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Beyond the bunkhouse: Exploring the learning of Frontier College labourer-teachers

Joseph Adam Perry

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto

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While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada Beyond the bunkhouse: Exploring the learning of Frontier College volunteer labourer-teachers

Joseph Adam Perry

Master of Arts

Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto

2008 Abstract

This thesis investigates the informal/incidental learning of Frontier College volunteer labourer- teachers through an analysis of data collected from qualitative interviews conducted with 7 former Frontier College volunteers. The thesis explores the intersection between dialogue, reflection, volunteering, and informal learning within the context of Canada's oldest literacy program. Even though present-day labourer-teachers are instructed in how to foster dialogue in their pedagogical work, the focus of the program is solely on dialogue as a method of teaching, essentially disregarding the effect of mutual learning and the capacity of the labourer-teacher to learn as a result of employing a dialogical methodology. This thesis reveals that Frontier College supports a pedagogy rooted in dialogue that has the potential to bring about not only technical knowledge but also practical and emancipatory knowledge for its volunteers and thus could provide an important model for other learning organizations, advocacy groups, and international development agencies.

11 Acknowledgments

I would like to take this opportunity to gratefully acknowledge the generous support of my supervisor, Dr. Anne Goodman, whose kind advice and thoughtful insight has been crucial to the completion of my thesis. I would also like to express gratitude to my second reader, Dr. Daniel Schugurensky, who never ceases to amaze me with his germane remarks and speedy replies. As well, there are many people whose friendship and coaching have been influential and inspiring to me throughout my time at OISE/UT. I'd like to thank a few of those people: Dr. Bonnie Burstow, Dr. Kiran Mirchandani, Dr. Angela Miles, Dr. Nancy Jackson, Dr. Zelda Groener, Dr. Ed O'Sullivan, Fiona Duguid, Megan Haggerty, Sara, Christie, Dan, Kate, Sonya, Catherine, Todd, and Omer. I also need to say a special thank you to my family for their unwavering support: Carl, Helen, Jean, Brian, Eben, Harry, Wendy and Claudia. Particular love and appreciation are reserved for Emily for enduring me and my thesis for the better part of two years.

in Dedication

For Mary, whose memory continues to inspire.

IV Table of Contents

Acknowledgments iii

Dedication iv

Table of Contents v

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

Chapter 2 Learning, reflection, volunteers: On creating a culture of praxis 7

Introduction 7

Informal and incidental learning 7

On defining informal and incidental learning 7

Tacit learning 10

The reflective practitioner: From tacit learning to explicit knowledge 13

Learning for social change 16

The influence of Habermas 16

Perspective transformation and conscientization 19

Praxis 20

Volunteering and adult learning 22

Volunteering in Canada 22

The resource schema 23

Values 24

The voluntary sector in context 24

Volunteers' informal learning 25

Creating a culture of praxis 27

Summary 28

Chapter 3 Frontier College and the informal/incidental learning of volunteer labourer- teachers 30

Introduction 30

V The Frontier College labourer-teacher program 31

Early days 33

The present context 34 The Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program 35 The labourer-teacher program and migrant workers 39 The labourer-teacher program and volunteer learning 40

Dialogue 44

Buber 44

Freire 46

Above all, listen 48 Empathic imagination and the conscientization of the privileged 49 Summary 54

Chapter 4 Methodology 56

Introduction 56

Overview of existing research on the Frontier College labourer-teacher program 56 Methodological framework of this study 57 Data collection and analysis 58 Collection of verbal data 58 Reading the data and breaking it off into parts 59

Organization, synthesis, and summary of data 60 Coding60 The participants 61 Summary 63

Chapter 5 Data Analysis '. 65

Introduction 65

Labourer-teachers learning more than they could tell 66 vi Motivations 66

The "how" of learning: Solidarity, dialogue and struggle 68 Learning by living in solidarity 68 Activism and dialogue: "I-It" vs. "I-Thou" 70 Learning through struggle 72 Carrying out the manual labour 74 Bearing witness to everyday struggles 75

Managing opposing interests 77 What was learned: Conscientization and the labourer-teacher 80 Shifts in perspective 81 From South to North: Learning and unlearning lessons about privilege 84 Summary 88 Chapter 6 Summary, concluding reflections and recommendations 89 References 93 Appendix A 103 Frontier College consent form 103 Interview questions 104 Appendix B 107 Information letter for present and former Frontier College labourer-teachers 107 Appendix C 109 Participant consent form 109

Vll 1

Chapter 1 Introduction

In mid-February, 1899, a young Methodist minister boarded a train in Toronto accompanied by six university students. Almost twenty hours later, the train stopped in the middle of the night along a lonely stretch of track just north of Georgian Bay. The minister and his company hopped off the train with their snowshoes, camping gear, and a large sled piled high with books. As the train pulled away, the small party, huddled close against the cold, turned into the bush and, using a compass and the moonlight to guide them, set out to find a logging camp near the town of Nairn Centre. When they arrived, just after dawn, the camp was empty. The loggers were already at work. By the time the men returned that evening they found something new in their rough settlement, a tent. But it was not just any tent. A large banner on the tent proclaimed: "Reading Tent: All Welcome". The minister, Alfred Fitzpatrick, and his university volunteers sat in the tent at tables piled high with poetry, history, mathematics, and philosophy texts. "Welcome, men," Fitzpatrick said, "welcome to Frontier College." Thus began one of Canada's boldest adventures in education (O'Leary, 2004, p. 17).

In the summers of 2003, 2004, and 2005,1 was one of those Frontier College volunteers, only I was arriving on tobacco farms and fruit orchards in Southern Ontario and was greeted not by 1 2 wmter-weary shantymen and skidders , but by migrant agricultural workers from Mexico. These workers come to work temporarily on Canadian farms and greenhouses through the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, a bilateral guest worker agreement between Canada, Mexico, and several Caribbean countries. In the spring of 2003, while perusing one of Toronto's

Loggers 2 Lumbermen who operate heavy machinery 2 weekly news magazines, I had come across a job advertisement seeking people interested in global issues looking to gain international development experience "in their own backyard". The work, a mix of volunteer teaching and paid farm labour was described as "hard work, low pay, and the experience of a lifetime" (Frontier College, 2008c). I stumbled upon this advertisement at a time when the lead-up to the American invasion of Iraq was in full force. As a war dissenter I felt helpless in my capacity to change the minds of those in power. I was unhappy in my work as an English as a Second Language (ESL) instructor at a private language institute and felt that I needed a more meaningful challenge. I had never heard of either Frontier College or migrant labourers and was intrigued by the opportunity. I applied, was interviewed, and was offered a position. I quit my job in Toronto, left my apartment, packed up a few things and was immediately sent to work on a remote tobacco farm in Southern Ontario where I lived in a makeshift bunkhouse in an old red barn with 24 farm workers, all from Mexico.

My work as a Frontier College labourer-teacher was life changing. I became interested in higher education again, eventually applying for a Master's degree in adult education after a 10-year hiatus from university. I developed close relationships with a number of fellow labourer-teachers with whom I am still friends, as well as with dozens of migrant agricultural workers who were both my colleagues and my learners. I visited my learners in Mexico during the winter off seasons and worked on their families' farms. During my time in Mexico I visited 22 families and worked on nearly as many farms. For those families who did not tend their own farms I helped out in small construction work in their own homes or in their communities. I got to know my learners' wives and children, and developed a deep respect and understanding for their way of life: rural, family, community oriented and shaped by international migration. I learned many new skills, including Spanish, as well as some farm-related skills such as suckering fruit trees and grafting young peach trees. I also became angry and frustrated at the systemic exploitation of migrant farm workers in Canada to which I was a witness, and since completing my work with Frontier College I have directed a community play starring migrant workers and Canadians (Hill, 2005) and have organized several exhibits of photos depicting the lives of migrant agricultural 3 workers (Wennberg, 2003)3.1 have also published a corresponding photo essay (Perry, 2007) and at present am involved in the establishment of an unofficial Frontier College labourer- teacher alumni association.

When I am asked about my experiences as a labourer-teacher I am never at a loss for stories and can talk for hours about working in the fields, teaching English late at night out on the porch, conversing with spouses and children back in Mexico about life on the farm in Canada, or just about hanging out in the bunkhouse shooting the breeze with my migrant worker colleagues. I can discuss the intricacies of workers' experiences in Canada with facility, for example the problems associated with obtaining adequate health care in remote and rural areas, the struggle to avoid unsafe working conditions, or dealing with an employer that does not speak Spanish. As a Frontier College labourer-teacher I was privy to the struggles of workers' everyday lives, the inevitable conflicts that arose between co-workers or between workers and local Canadians, the injuries suffered and the pain experienced from being separated from one's family for up to 8 months of every year. However, whenever I am asked directly about what I learned as a labourer-teacher, I often find myself at a loss for words. Usually I find myself reverting to a discussion about technical skills acquired on the job, for example Spanish language skills, learning how to fix a sump pump, or learning to operate a front-end loader. I know that a description of the technical skills I gained only begins to scratch the surface of my learning, but I have often lacked the ability to put into words exactly all of the things I feel I have learned and gained as a Frontier College labourer-teacher. Exactly what the object of my learning was and how this knowledge was acquired is often just beyond my grasp. Without a doubt the program was life-changing, but exactly how this transformation occurred and what it means is difficult to pinpoint.

It occurred to me that the majority of my learning happened as a result of the relationships I built through (a) providing a student-centred literacy and ESL program rooted in a practice of dialogue and (b) living and working alongside my learners in situations that were up until then completely foreign to me. I was eager to discover if other labourer-teachers felt the same way I

3 2003, Black Wall Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia; 2003, C'est Si Bon Cafe, Halifax, Nova Scotia; 2005, Grassroots Cafe, Peterborough, Ontario; 2005, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec; 2006, Tinto Coffee House, Toronto, Ontario 4 did. I wanted to know if the program was as life-changing for others as I felt it was for me, in what ways it was transformative and how this transformative learning came about. From these ideas developed the concept for this thesis which in turn is distinctive in its focus on the informal learning of Frontier College volunteer labourer-teachers, as opposed to examining the learning of the "learners", namely the migrant labourers. I made the following question the subject of my thesis:

1) Do (a) the dialogical process that the Frontier College labourer-teacher program employs and (b) the condition of living and working alongside their learners result in informal or incidental learning for labourer-teachers? If so how does this learning take place and what are the effects of this learning?

