjusting to the “technological shock.” It seems to this observer that educators are, or should be, engaged in a very similar conversation. The invention of the printing press and the mass production of books transformed pedagogy, extending the delivery of education beyond the control of the church and clerics. The invention of schooling, replete with its socializing rituals and industrial organization, served its historical milieu. The recent emergence of Owen Egan the World Wide Web and the Internet has contracted distances of space and time and generated an explosion of new forms of knowledge and information production and dissemination. Education institutions struggle to embrace and keep pace. It is at this epoch-marking juncture that McGill University’s Faculty of Education prepares to celebrate 150 years of teacher education in Montreal. It is a time for taking stock and for celebrating our long roll of graduates and their impressive achievements. A time for nostalgic glances at the archival artifacts: class photographs; records of the agreement between the Quebec Provincial Government and McGill University to establish the McGill Normal School in Belmont Street in a very different Montreal central business district in 1857; plans for the new MacDonald campus where our 115 students were enrolled in the newly formed School for Teachers, the first residential teacher education facility in Canada; or indeed to read the proceedings from the research conferences convened by our first-class graduate students over the last three years. This kind of exercise strengthens us as we confront the challenge of leading research and scholarship in education in New Times. Ours is a Faculty that is establishing itself as a leader of research into teacher education. This is made possible by the fact that we are authentically an interdisciplinary team that brings together kinesiologists, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, historians, statisticians, cognitive scientists, linguists, artists, and scientists (the list is indicative rather than exhaustive), to the task of shaping the classrooms of tomorrow. I am both proud and humbled to be a small cog in this historical educational wheel. We look forward to celebrating our achievements and planning for the future. Sincerely, …and from the Education Graduate Students’ Society EGSS is an open and free association that provides a welcoming environment for graduate students to come together to share insights, expertise and fellowship. I don’t hesitate to say that our graduate research is innovative, compelling and socially significant. Dr. Roger Slee Dean, Faculty of Education In March 2006, our Fifth Annual EGSS Conference successfully drew in speakers from across the globe. Titled “Engaging Social Justice: Opening Transformative Dialogue(s)” the conference addressed A message from the Education Undergraduate Society various aspects of critical pedagogy, social justice and identity politics. Seminar topics ranged from the politics of inclusion and As President of EDUS, I am very proud to represent all exclusion, peace and character education, anti-colonialism, queer undergraduate students in the Faculty of Education. We are politics and education in science and medicine. Showcasing the an incredibly bright, talented, diverse group of hardworking Faculty’s expertise, more than 50 of our own alumni, graduate individuals! I would like to express my congratulations to all students, and professors presented alongside academic Education alumni who have blazed a path before us and I representatives from institutions across Canada as well as from sincerely believe that the cohorts currently working towards Australia, Brazil, Dubai, India, Ireland and USA. their BEd degrees, who will soon join the ranks as the next generation of Education alumni, will make you very proud. To appreciate the range and quality of the research we do, I invite This year, EDUS is planning many exciting events, including a you to attend our Sixth Annual EGSS Conference which will take BBQ day, movie nights, sports tournaments, educational place March 9-10, 2007. The theme this year is: “Expanding seminars, fundraisers and much more. For more information Concepts of Education.” We hope you’ll join us! For more or to support us in any way, please visit: www.mcgilledus.ca information: www.education.mcgill.ca/egss Sincerely, Sincerely, Kristy Prokosh Jessica Toste President, Education Undergraduate Society President, Education Graduate Students’ Society 514-398-7048 | [email protected] 514-398-6008 | [email protected] EDUCATION 1 Students on the Move Kevin Chin – Human Rights Advocate Human rights issues are important to Kevin Chin and he wants to share his enthusiasm. Thanks to a 2005 Canada-US Fulbright Scholarship, the Educational and Couselling Psychology (ECP) doctoral student, spent nine months at the University of Minnesota conducting a comparative study of approaches to human rights education in the United States and Canada. “What was interesting about this project was that it was doing practical work in the community,” he says. ”There is so much that both countries can learn from each other.” Chin worked closely with colleagues in the University’s Human Rights Center and contributed to “This is my Home” a K-Grade 12 statewide initiative to bring human rights education into the classroom. This program begins by teaching young children about creating a caring environment, and progresses to high school students developing a critical, human rights-centred approach to American “There is so much history. that both countries Chin is thankful for this experience, which he is can learn from each now describing in his other.” doctoral dissertation. “I felt it was a sign that both countries were focusing on human rights,” he says, “and believed it was important enough to give me the opportunity to do something small about it.” Chin was recently awarded a Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec (FRSQ) grant and a McGill Majors fellowship which will enable him to pursue further studies. Julie Newin – Are you game? By age thirteen, almost