This question resulted in a qualitative research project where I interviewed 7 former labourer- teachers about their experiences and their learning as labourer-teachers. Like me, all of the participants felt that the experience was life-altering and that they had a powerful learning experience, but when asked directly about their learning, respondents had difficulty identifying what was learned exactly, and how. This led to my second research question:

2) To what extent is the learning of labourer-teachers tacit and to what extent can this tacit learning be made explicit?

This led to my interest in exploring the intersections between dialogue, reflection and informal learning. It occurred to me that the qualitative research process is itself a dialogical process of mutual understanding and learning and has the potential to provide both the researcher and the participants with the opportunity to reflect on and gain insights on practice and learning. The process of conducting interviews, analyzing data and writing a formal thesis offered an occasion to reflect on and to make explicit learning which may be tacit yet transformative.

These thoughts led to my third research question:

3) To what extent do volunteer labourer-teachers have the opportunity to participate in learning produces (a) practical/interpretive knowledge, i.e. knowledge which is concerned with communication and communal understanding and (b) emancipatory knowledge, i.e. knowledge which enables one to become critically reflective. 5

This thesis investigates the above research questions and presents the argument that the labourer- teacher program does provide opportunities for volunteers to experience transformative learning, but that the present context of the charitable volunteer sector in Canada as well as Frontier College's necessity to maintain volunteer placements does not allow for the systematic consolidation of volunteer learning beyond the technical sphere of knowledge, thus interrupting the movement from tacit to explicit the social and emancipatory learning which takes place in the fields.

The thesis proper begins with the second chapter entitled "Learning, reflection, volunteers: On creating a culture of praxis" which is devoted to an overview of theory on a variety of issues as they relate to my thesis. This chapter begins with an exploration of the intersections between tacit learning and informal learning, reflection, transformative learning, conscientization and praxis. All of these concepts provide a useful backdrop for understanding the experiences described by the participants of this study. Central to the chapter are the ideas of how tacit knowledge can be made explicit through reflection and how different forms of learning and reflection can produce different forms of knowledge. Habermas' tripartite schema of knowledge is introduced and forms a central theme in this thesis. Finally, the chapter introduces the concepts of volunteer work, informal learning, and creating a culture of praxis within the context of the Canadian charitable volunteer sector.

The third chapter: "Frontier College and the informal learning of volunteer labourer-teachers" makes the argument that Frontier College's focus on dialogue in the labourer-teacher program opens a window of opportunity for transformative learning to take place for its volunteers, but shows that this learning is not systematically consolidated. The chapter provides an overview of the historical and present-day contexts of the Frontier College labourer-teacher program from its early days in lumber camps to its current endeavours on farms and in greenhouses. In order to better understand the daily experiences of the participants, an overview of the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Worker's Program (CSAWP) is provided. The main focus of this chapter is an exploration of the political and pedagogical attitudes and policies of the labourer-teacher program by presenting a thorough reading of historical and current literature as well as insights derived from an interview with the director of the program. Dialogue, which is the principal pedagogical method of the Frontier College labourer-teacher program, is looked at in detail with 6 a review of some ideas from theorists Buber and Freire intertwined with Frontier College's pedagogical policies.

The fourth chapter, "Methodology", details the mechanics of this research study: a qualitative, phenomenologjcal and dialogical investigation of the learning of Frontier College labourer- teachers. The chapter presents an overview of my entire research process, from the ethics review to the written thesis, how participants were chosen, how they were interviewed, and how the resulting analysis came to fruition. The fifth chapter, "Data analysis" presents the voices of the participants. The participants' responses are analyzed in light of the provided theory. Discrepancies between participants' experiences and Frontier College policy are explored in order to present the argument that binds this thesis: that the labourer-teacher program's focus on dialogue as a pedagogical method, encouraging its volunteers to develop strong relationships with their learners, and putting volunteers in difficult and complex situations with very little organizational support offers volunteers an exceptional opportunity to gain consciousness-raising learning experiences. The final chapter, "Summary, concluding reflections and recommendations" provides a brief synopsis of the project and its major findings. 7

Chapter 2 Learning, reflection, volunteers: On creating a culture of praxis

Introduction

As my own learning as a Frontier College labourer-teacher was transformative, my goal is to investigate the learning of volunteer labourer-teachers in order to better understand how and in what contexts transformative learning occurs for the volunteers. In this chapter I provide an overview of the relevant literature on informal and incidental learning, praxis, transformative learning, and the phenomenon of volunteering in charitable organizations in Canada. The goal is to provide the theoretical foundation to my later data analysis by exploring the potential for emancipatory learning and social action within the present context of a Canadian charitable volunteer organization. The chapter will focus on the intersection between learning which is informal or incidental, Habermas' tripartite schema of knowledge, learning for social change, and exploring the experience of volunteering in Canada's charitable voluntary sector.

Informal and incidental learning

On defining informal and incidental learning

Defining informal learning is a difficult task. No two researchers seem to agree on a clear and recognized characterization. Livingstone (1999) defines informal learning as "any activity involving the pursuit of understanding, knowledge or skill which occurs outside the curricula of educational institutions, or the courses or workshops offered by educational or social agencies" (1999, p. 51). For Singh (2005) the recognition of informal learning is an acknowledgment that learning is continuously taking place informally, regardless of people's intentions to learn. Singh says, "it is learning, which takes place in everyday life, in different settings, and different social collectives" (p. 93). For Singh, the context in which informal learning occurs is often so ordinary that our learning often goes unnoticed. She states: "The situations in which people learn informally are often daily life situations, so much so that one tends to take for granted the strong impact they can have on a person's development" (p. 101). Likewise Foley (1999) sees "learning everywhere, not only where one might expect to find [it], in popular movements and social action, but also in workplaces (including educational institutions) and families" (p. 11). 8

For Eraut (2000), however, delineating a separate category for such informal learning is not helpful. For him there are only two forms of learning, either formal or non-formal. Formal learning includes learning that takes place within a deliberate and predetermined learning context, such as learning about iambic pentameter in a high school language arts class. Non- formal learning includes all learning which cannot be classified as formal. Eraut further arranges non-formal learning into three possible distinctions: (a) implicit, (b) reactive, and (c) deliberative. Implicit non-formal learning is learning that occurs without intention or awareness. This type of learning can occur at any moment in any context. Eraut describes reactive non-formal learning as learning of which the learner is aware at the moment of learning but which is not sought out or attained intentionally. The third type of non-formal learning that Eraut describes is deliberative: learning which is both explicit and intended but which does not occur within the formal context of the classroom, what Tough (1971; 1978) refers to as the individual's learning projects. Deliberative encounters with non-formal learning include individuals' self-directed and self-organized ventures in lifelong learning, for example a child learning to tie his own shoes or a person who is interested in learning more about their family history and goes about conducting a genealogical study.

Schugurensky (2000) on the other hand, like Livingstone and Singh above, understands informal learning as a third form of learning, distinct from both formal and non-formal learning. For Miindel and Schugurensky (2005) understanding the degree of consciousness and intentionality of the learner is crucial to understanding informal learning. Schugurensky (2000) suggests a classification of informal learning that, like Eraut's three distinctions of non-formal learning, is rooted in an understanding of intentionality and awareness. He identifies three forms of informal learning: (a) self-directed, (b) incidental, and (c) socialization. Like Eraut and Tough, Schugurensky understands self-directed informal learning as both intended and conscious. Incidental learning refers to learning which is not intended but is conscious at the moment of learning. The third form of informal learning, socialization, or tacit learning, describes learning which is neither intended nor conscious and includes "the internalization of values, attitudes, behaviors, skills, etc. that occur during everyday life" (p. 4). It is clear from Eraut, Schugurensky, and Miindel and Schugurensky that the degree of consciousness and intentionality in informal learning (or non-formal learning as the case may be) lead to two overarching distinctions, (a) deliberate learning and (b) implicit learning, "knowledge which was acquired 9 unconsciously but which may become conscious upon reflection" (Miindel & Schugurensky, 2005, p. 185).

Foley (2004) describes learning as "complex and multifaceted, and should not be equated with formal education" (p. 4). For Foley, learning is vital to human life. He says: "All human activity has a learning dimension. People learn, continually, informally and formally, in many different settings: in workplaces, in families, through leisure activities, through community activities, and in political action" (p. 4). By differentiating learning from education, adult educators are better equipped understand informal learning and how it is distinguished from traditional conceptions of education. In separating learning from education, Foley explores the realm of learning and describes a many-sided process that permeates every aspect of human life. He further differentiates four separate dimensions of learning, each with its unique qualities: formal, non- formal, informal, and incidental.

Foley's framework (Figure 1) sustains a complex understanding of adult learning that supports learning which occurs in all facets of a person's life. Such learning often takes place unintentionally and without the learner's awareness. For Foley the content of learning can include either technical knowledge or knowledge which Miindel and Schugurensky (2005) refer to as socialization, the learned values and behaviours that shape people's everyday beliefs and actions. Foley's descriptions of informal and incidental learning are a useful guide to understanding the everyday learning of individuals in a wide variety of contexts.

This thesis is concerned with learning which is acquired either informally and/or incidentally, depending on the participant and the context in which the learning takes place. My understanding of learning is inspired by Foley's description of a process which is complex, contested, and present in every interaction, every situation. For the labourer-teachers who have participated in this study, learning took place outside of the context of formal education. Labourer-teachers learned both informally and incidentally. In many instances, the participants participated in informal learning when acquiring work-related skills such as Spanish, Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) regulations and teaching skills. These skills were developed within the context of the workplace without access to either formal or non-formal training and yet were learned consciously and deliberately in response to the daily situations in which labourer- teachers were placed. Labourer-teachers also experienced learning which was incidental to their 10 work. This incidental learning occurred while attending to their various responsibilities, such as tutoring, managing opposing interests, and just hanging around the bunkhouse getting to know their learners and colleagues. This learning is described as unconscious, accidental, and tacit. The following is an account of tacit learning from the literature.

Type of learning Distinguishing characteristics

Formal education This form of learning is equated with the traditional understanding of education. Formal education is coordinated by professional educators who teach a set curriculum. This type of learning occurs in educational institutions and often leads to academic or professional qualifications.

Non-formal This type of learning occurs when a form of systematic instruction is required, but in a education format which is sporadic. Foley gives the example of employees being trained to operate a new machine.

Informal learning This form of learning occurs when people attempt to learn and gain knowledge from their own experiences, but that does not involve formal instruction. It is conscious and deliberate.

Incidental learning This type of learning is often tacit and is gained while attending to other activities. Foley gives examples of an experienced mechanic learning a lot about cars and of an elderly gardener who knows a lot about their chosen craft. The learning that he describes is incidental to the task at hand and the learner is often not conscious of this learning while it is occurring. It is unconscious and accidental.

Figure 1. Foley's (2004) four dimensions of adult learning (pp. 4-5) Tacit learning

Foley's incidental learning and the implicit learning that Miindel and Schugurensky describe is what is described by Polanyi (1983) as tacit knowledge; knowledge which is incommunicable as we are not aware of either our acquisition or our possession of it. He writes that people come to acquire knowledge tacitly while focusing their attention on something other than the object of tacit learning. The object of tacit learning (A) is acquired while the subject's awareness is focused on some other object of attention (B). As he puts it: "We attend from A in order to attend to B" (p. 10). To illustrate, Polanyi considers the recognition of human faces. We come to recognize the faces of our friends indirectly while conversing. While focusing our attention on 11 the conversation that we are having with a new friend, we come to recognize that person's face and how it is distinguishable from all other faces. We acquire this knowledge (A) while attending to our conversation (B) (see p. 10). This implicit knowledge of facial recognition can then be put into practice when distinguishing our friend's face from the multitude of strangers' faces in a crowded street. Just because we may not be able to describe in words the specific features that make our friend's face recognizable to us does not prevent us from picking out our friend in a crowd. The knowledge that gives rise to the recognition of our friend's face is not conscious either at the moment of learning or at the moment of recognition and is thus tacit, or implicit. Having the capacity to recognize our friend in a crowd while simultaneously not being able to describe the specific characteristics that make up the whole of our friend's face indicates, in the words of Miindel and Schugurensky (2005), that "it is possible to act on knowledge that we are unable to express or even know that we know" (p. 186).

More than just fulfilling functions of everyday living, tacit learning is also a key element in social and political learning. Foley (1991; 1999), for example discusses how implicit learning is a significant and empowering aspect of adult learning and yet has been paid too little attention by adult educators. He provides the example of a group of activists involved in the environmental movement who acquired knowledge beyond the skills required to perform their work: learning which altered the activists understanding of the world and their place within it. Foley (1999) describes this learning as "incidental to, or embedded in, the action taken by the activists... [and] not articulated systematically at the time of the campaign or subsequently" (p. 39). Even though this social and political learning, like facial recognition, is difficult for people to describe it becomes embedded in a person's understanding of the world and implicit in their everyday actions.

Durrance (1998) discusses the importance of tacit learning in a person's development. According to her, the tacit element of everyday learning is responsible for a person's ability to learn things that cannot be taught or learned explicitly or quantitatively, knowledge she refers to as acquired within a social context: "the deep physical and emotional knowing that grows as a result of working and living alongside each other" (p. 26). The majority of this knowledge, however central to the way a person conducts themselves in society, is tacitly learned and remains tacitly understood, even though it "lives in our hunches, intuitions, emotions, values, and beliefs" (p. 12

24). She continues to say that these qualities "form the basis of how we behave and act, the filter through which we see the world" (p. 24).

Both Livingstone (1999) and Eraut (2000) discuss the difficulty of conducting research on learning, particularly learning which is implicit or tacit. The problem for researchers, according to Eraut, is how tacit knowledge can be made explicit if its incommunicability is a defining characteristic. The difficulty arises when researchers begin to ask participants questions regarding either knowledge or learning about which they may have no awareness (Livingstone, 1999). Eraut, in his research on non-formal learning in the workplace, sums up the problem thus:

[PJotential respondents are unaccustomed to talking about learning and may find it difficult to respond to a request to do so. If they do, they are more likely to refer to formal learning rather than non- formal learning. The latter is just part of their work. Solving a problem at work is unlikely to be interpreted as a learning process unless an interviewer can home in on it in a particularly appropriate way (Eraut, 2000, p. 119).

Spender (1996) presents the difficulty as an epistemological quandary. For him it is unhelpful to define all tacit knowledge in the Polanyi mold as that which cannot be told. Thinking of tacit learning or tacit knowledge in terms of its incommunicability prohibits the possibility of a person gaining an awareness of previously unquestioned beliefs and practices. Spender suggests that implicit knowledge would be better understood not as incommunicable, but rather as not yet communicated. He describes tacit knowledge as "knowledge which has not yet been abstracted from practice" (p. 67). Similarly, organizational development theorists Argyris and Schon (1974) suggest that some tacit knowledge can be made explicit merely by shifting the focus of attention from the object of the learner's attention (B from above) to the object of tacit learning (A from above). They observe that Polanyi "does not explain the kind of knowledge involved in our performances of operations that we cannot explain or in intimations that we have not yet rendered explicit" (p. 202). For Spender this reconfiguration of what it means for knowledge to be tacit modifies the distinction between implicit and explicit knowledge in such a way that permits the possible transfer from one to the other. In the same way, Reber (1993) acknowledges the flow from implicit to explicit learning. Reber cautions readers not to fall prey to what he calls 13 the polarity fallacy, the idea that implicit and explicit learning are completely separate and independent processes. Rather, he argues that the two operate synergistically and should be thought of as interactive. "There is, so far as I am aware, no reason for presuming that there exists a clean boundary between conscious and unconscious processes or a sharp division between implicit and explicit epistemic systems," opines Reber (p. 23).

Foley (2004) discusses the importance of practitioners, and adult educators in particular of building informal theories rooted in the experience of practice. For Foley, theories derived from practice should be analyzed through the lens of formal theories taken from academic literature with the intention to challenge and develop a deeper understanding of the commonsense everyday theories that guide our experiences of practice. Reflection is therefore a crucial component in understanding the learning of practitioners; it is the catalyst which converts incidental learning to informal learning. The following section examines the role of reflection in making tacit learning explicit.

The reflective practitioner: From tacit learning to explicit knowledge

In Schon's (1983; 1987) analysis of the reflective practice of professionals the concept of tacit knowledge is crucial in his theory of reflective practice (Kinsella, 2007). Schon writes that in practice, problems do not just present themselves un-problematically and ready to be solved but must first be constructed out of the real-world situations in which field workers often find themselves. Practitioners, he says, "deliberately involve themselves in messy but crucially important problems and when asked to describe their methods of inquiry, they speak of experience, trial and error, intuition, and muddling through" (1983, p. 43). Schon, whose work has been hailed as widely influential in the fields of education and the social science professions (Eraut, 1994) attempts to reveal "an epistemology of practice implicit in the artistic, intuitive process which some practitioners do bring to situations of uncertainty, instability, uniqueness and value conflict" (Schon, 1983, p. 49). Schon recognizes that the majority of our knowledge is tacit, "implicit in our patterns of action and in our feel for the stuff with which we are dealing" (p. 49). He goes on to say that our knowledge, even though we may not be in a position to put it into words, is effectively found in our actions. This knowing which is manifest in the doing Schon classifies as knowing-in-action, knowing which is revealed in action but which is not articulated or described (1983; 1987). 14

Schon's early writing, in collaboration with Argyris (Argyris & Schon, 1974), relates tacit knowledge in professional practice to their concept of theories-in-use. Theories-in-use are the templates that underlie and guide practice. For Argyris and Schon, theories-in-use are tacit, unconscious, and unintentionally revealed in one's behaviour and actions. For both Argyris and Schon and later Schon (1983) it is crucial that these theories-in-action, known as frames in Schon's later writing (see p. 309), be made explicit in a process of reflection that involves shifting one's attention from the action at hand to the tacit knowledge which guides it. For Schon it is possible to describe the tacit knowledge implicit in our actions. As the practitioner begins to make sense of his practice, "he also reflects on the understandings which have been implicit in his action, understandings which he surfaces, criticizes, restructures, and embodies in further action" (p. 52). By examining actions in practice and becoming aware of normative templates, practitioners are able to make tacit knowledge explicit. By becoming aware of the tacit norms that guide a practitioner's work the individual practitioner comes to understand that the reality of their practice is an active construction. The recognition of the importance of tacit learning and knowledge to professional practice reveals that practitioners are continuously, often without intention or awareness, constructing and reconstructing their practice in order to accommodate new and emerging knowledge which is gained implicitly, leading Kinsella (2006) to argue that practitioners are constantly engaged in the practice of world-making. Schon (1987) also voices this view: "underlying this view of the practitioner's reflection-in-action is a constructionist view of the reality with which the practitioner deals — a view that leads us to see the practitioner as constructing situations of his practice" (p. 36). By shifting their attention to the object of tacit knowledge and becoming aware of the constructed and tacit norms that guide their work, practitioners come to the understanding that there are alternative forms of framing the reality of their practice, hence creating the awareness of "more possibilities for action" (Schon, 1983, p. 310). In Schon's words:

Through reflection, [the practitioner] can surface and criticize the tacit understandings that have grown up around the repetitive experiences of a specialized practice, and can make new sense of the situations of uncertainty and uniqueness which he may allow himself to experience (p. 61). 15

It is clear from Schorl's description of reflection-in-action that reflection, while crucial to inspired practice is not an end in itself. The process of reflection that Argyris and Schon and the later writing of Schon describe as the recognition of the beliefs, intuitions, and hunches that guide a professional's practice has as its objective the critical and creative preparation of the practitioner for new and unforeseen experiences in the swamp of real-life practice. As Boud, ICeogh, and Walker (1985) state: "the benefits of reflection may be lost if they are not linked to action" (p. 34).

The process of reflection that Schon describes is a flow from implicit to explicit: "one must use words to describe a kind of knowing and a change of knowing, which are probably not originally represented in words at all" (Schon, 1983, p. 59). The process implies traffic from implicit to explicit, an epistemological characterization of tacit knowledge that mirrors Spender's (1996) depiction of tacit knowledge as knowledge which arises from practice but which has not yet been made explicit. It is important to note furthermore, that for Schon this type of reflection does not just develop out of nowhere. Reflection that prompts the passage from implicit to explicit is often stimulated by a surprise circumstance or event, a "puzzling, troubling, or interesting phenomenon with which the individual is trying to deal" (Schon, 1983, p. 50). These disruptive episodes derive from everyday professional practice, the murky environment where practitioners often focus less attention on solving problems and more on constructing problems out of difficult or challenging situations.

The reflective process is a crucial element in the flow from tacit to explicit knowledge. The concept of reflection plays an important role in understanding the informal and implicit learning of the volunteers involved in this study. For the synthesis of volunteer learning to be meaningful and effective, Frontier College would need to develop and implement a systematic, collective and action oriented reflective process for the labourer-teacher program. The idea for collective reflection is derived from Bandura (1977; 1986), who argues that individuals do not live in social isolation of each other and "that many of the challenges and difficulties [people] face reflect group problems requiring sustained collective effort to produce any significant change" (1986, p. 449). As we live in an interconnected society of individuals, social change can only be accomplished collectively. A process of collective reflection for the purpose of exploring the tacit dimension of volunteer learning is a fundamental step toward not only understanding the 16 learning of volunteers but also toward developing a culture of learning for social change. The following section provides a synopsis of learning for social change.

Learning for social change

Reflection not only has a prominent role in the conversion of tacit learning to explicit knowledge, but is also a key feature in learning for social change (Brookfield, 2005b; Freire, 2006). For Foley (1999), for example, the reflection that is necessary to developing an understanding of implicit learning is "vital to a truly democratic politics" (p. 11). As this thesis is concerned with exploring the intersection between informal learning, incidental learning, and socio-political learning, the following section provides an analysis of learning for social change.

The influence ofHabermas

Mezirow (1981), in developing the framework for his highly influential theory of transformative adult learning, borrows key ideas from Habermas' (1971) theory of emancipatory action (Brookfield, 2005a; Mezirow, 1981). Critical theory for emancipatory learning explores the context of the learning process itself and where it takes place. For Merriam et al. (2006), "[questioning and critiquing taken for granted worldviews, structures, and institutions of society are the first steps in changing oppressive and non-emancipatory practices" (p. 241). Habermas (1971) presents three categories of human knowledge, each representing different social interests. They are:

1) Technical. This is "information that expands our power of technical control" (p. 313). This type of knowledge is crucial to a person's understanding and control of their immediate everyday environment.

2) Practical/interpretive. Habermas describes this category as "interpretations that make possible the orientation of action within common traditions" (p. 313). This knowledge makes possible practical judgment, action and communication by enabling people to understand theirs and others' ways of knowing.

3) Emancipatory. Emancipatory knowledge is described as "analyses that free consciousness from its dependence on hypostatized powers" (p. 313). 17

For Habermas technical and practical knowledge are insufficient tools for understanding the social structures and institutions which shape the contexts in which we live and work (Foley, 2004). Emancipatory knowledge is a function of people's ability to become critically reflective — the capacity with which we are able to separate our selves from the relations of power that occupy civil society. Critical reflection is key to Habermas' emancipatory dimension, as is coming to an understanding that as individuals, we are often not the cause of our own problems, but rather our problems are often reflections of social structures and contradictions (Brookfield, 2005b). Schugurensky (2002) defines critical reflection as "the process of unveiling the social, economic, and political dynamics of oppressions that are embedded in everyday situations and practices and of becoming aware of the social constructed nature of our beliefs, values, ideas and tastes" (p. 61). Emancipatory knowledge provides people with the capacity to both become aware of relations of power and to develop the capacity to learn how to change them. For Habermas, emancipatory questioning goes beyond trying to understand the material or technical nature of our world and asks questions which investigate the status quo, and, in particular, in whose best interest the status quo is maintained. Emancipatory questions, therefore, have the power to address the nature of oppressive social structures (Merriam et al., 2006). This knowledge, in addition to providing an interpretation of the way in which the world is structured, is meant to provide a picture of how the world can be transformed (Brookfield, 2005b).

For Habermas (1975), people have "an automatic inability not to learn" (p. 15). For him, not learning, as opposed to learning, is the phenomenon that needs to be explained. Habermas explains that even though people have the facility to develop critical reflection, present-day social systems are constituted in such a way as to limit the social learning capacity of individuals. For Habermas social systems are developed through production (i.e. technology and labour power), which appropriates the resources of the non-human environment, and processes of socialization which appropriate individual members of society in such a way as to shape them into subjects deprived of critical agency. That people are not continually learning and re-shaping society in new and critical ways is a result of economic and political structures within which systemic imperatives are not routinely challenged (Brookfield, 2005a). The majority of adult learning, tacit or otherwise, therefore takes place within the spheres of either technical or communicative knowledge. 18

Habermas' social critique further differentiates two levels of learning: non-reflexive and reflexive (Habermas, 1975, p. 15). Non-reflexive learning constitutes all learning which does not have a critical element and which takes place within contexts where "implicitly raised theoretical and practical validity claims are naively taken for granted and accepted or rejected without discursive consideration" (p. 15). This type of learning excludes critical reflection and works to reproduce social norms. Reflexive learning on the other hand questions the authority of taken- for-granted validity claims with the intention to "redeem or dismiss them on the basis of argument" (p. 15).

Reflection is not always critical reflection. Several authors (Fenwick & Tennant, 2004; Foley, 2004; Nesbit, Leach, & Foley, 2004) make the crucial distinction between reflection-on-action and critical reflection. Whereas reflection-on-action can play a crucial role in developing an individual's capacity to learn how to learn and how to understand and act on one's own learning, this type of reflection is located in Habermas' practical paradigm (Foley, 2004). Reflection-on- action is retrospective process, a way for people to create meaning out of complex situations and come up with effective strategies for acting in these situations and is vital to an evolving and dynamic practice. For adult educators it is a way to be continually aware and critical of our practice as teachers. However, unlike critical reflection, reflection-on-action is related to "effectiveness and 'manageable change' within existing institutions, rather than with radical institutional change within existing institutions" (Nesbit et al., 2004, pp. 87-88). Reflection-on- action, then, does not necessarily reach into the realm of emancipatory knowledge. Fenwick and Tennant (2004) depict the object of learning of reflection-on-action as procedural and propositional, in other words technical and practical, concerned with both how things are done and what things mean. Critical reflection, on the other hand, occupies the emancipatory paradigm as it is more concerned with recognizing and challenging people's assumptions in an overt attempt to cultivate social change.

Type of reflection Distinguishing characteristics

Reflection-on-action • A retrospective process of thinking back (Foley, 2004; Nesbit et • Concerned with how things are done and what things mean al., 2004) • Associated with technical or practical knowledge 19

Reflection-in-action • An examination of the knowledge implicit in our actions (Schon, 1983) • A process of shifting one's attention from the doing of practice to the construction of tacit norms that guide the practitioner's work

• Associated with technical or practical knowledge

Critical Reflection • A process of examining our selves as separate from the relations of power (Brookfield, 2005b; that permeate civil society

Foley, 2004; • A process of addressing the nature of oppressive social structures with an Schugurensky, 2002) intent to providing, a vision for how they can be transformed

• Associated with emancipatory knowledge

Figure 2. Forms of reflection and their characteristics

Perspective transformation and conscientization

Mezirow's concept of perspective transformation, while not automatically leading to action, is a process which provides "the learner with an accurate in-depth understanding of his or her historical situation" (Mezirow, 1981, p. 6). The process of perspective transformation is precipitated by conditions which Mezirow calls disorienting dilemmas. He says:

[T]here are certain anomalies or disorienting dilemmas common to normal development in adulthood which may be best resolved only by becoming critically conscious of how and why our habits of perception, thought and action have distorted the way we have defined the problem and ourselves in relationship to it (p. 7).

Similar to Schon's analysis of problem-setting, the process of constructing problems out of muddy situations illustrated above, Mezirow describes a process whereby a learner, when facing difficult or conflicting life situations, constructs problems from the normative template of beliefs and intuition that guide an individual's everyday actions. This is a process that Freire (2006) describes as problem-posing, where learners begin to question the accepted social roles and habits that they exhibit in their lives, leading to a shift in personal perspective he calls conscientization. Mezirow's perspective transformation and Freire's conscientization involve 20 the learner becoming aware of and making explicit the perceptions, thoughts, and habits that are implicit in their everyday lives.

Adult educator dian marino (1997) describes how individuals are life-long learners of implicit cultural story-lines learned tacitly through their interaction with social structures through sources such as public education and the media. Following Freire and Mezirow, marino argues that by not reflecting on their life experiences people run the risk of losing their natural tendencies for social action. Over time, claims marino, people unwittingly become experts at self-domination, allowing complacency and fear of change to overcome their ability to question their own judgments, actions, and allegiances to authority. Medical anthropologist Michael Taussig (1992) argues similarly when he advocates a style of reflective therapy that reveals the "implicit in such a way that the processes by which social relations are mapped into diseases are brought to light, de-reified, and in doing so liberate the potential for dealing with antagonistic contradictions and breaking the chains of oppression" (p. 83). In this, way we can see how the tacit knowledge from the social world which is implicit in individuals' thoughts and actions is described by both Freire and Mezirow as the object of conscientization and perspective transformation respectively. Conscientization and perspective transformation are synonymous with Habermas' reflexive learning, of which emancipatory knowledge is a key element. Both are thus processes by which "people learn to realize their emancipatory cognitive interest in personal relationships and in the creation of political forms that guard this interest zealously" (Brookfield, 2005a, p. 1133). In the words of Mezirow (1981), "dramatic personal and social change becomes possible by becoming aware of the way ideologies — sexual, racial, religious, educational, occupational, political, economic and technological — have created or contributed to our dependency on reified powers" (p. 6).

Both conscientization and perspective transformation are rooted in critical reflection, a process which guides an individual's experience of self-awareness, contextualization of implicit thoughts and perceptions, and subsequent value judgments about his "perceptions, thoughts, actions and habits in terms of their being liked or disliked, beautiful or ugly, positive or negative" (p. 12).

Praxis

Freire (2006) goes to great lengths to explain that his theory of conscientization is not an end in itself, but rather is always connected to a complex process of reflection-conscientization-action 21 known as praxis (hooks, 1994). The concept of praxis which is central to Freire's thought did not originate with Freire and in fact has been in use since the ancient Greeks. Carr and Kemmis (1986) describe praxis as "not simply action based on reflection. It is action which embodies certain qualities. These include a commitment to human well being and the search for truth, and respect for others" (p. 190). Praxis therefore is not a solitary activity. Praxis requires a genuine relationship to others. It is therefore indelibly bound to dialogue , which is rooted in authentic encounters with others, genuine communication, and solidarity, leading Bernstein (1983) to observe that "the concrete realization of praxis already presupposes incipient forms of the community life that such praxis seeks to foster" (p. 175).

Praxis is described by Freire as the word — or the essence of dialogue, the process of both naming the world and transforming the world (Freire, 2006). For Freire, the word is two dimensional, containing at once both reflection and action, which are so radically intertwined that "if one is sacrificed — even in part — the other immediately suffers" (p. 87). Similarly, the ancient Greeks held the view that "techne without phronesis is blind, while phronesis without techne is empty" (Bernstein, 1983, p. 161). Only practice rooted in authentic praxis has the ability to transform the world. An inauthentic word results when praxis deprived of one or the other of its constitutive elements. When dialogue is dissociated from action, then the word is reduced to idle chatter, and similarly when action is divested of reflection, then action is reduced to action merely for action's sake. Both circumstances negate authentic praxis and makes transformation impossible. Both reflection and action are key elements of authentic transformation; without praxis conscientization falls flat (Freire, 2006). Freire's idea of conscientization is not associated with individualistic changes of perspective but is rather connected to a social experience of reality (Elias & Merriam, 2005).

Hoist (2002) asks whether education can in fact change society. He claims that some adult educators rely too heavily on an analysis of Habermas' reflexive learning and can end up overemphasizing reflection over action. Echoing the ideas of Freire, Hoist claims that an adult

The concept of dialogue will be explored more thoroughly in Chapter 3.

"human skills"

"practical wisdom" 22 educator working within the context of civil society can never "lose sight of the dialectic between education and action embodied in the concept praxis itself..." (p. 83). Adult educators must be mindful not to overemphasize either action nor reflection, for an overemphasis of one leads to the detriment of the other. An overemphasis on reflection can easily occur, potentially leading to pessimism and political paralysis in the face of seemingly insurmountable political and social obstacles to change.

The following half of this chapter explores some of the literature on the phenomenon of volunteering for the purpose of highlighting the intersection between the above ideas and the practice of volunteers who participate in the Canadian charitable volunteer sector. The general concept of volunteering is complex and has been studied from many angles and in many contexts, and will not be dealt with here in any definitive way, but only how it relates to my thesis. A brief analysis of the political context of volunteering within the non-profit and voluntary sector in Canada will provide the backdrop to a review of what it means to be a volunteer, why people volunteer, and the importance of learning in volunteer work in Canada.

Volunteering and adult learning

Volunteering in Canada

What does it mean to be a volunteer? American sociologist Wilson (2000) defines volunteering as "any activity in which time is given freely to benefit another person, group or cause" (p. 215). More than just random assistance, such as a bystander providing aid at the scene of an accident, for Wilson volunteering requires a level of commitment to a group or organization. Another, similar description of volunteering is as working activities that are non-obligatory, unpaid, organized, and completed for the benefit of either society as a whole or some specific organization (Dekker & Halman, 2003a). In 2000, the "National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating" (NSGVP) conducted a survey of 14,724 Canadians aged 15 and over in an effort to provide a snapshot of Canada's volunteer activity (Lasby, 2004). The survey asked questions regarding the participants' charitable and volunteering activities over a one-year period. According to the survey, 27 percent participants volunteered for a charitable or nonprofit organization. The average contribution of this volunteer force was 162 per person, each year, totaling 1.05 billion hours, the equivalent to roughly 549,000 full-time year-round jobs (Lasby, 2004). These numbers contribute to Canada's considerable nonprofit and voluntary sector, which 23 according to international data collected and consolidated in 2004 by the John Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, was the second largest in the world when considered in terms of the number of the economically active population involved in the sector (Hall, Lasby, Gumulka, & Tryon, 2006). The John Hopkins project determined that the nonprofit and voluntary sector is a veritable economic force in Canada, accounting for 8.5 percent of Canada's gross domestic product (GDP) when the value of volunteer work (estimated at $14 billion, or 1.4 percent of Canada's GDP) is incorporated.

The resource schema

People volunteer for all sorts of reasons which are difficult to both quantify and qualify and remain to a large extent unclear. That said, it is generally thought that personality and personal circumstances are the strongest predictors of a person's likelihood to participate in voluntary activities (Dekker & Halman, 2003b; Henderson, Brown, & Pencer, 2007; Wilson, 2000). Wilson describes a resource schema to explain the phenomenon of voluntary participation based on human and social capital. He argues that people who have access to the types of resources that are more consistent with a higher social class are more likely to engage in voluntary activity. These people will generally have higher incomes and job status as well as higher levels of education and strong connections to social institutions like university groups and churches, and thus may already be civically engaged in their non-volunteer lives (Wilson, 2000). Others have argued that a resource scheme is insufficient to explain the motives of volunteers. For example young adults participate in voluntary activities, but their earnings and occupational status fluctuate as young people take part in post-secondary education, change jobs frequently, and experience temporary employment lulls (Oesterle, Johnson, & Mortimer, 2004). Nevertheless, there is general agreement, including from Wilson, that a resource schema, even if it is able to predict the likelihood of voluntary engagement in a wide swath of the population, does not tell us anything about why people volunteer (Dekker & Halman, 2003a; Wilson, 2000), leading Pearce (1993) to claim that "we know very little about why people volunteer and how they organize their work" (p. 3). Still others point out that the traditional sociological literature on volunteering ignores those groups for whom participating in voluntary activities is considered obligatory or necessary. In Ontario, for example, a number of studies point to the experiences of skilled immigrants on the one hand and high-school students on the other (Henderson et al., 2007; Schugurensky & Slade, 2008; Slade, Luo, & Schugurensky, 2005). Ontario high school students 24 are mandated by the provincial government to complete 40 hours of "volunteer" service before graduating and clearly have no alternative but to volunteer their time (Henderson et al., 2007). Also, skilled immigrants are increasingly responding to the challenges of finding gainful employment by participating in the voluntary sector. In their work, Slade, Luo, and Schugurensky (2005) reveal that their participants, new and skilled immigrants to Ontario, feel as though they have not other choice but to volunteer in order to increase employability and gain much sought after "Canadian experience".

Values

People's values are one possible explanation for why people volunteer. Wilson (2000), however, argues that values as a predictor of the likelihood of volunteering tend to be weak and inconsistent. On the other hand, Dekker and Halman (2003 a) claim that while personal values may not tell us much about who will volunteer, values may play a part in determining what kind of voluntary work someone undertakes. Reed and Selbee (2003) suggest that values, in addition to determining the type of volunteer work that someone may choose, will also determine the level of commitment that someone will provide to their voluntary activity. They suggest that greater commitment and increased time and effort are direct reflections of a volunteer's values and they distinguish active volunteers, volunteers who volunteer once a week or more often, from non-active volunteers, volunteers who volunteer less than once a week. They argue that active volunteers tend to be volunteers whose values coincide more directly to the work in which they are voluntarily participating.

The voluntary sector in context

Wilson (2000) makes no clear cut differentiation between volunteering and social activism. He claims that context and social circumstances, will to a large extent determine the meaning of volunteer and social activist roles and their relation to each other. In Canada, according to the NSGVP the vast majority of the nonprofit and voluntary sector - (74 percent) - is made up of organizations engaged in the delivery of service related activities such as health care, adult education, and housing, making direct service activities the sector's most dominant pursuit, as opposed to direct advocacy (Lasby, 2004). A number of researchers explain the predominance of service related activities in the voluntary sector as the result of new partnerships between civil society and the state which regulate the ability for civil society organizations to engage in 25 advocacy work (Basok & Hcan, 2003; Jenson & Phillips, 1996). In Canada, Basok and Ilcan (2003) refer to this phenomenon as the depoliticization of civil society and explain how volunteers are more often than not directed toward service delivery instead of advocacy activities regardless of the skills or values of the individual volunteers. Basok and Ilcan regard civil society as a site that contains both liberating and oppressive elements. They also stress the importance of an active civil society in social policy debates, but describe how, more and more, service provision trumps social policy advocacy in Canadian civil society. The voluntary sector, they claim, is both under serious pressure to secure state funding while simultaneously managing the transference of service provision from state jurisdiction to non-state groups such as voluntary organizations. The result, they say, is civil society's reduced ability to play a role in participating in and steering social policy debates. In addition, Canada's Income Tax Act permits that a maximum of 10% of charity resources of a Canadian charitable organization can be spent on advocacy, ultimately pushing charitable organizations toward service provision activities and/or education. Basok and Ilcan claim: "The changes toward efficiency and accountability have substantially diminished the capacity of volunteer agencies to bring about transformation at the social policy level given that advocacy is progressively vanishing in the sector" (p. 122). From the literature of adult education, Hoist (2002) echoes Basok and Ilcan's concerns and argues that there is very little power for those organizations and people within civil society to generate changes at the policy level. Hence, civil society's demands for structural change gradually turn into demands for more service oriented activities and programs. In the words of Kinsman (1997): "Political and community mobilization from below can be deflected away from activism and transformed into demands for services" (p. 228).

Volunteers' informal learning

There has been much written about the informal learning of adults in their everyday lives (Livingstone, 1999,2001; Tough, 1971), in the workplace (Eraut, 2004,2007; Livingstone, Mirchandani, & Sawchuk, 2008), as well as social activists involved in social movements (Foley, 1991,1999). However, little has been written about the informal learning of volunteers who participate in the Canadian charitable voluntary sector (Duguid, Slade, & Schugurensky, 2006a, 2006b; Mundel & Schugurensky, 2005). Furthermore, although some of the literature on volunteering has assessed the benefits that volunteering has on volunteers, such as self-esteem and life-satisfaction, not much has been written about the learning that takes place by volunteers. 26

Ilsley (1990) summarizes the situation: "many concepts link voluntary action and adult education. Nevertheless, the links between adult learning and volunteer experience have not been fully explored or appreciated" (p. 58). However, some research from the sociology of education (Livingstone, 1999) shows evidence that informal learning has a significant impact on people's everyday lives, and other research provides evidence that the vast majority of knowledge acquisition for volunteers occurs informally (Elsdon, 1995). Educational researchers are beginning to draw attention toward the importance of informal learning in voluntary work (Duguid et al., 2006b).

Even though learning is integral to an individual's everyday life in general, studies have shown that, when asked about the motivation to volunteer, volunteers seldom refer to learning as a key motivating factor (Cox, 2002; Duguid et al., 2006b). This could be on account of participants' not considering learning as an important factor in their work. This could also be a reflection of how informal learning, whether implicit or deliberate, is perceived as so tacit as to not be considered learning at all. However, motivations are not static, and learning, even though it may not be a motivating factor in itself, contributes to the flow of motivational change and long-term incentive to continue with unpaid work. In an interpretation of Mezirow (1981), Ilsley (1990) observes, "motivation inspires action, but action also inspires motivation" (p. 29). Hence, learning through doing improves volunteer's skills or even a change in values, which in turn can provide new inspiration to carry on. Tracking and reflecting on learning therefore, is a key element to understanding volunteer motivation.

Eraut (2000) and Livingstone (1999) consider informal learning a tricky subject on which to collect data. People are not accustomed to talking about their own learning and in many cases do not even consider everyday informal knowledge acquisition in terms of learning, as learning is not normally thought of outside of formal educational situations. As I have discussed, implicit knowledge, can be quite difficult to study since it is not even conscious and is acquired without the subject's awareness. Ilsley (1990), an American scholar, recognizes and examines the role that learning plays for volunteers in the United States. Ilsley highlights three distinct categories of volunteer learning based on Habermas' typology: (a) instrumental/didactic, (b) social/expressive, and (c) critical reflection. The first, instrumental/didactic, includes all learning that involves skill acquisition. The second, social/expressive, is the social knowledge that volunteers gain through their experience: what he calls "communication, trust, respect, 27 compassion, and openness" (p. 62). The third, critical reflection, he describes as "deliberately analyzing one's own politics, values, and priorities as well as those of society" (p. 62). Even though, as Ilsley argues, most organizations provide training as a part of the volunteer experience, most of the actual learning that takes place happens by doing. Similar findings have been reported in Ontario voluntary organizations by Miindel and Schugurensky (2005) and in British voluntary organizations by Elsdon (1995). In addition, Ilsley's findings also suggest that learning, and in particular learning other than instrumental/didactic, goes unnoticed by many voluntary organizations. Ilsley argues in favour of consolidating the learning which takes place for volunteers in voluntary programs. He argues that the learning that takes place for volunteers benefits not only the individual volunteers, but also the program's beneficiaries, the voluntary organizations, and ultimately the whole of society.

Creating a culture of praxis

Ilsley (1990) is a strong proponent of encouraging learning in voluntary organizations. His thoughts are worthy of being quoted at length:

Learning can bring about new insights, new questions, new ways of looking at goals and missions, and new suggestions for procedures that will enrich any group. Given the importance of learning to both volunteers and their organizations, planners of volunteer programs would be well advised to make the establishment of a healthy learning climate and multiple opportunities for learning a high priority (p. 71).

As we have seen from Foley (1999; 2004), learning is a complex and multifaceted process. Informal/incidental learning occurs in all aspects of life as a result of acting in the world and can produce knowledge that is technical, social, or political. Much of this knowledge happens outside of the learner's awareness and thus remains tacit. Reflection is required for this knowledge to become explicit (Foley, 2004; Mezirow, 1981; Schon, 1983). We learn from Ilsley that much of the learning that takes place in voluntary agencies is unaccounted for, and what knowledge is acknowledged falls into Ilsley's instrumental/didactic category of individual skill acquisition, which lies within Habermas' technical paradigm. Learning which is related to the social/expressive or practical paradigm, as well as critical reflection, or emancipatory paradigm, 28 remains largely unrecognized. As we have seen, the majority of this learning occurs incidentally involuntary organizations (Duguid et al., 2006b; Elsdon, 1995; Foley, 1999; Miindel & Schugurensky, 2005) and is largely ignored by the organizations themselves (Ilsley, 1990).

Ilsley as well as Miindel and Schugurensky discuss the need not only to make reflection an integral part of volunteer assessment, but of the need to create a climate of reflection, with a focus on both reflection-on-action and critical reflection within voluntary organizations. Organizations which maximize their volunteers' chances to reflect on their participation with the intention to create new and better opportunities to engage in further action "have the greatest chance not only of continuing to attract volunteers but of helping those volunteers' visions of a better world to come true" (Ilsley, 1990, p. 140). Most crucial for the purposes of this thesis is that for Miindel and Schugurensky this means creating a culture of praxis within voluntary organizations, where learning is inexorably tied to critical reflection and social action.

Summary

This chapter has offered an overview of the theoretical concepts that provide the foundation for this research study. The chapter explores informal/incidental learning, reflection and learning for social change and how these ideas could potentially intersect with the phenomenon of volunteering. The argument is made that since the connection between charitable volunteering and adult learning has not been fully explored by adult educators, there is great potential for developing an understanding of the process of learning within the Canadian charitable volunteer sector, a sector which operates within the context of a depoliticized civil society as described by Basok and Ilcan (2003) and Jenson and Phillips (1996). It is proposed that the learning of volunteers be included as a crucial aspect not only of volunteer assessment, but also as a part of the overall management of voluntary programs. It is suggested that a culture of praxis within voluntary organizations would create opportunities for socio-political learning and action.

The chapter begins with a description of informal/incidental learning which is inspired by Foley's (1999; 2004) understanding of learning as a process which is contested, complex, and present in every situation. As shall be discussed more in-depth below, the participants involved in this study have been asked to reflect on learning that took place both informally within the context of their workplaces and incidentally while attending to various other responsibilities. The chapter has maintained a particular focus on the intersection between informal/incidental 29 learning and reflection for the purposes of making tacit knowledge explicit, principally underlining how this process is related to learning for social change. Reflection and a reflective practice are presented as crucial elements in the process of (a) making tacit knowledge explicit and (b) learning for social change and empowerment. Habermas' (1971) tripartite schema of technical, practical and emancipatory knowledge illustrates the interests that lie behind learning. The chapter provides an outline of Habermas' schema and how it relates to learning which reveals the tacit knowledge embedded in the social world of everyday interactions and reveals the perceptions, thoughts, and habits that are implicit in their everyday lives. Habermas' schema is combined with an overview of Mezirow's (1981) theory of transformative learning and Freire's (2006) concept of conscientization in order to describe a process which has the potential to bring about personal changes in attitude and changes in social behaviour, thereby solidifying the marriage of action to reflection, the process known as praxis.

The second half of the chapter is devoted to an exploration of what it means to be a volunteer, particularly within the context of a Canadian charitable voluntary organization. It is argued that these organizations operate within a context where they are pushed to offer service provision and are limited in their ability to influence social policy debates. It is revealed from the literature on volunteer learning that the learning of volunteers within voluntary organizations goes largely unrecognized by the organizations themselves. However, it is argued that despite the limits of the voluntary sector to act politically, the potential learning of the sector's volunteers provides opportunities for emancipatory learning and action, and that this learning, in order to be made explicit requires a volunteer programs to develop a culture of praxis.

The following chapter provides an overview of the history and present context of the Frontier College labourer-teacher program with a particular focus on its administration's attitude toward and the possibilities for consolidating the informal/incidental learning of its volunteers. 30

Chapter 3 Frontier College and the informal/incidental learning of volunteer labourer-teachers

Introduction

This chapter provides a historical and contemporary overview of the Frontier College labourer- teacher program. The program's pedagogical approach, political position, hiring practices, and attitude toward volunteer learning will all be analyzed. Frontier College is a charitable organization and as such is restricted in its ability to take an advocacy role and participate in social policy debates. Therefore, Frontier College focuses the use of the vast majority of its capital and human resources on the provision of instruction in literacy and basic skills. However, Frontier College has a long and varied history that spans over a century and the labourer-teacher program (its original program) in particular has its roots in advocacy and the social emancipation of socially marginalized individuals and communities. The present, almost exclusive focus on service provision is at odds with the organization's strong advocacy roots. Whereas Frontier College has always provided services, the organization's present status as a charitable organization limits its ability to advocate and participate in social policy debates.

This chapter, however, presents a paradox: that even though the present form of the labourer- teacher program does not provide a space for critical reflection and reflexive learning. The argument is made in this chapter that due to Frontier College's dialogic approach to adult education, which will be presented with a brief analysis of Buber's concept of the "I-Thou" and "I-It" worldviews and Freire's pedagogy of the oppressed, leaves volunteers continuously open to pedagogical encounters that are potentially transformative for the volunteers. Labourer- teachers who experience dialogic encounters with individuals from marginalized communities in the Global South have a unique opportunity to learn about power, privilege, and oppression. Labourer-teachers are given the chance to learn about their own place in the world and their relation to the social structures that affect both their lives and the lives of their learners, thus opening the door for emancipatory learning and conscientization.

The learning that occurs for Frontier College labourer-teachers will be presented within a framework of dialogue, transformative learning and conscientization. It will be further asked whether the learning of volunteer labourer-teachers, given the limited role of Frontier College as 31 an organization devoted primarily to service provision can be consolidated and acted upon within the tripartite schema of knowledge as presented by Habermas. It is argued in Chapter 2 that the volunteer sector, while home to oppressive characteristics, also has significant emancipatory potential at the level of the grassroots fieldwork conducted by volunteers. This emancipatory potential is contingent on the ability of volunteers to make explicit learning of which they may not even be aware, and to develop a strategy of collective reflexive praxis.

The Frontier College labourer-teacher program

"Education must be obtainable on the farm, in the bush, on the railways and in the mine... This is the place of the true university" (Fitzpatrick, 1923, p. 93). Founded in 1899, Frontier College is Canada's oldest literacy organization and the labourer-teacher program is its original program (Martin, 2000; Morrison, 1999b). The founder of Frontier College, Alfred Fitzpatrick, a Presbyterian minister from Pictou, Nova Scotia, envisioned a world where an education was available to not only the wealthy, urban middle class, but also to isolated frontier camp labourers working in Canada's mines, lumber camps and railway camps. Canada has a long history of frontier development, which more often than not has relied on the labour of newly arrived immigrants - the target group of Fitzpatrick's educational experiments. Fitzpatrick's one lasting program has been the labourer-teacher program - a program that recruits volunteers, usually Canadian students on summer vacation from university who now, as then, go to live and work alongside frontier labourers while teaching literacy and basic skills to their worker colleagues.

Frontier College favours volunteers who have had some university or college education, some teaching experience, and are flexible, independent, and physically fit. Labourer-teachers are also chosen for their ability to "live and work closely with others" in a multicultural environment (Frontier College, 2008c). Former president of Frontier College, Edmund Bradwin described the type of volunteer Frontier College sought thus:

It is not just enough that applicants for this kind of work show bodily strength and willingness — they should possess not only all-round academic fitness of a high order, but also the common man (sic) qualities which will wear with the rank and file. There is needed, too, that worth while persistency that will not falter once 32

the novelty of the tasks and the unusual environment has vanished (Bradwin, 1963, p. 70).

Not only is it important that labourer-teachers be good labourers and teachers, but they also have to be independent of spirit as "no favors are asked by an instructor and few are granted" (Fitzpatrick, 1923, p. 120). Building strong and trusting relationships has always been a top priority for the Frontier College labourer-teacher program. Relationships are forged at work and at rest, for the labourer-teacher shares all of the working responsibilities as well as his or her living quarters with their labourer-learners. Finding the right kind of person for this job is crucial, and not an easy task. For Fitzpatrick (1923), "[t]he right type of instructor is a man (sic) who can fit into the many requirements of camp life... To be personally popular with the shantyman one must handle the cant-hook with any of the old-time loaders and skidders" (Fitzpatrick, 1923, pp. 139,119). Relationship-building is essential to the work of the labourer- teacher in order to build a base of trust and solidarity on which the literacy and English as a Second Language curriculum is based. Fitzpatrick, whose ideas predate later influential theories related to adult education, such as Knowles' (1975) theory of andragogy and Freire's (2006) pedagogy of the oppressed by 7 decades, and the work of Miles Horton and the Highlander Folk School (Adams, 1975) by 30 years, was keenly aware of developing a pedagogy that was relevant to adult learners. From the very beginning, Frontier College's approach was student centred and labourer-teachers were encouraged to develop curriculum that came directly out of their learners' daily lives. Only a teacher immersed in the everyday lives of their learners could appreciate the full extent of the meaning of Fitzpatrick's words when he said that Frontier College brings "education to the man, not the man to the education" (Fitzpatrick, 1923, p. 107) or "[w]henever and wherever people shall have occasion to congregate, then and there shall be the time, place and means of their education" (in Morrison, 1999b, p. 8). Fitzpatrick's vision of a relevant and useful education for all delivered to the frontier labourer by means of young and energetic volunteer tutors remains a central guiding force for the Frontier College labourer- teacher program.

"A lumberman's lever that has a pivoting hooked arm and a blunt often toothed metal cap at one end" (Merriam- Webster Online Dictionary, 2008). 33

Since the dawn of the 20 century the landscape of Canadian labour on the frontier has changed and with it the labourer-teacher program. From its inception until the present, Frontier College has sent volunteers to a diversity of workplaces across Canada to work with mostly new immigrant workers in the mining, logging, construction, and railway repair industries. During the latter half of the 20th century, the Frontier College labourer-teacher program gradually phased out its work in these industries, and since 1990 has been sending labourer-teachers to work with migrant agricultural workers who work on farms and in greenhouses. While Frontier College offers no remuneration to their volunteers, the labourer-teacher program is unique in that it is able to offer volunteers paid employment in addition to their volunteer work, as Frontier College develops agreements with farmers, who are always in need of labour, to hire labourer-teachers as general farm hands. This agreement includes providing housing for labourer-teachers in the bunkhouses set aside for migrant labourers. Hence, the responsibility of the labourer-teacher is two-fold: while they are responsible for setting up non-formal adult education classes on their placements, they are simultaneously expected to work the same long work hours as their migrant worker learners.

Early days

The original concept of the labourer-teacher was active and not passive, concerned with the intersection between education of marginalized people and social justice - what the 1906 Reading Camp Association (one previous incarnation of Frontier College) referred to on their letterhead as "The Education and Social Emancipation of the Semi-Nomadic Labourers in the Frontier Lumbering, Mining and Railway Construction Camps of Canada" (Morrison, 1989). In fact, it has been recorded that it was Fitzpatrick's intention to expose the "inhumane conditions of the camps to socially conscious outsiders, to mobilize public support for the provision of state educational, health and social services to labourers in the camps" (Walter, 2003, pp. 3-4). However, throughout its history Frontier College has been reliant on funds from a variety of sources, including the state on the one hand and industrialists (now farmers) on the other, in order to maintain the financing required to run the program and maintain labourer-teacher placements (Martin, 2000). Cooperating with industrialists while simultaneously struggling for the social emancipation of their workers can be viewed through two historical lenses. First is the "necessary evil" viewpoint, what Morrison (1989) calls a pragmatic realization that "in order to achieve social reform, [Fitzpatrick] had to work within the economic and social system of the 34 time, gaining allies where he could find them - be they religious or social institutions, state or prominent capitalists" (p. 10). Others, however, hold the view that although Fitzpatrick's discourse was firmly located outside of the establishment and his humanist framework was committed to the education of society's most marginalized, his association with industrialists was paternalistic and compromised the potential for overtly political education (Welton, 1987). Although Fitzpatrick was an educational trailblazer in terms of his commitment to an education for all regardless of class, ethnicity, race, or gender, politically he was more of a reformer than a revolutionary. He believed that the solution to structural ills was rooted in the "redemption of the individual through empathetic provision of basic adult education by laborer-teachers" (p. 10). Rather than upset the balance of power, Fitzpatrick developed a vision that was tied to the belief that concessions by capitalists would inevitably lead to the improvement of the living conditions of the poor (Titley, 1990). Fitzpatrick also believed that education was a universal right and that it was the state's responsibility to provide a decent education to all of its citizens, including the most marginalized. It is important to note that this position was ground-breaking given the historical context, as Frontier College began its work at a time when even the concept of universal schooling was controversial (Martin, 2000). Even though Fitzpatrick was a powerful advocate on behalf of frontier workers and considered social justice as an important aspect of his work his overall ability to advocate was compromised by the relationships he developed with the very bosses responsible for the conditions in which the men worked (Martin, 2000). Fitzpatrick was to a large extent unable to broach issues which were considered controversial for fear of upsetting the same employers that were crucial to maintaining labourer-teacher placements. An analysis of historical research reveals that the labourer-teacher program contains both emancipatory and oppressive qualities. An analysis of the learning of volunteer labourer-teachers will illuminate the struggle to achieve emancipatory social learning within the restrictive framework of the labourer-teacher program in particular and the voluntary sector in general.

The present context

Since its inception over 100 years ago, the labourer-teacher program has gone through several roles and identities, most notably perhaps in its second decade as a catalyst for the "Canadianization" of new immigrants and as a seemingly benign anti-union force "combating Bolshevism at its source" (Krotz, Martin, & Fernandez, 1999, p. 19). In the early 1920's it was thought that the activities of the labourer-teachers would meet "the Red agitator on his own 35 ground" and "determine whether the camps would produce 'Lenins or Lincolns'." (Cook, 1987, p. 47). Since its early days working in the lumber industry, the labourer-teacher program has gone on to send labourer-teachers to work in the mining industry, on the railway, and in prisons across Canada. Now the labourer-teacher program is focused on working in agricultural settings with migrant farm workers from Mexico and the Caribbean. These farm workers come to Canada to work through the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (CSAWP), which for the past 42 years has been inviting offshore farm labourers to work in rural Canadian farming communities. Many of these workers "come to the same Canadian farms year after year and many spend a greater part of their working lives on Canadian soil rather than in their homelands" (Preibisch, 2007, p. 4). In shifting its focus from new Canadians to migrant workers, Frontier College has experienced another shift. Historically, the labourer-teacher program recruited more privileged middle-class, university educated Canadians to go and work with less privileged working-class new Canadians. Today, Frontier College works from a model more typical of an international development organization, sending more privileged Canadian volunteers from the Global North to work with less privileged men and women from the Global South, non-Canadians who reside and work in Canada for six to eight months of the year. Frontier College still recruits the majority of its volunteers from the student bodies of Canadian universities, hiring mostly students who are looking for summer work. The core responsibility of the volunteer labourer-teachers is to provide either English as a Second Language (ESL) or basic literacy instruction to the migrant agricultural learners. The following is a brief synopsis of the CSAWP.

The Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program

As a response to severe labour shortages in its agricultural sector, the Canadian government has been importing temporary migrant agricultural labourers since 1966 when 264 Jamaican workers came to Canada in order to harvest tobacco in Southern Ontario. In the past 42 years, the CSAWP has grown dramatically, and in 2005 there were over 20,000 migrant farm workers employed in Canada, more than 16,000 of which were employed on farms and in greenhouse operations in Ontario. Of these, nearly 12,000 came from Mexico and 6,000 from Jamaica, the remainder came from Trinidad and Tobago, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, and Barbados (UFCW, 2007). It has been argued that this program has become a structural necessity in Canada's agricultural sector (Basok, 2002) due to the fact that the agricultural industry is not 36 considered a desirable employment sector for Canadian citizens due to the "low wages, hard physical labour, and seasonal nature of the work" (UFCW, 2007, p. 5).

It is clear from the literature that labour shortage is a very real problem for Canadian farmers. Basok (2002) relates stories of frustration from farmers she encountered while conducting her research, and in the words of one grower who has had difficulty finding local workers and after many tries has ended up hiring offshore workers: "I tried the locals and it didn't work. They quit... we were picking and in the afternoon they wouldn't come back. And the other locals I had they quit after five hours, four hours." (p. 48). As non-Canadians, migrant workers in Canada do not have the ability to quit and find work elsewhere, as they do not have the right to work within free employment relationships characteristic of capitalist production. They are required to remain with their government-approved employers for the entirety of their contract, which is usually for about six to eight months. Thus, migrant agricultural workers, who are entitled to work in Canada only temporarily and cannot apply for permanent Canadian citizenship, are "recruited for those jobs that were (and are) not qualitatively 'attractive' to those not legally indentured to perform them" (Sharma, 2006, p. 98). Basok (2002) paraphrases from "The Agreement for the Employment in Canada of Seasonal Agricultural Workers from Mexico" thus:

The workers agree to work and reside at the place of employment or at any other place provided by the employer and approved by the government agent. They are to perform the duties of the agricultural work assigned to them and obey and comply with all rules set down by the employer relating to safety, discipline, and the care and maintenance of the property. More specifically, they are to keep the living quarters provided to them by the employer in a clean condition, they are not to work for any other person without the approval of HRDC , and they are to return promptly to Mexico upon the termination of their employment authorization visa (p. 38).

Human Resources Development Canada 37

As argued by Sharma, the Canadian government, bound to grant, in the words of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, "freedom of choice for citizens [italics added] to work where they want" (as cited in Sharma, 2006, p. 98 ), developed a category of worker who was a non-citizen, foreign, and temporary with no legal entitlement to benefits permitted to Canadian citizens. Canadian farmers who have difficulty finding locals to do agricultural work now have the capacity to Q order as many Mexican or Caribbean male or female workers as they need or desire as long as they provide the necessary housing. The structural control of migrant workers is not only produced and maintained by the Canadian government, but also by the governmental departments that regulate the flow of migrant workers from their home countries. Mexican and Caribbean government agencies routinely instruct migrant workers of people with whom they can and cannot associate while working in Canada. The Mexican Secretariat for Labour, for example, produces a pamphlet that warns workers not to "associate with any group or persons in Canada who are not affiliated with the Mexican consulate" (Encalada Grez, 2006, p. 24). Structural inequities inevitably define the labour and social relationships that migrant workers develop while in Canada. Many workers inexorably find themselves in thorny employment situations while in Canada, however, CSAWP repatriation provisions are such that any worker who raises concerns to their employer risks being sent home. Under the CSAWP repatriation rules, "workers can [be] and are sent home by their employer, often with just a day or two's notice, for any reason", including when workers become sick or injured (UFCW, 2007, p. 9). No provision is made for appeal. Thus, the 20,000 individual migrant workers who make up the CSAWP are bound contractually 10 to one employer in a structurally precarious, often times dangerous work situation in a foreign country far away from their families where, as non-citizens, they have few rights. What rights workers do have, such as parental benefits and access to the Canada Pension Plan, are not generally made explicit to workers unless they have some contact with worker advocates such as

"Mandar", meaning "order" in Spanish, is the verb that is commonly used by Mexican migrant workers to describe this transaction.

A recent study reveals that farming is the fourth most dangerous occupation in Canada after mining, logging and forestry, and construction. 503 farm workers died in work-related incidents between 1991 and 1995, an annual rate of 11.6 deaths per 100,000 farm population (Pickett, Hartling, Brison, & Guernsey, 1999). 38 the United Food and Commercial Workers union, who fund and staff several worker support centres in various locations across Canada.

Preibisch (2004; 2005; 2007), who has studied the social experience of migrant workers in Southern Ontario, argues that the social relations that develop between farm-workers, their employers, and the broader community are framed by the structural inequalities involved in the construction of what it means to be a migrant worker: lower-class people from racialized groups ("Black" or "Mexican") who come from "developing" countries in the Global South who are permitted to work in Canada temporarily doing menial jobs no Canadian wants to do. In addition, other social relations can also affect the experiences that migrant workers have while in Canada. For example, female migrant workers are often subject to sexual harassment while Mexican and Caribbean workers who live together on the same farm in the same bunkhouse may face racial and cultural tensions above and beyond what they already experience as a result of living in rural or isolated Canadian communities (2007). While in Canada migrant farm workers generally have limited contact with Canadians as their public and private lives are closely regulated by their employers, whose provided housing is more often than not located on the worksite. Some critics have argued that these employer/employee relations are inequitable, paternalistic, and thus maintain exploitative conditions (Wall, 1992). While they are in Canada migrant workers are totally dependent on their employers, not only for work, but also for transportation and housing, and in some cases even require permission to leave the premises (Barndt, 2002). In addition, migrant farm workers are not well informed of the working conditions to expect on arrival in Canada, are generally paid at or near the minimum wage, work 12 to 16 hours a day, are not offered overtime and they are subject to Canadian Employment Insurance deductions that they will never be able to access because they do not reside in Canada in the off-labour season (Paz, 2008).

For the most part, migrant workers are so isolated from the nearest town that many do not venture off of their farms during leisure hours and are thus largely excluded from the social fabric of the regions where they live (Basok, 2002; Preibisch, 2004, 2007). As the majority of migrant workers come from Mexico, the language divide is also an issue for many workers, meaning that Mexican workers are less likely to make Canadian friends and socialize off the farm. Basok (2002) argues that this language barrier, while frustrating for the workers, is beneficial to the employers, as fewer opportunities for workers to socialize means there are fewer 39 distractions from their work. On the issue of language Basok claims that "it is possible that Canadian growers regard the inability of Mexican workers to speak English as an advantage, since they are less likely to talk back to their employers and demand improvements in their working and housing conditions" (p. 33).

Although the CSAWP is considered by many as a much friendlier alternative to the manner in which migrant labour is arranged in the United States (Basok, 2007), the conditions in which Canada's migrant labourers live and work is reminiscent of the conditions that Alfred Fitzpatrick spoke of with regards to isolated lumber camps in Ontario and Quebec at the turn of the 20th century where the work was "so difficult that white men fearing loss of self-respect [could] not be induced to perform it" (in Cook, 1976, p. 17).

The labourer-teacher program and migrant workers

As a charitable organization Frontier College is restricted in its ability to advocate or participate in social policy debates. The advocacy work that Frontier College does engage in is in response to low literacy levels of Canadians as reported by national and international quantitative surveys (Frontier College, 2008a). As migrant workers are not Canadians, they are of course not counted in these assessments; Frontier College therefore cannot consider the issues of migrant workers as within the realm of their lean advocacy capabilities. As a result, even though purporting to begin from people's experiences with a pedagogical approach that is rooted in the contexts of learners' lives (Greig, 2003), Frontier College does not take a stand on the immigration and trade policies that allow for the constant flow of migrant workers or the working conditions the workers are presented with on arrival in Canada. At present, therefore, neither the organization nor the volunteers are in a position to participate in social policy debates related to the rights or living conditions of migrant workers. However, this position goes against the grain of Frontier College's traditional vision of relationship-building and community development. Pearpoint (in Forest & Kappel, 1988) describes the importance of advocacy to the work of Frontier College:

Relationships grow into friendships - two people counting on one another, sticking up for one another. In its fullest sense, literacy means participation. Participation requires access and opportunities - get out of an institution, get into a community service that excludes "those kinds of people," pull together a wider circle of 40

friends and supporters who can help make the world act sensibly (pp. 10-11).

The labourer-teacher program and volunteer learning

Frontier College has painstakingly collected much information regarding the placements and work of individual labourer-teachers (Krotz et al., 1999; Morrison, 1989). Frontier College historians speak of the supposed impact that the program had on the lives of the volunteers, that "[b]y placing privileged young men in low-status manual labour positions, the Reading Camp Association (later Frontier College) allowed the students to enter a world with which they would otherwise have had no contact" (Martin, 2000, p. 78). There is very little specific information, however, regarding the learning of volunteers or the effect that this learning has had on their lives. Much of the information available has been collected anecdotally in the form of either letters that were written by labourer-teachers while they were engaged in their placements or has been taken from their final reports (Krotz et al., 1999). Over the years labourer-teachers have written prolifically in letters and final reports about their experiences, which would lead one to believe that the experience was formative, if not transformative, for young volunteers. One historian, when researching the history of Frontier College, was surprised that nearly all of the 60 former labourer-teachers he contacted for interviews responded and "contributed dozens of variations on the theme that by helping others, they seemed to have helped themselves" (Young, 1963, p. 76). Most of the better known stories come from those volunteers who later in life became well-known and successful in their own chosen careers and many of these stories indicate that their own learning was an important component of their participation in the labourer-teacher program. For example J.R. Mutchmor, who later became Moderator in the

Many Frontier College labourer-teachers went on to become successful and active members of their respective communities. Most notable among these are: Norman Bethune who worked at the Victoria Harbour Lumber Company at Whitefish, Ontario in 1911/12 who later became famous for providing medical care for Mao Ze Dong's guerilla army in China; Benjamin Spock, the world-famous pediatrician who worked on the CPR line at Kenora, Ontario in 1926; Escott Reid, who was present at the founding of the United Nations; Francis McNaughton, who became a well-known neurologist; as well as J.R. Mutchmor, Stanley McKay, and George Morrison, who all later became high officials in the United Church of Canada. A more recent list of former labourer-teachers would include university professors, human rights lawyers, heads of development organizations and prominent politicians, including Roy McMurtry, former Attorney-General of Ontario and Canada's former High Commissioner to Great Britain, David Peterson, former Premier of Ontario, and former Member of Parliament, Svend Robinson (Krotz et al., 1999). 41

United Church of Canada, recounted that his experiences as a labourer-teacher were as formative as his experiences overseas during the First World War. He recounts that his experiences "helped me to know and love my fellow man. They provided for involvement and identification" (in Cook, 1987, p. 45). Other labourer-teachers wrote how the program was "a thrilling experience" and "one of the strangest and most real comradeships of my life" (in Young, 1963, p. 76). However, very little is known about even the most famous of former labourer-teachers: Norman Bethune. Much is made of Norman Bethune's time as a labourer-teacher, the photo of him with Alfred Fitzpatrick at his placement, for example, is one of the most famous in Frontier College's visual history. However, apart from where he worked and some details of his placement (Zavitz Robinson, 1982), virtually nothing is known of the effect the experience had on the remainder of his highly successful life, leading Jack Pearpoint, a former president of Frontier College to imagine whether Dr. Bethune's experiences as a labourer-teacher had any direct impact on his later work (Pearpoint, 1982).

However, apart from collecting the stories of former labourer-teachers with the intention to promote the historical significance of the program, at present the learning of volunteers is not considered a high priority to Frontier College (Martin, 2000). When asked about the learning 12 experience of labourer-teachers, Robert , the national director of the labourer-teacher program, claimed that the program does not sell itself to potential volunteers as a learning experience. Frontier College makes it clear to their volunteers that the program is not about their learning, but rather it is about the learning of their learners. Robert claims that Frontier College does not want volunteers who are looking to consume an experience which would then by definition become about them and their role as the consumers of some product. We have even told people that we don't care if they have a good experience, we don't care if they're happy at the end of this. We just care that they're effective.

All of the names of interviewees have been changed in order to protect their identities. See discussion below in "Methodology" chapter. 42

This position is in contrast to how the learning of volunteers was perceived by past administrations of the labourer-teacher program. In the past, the learning of labourer-teachers was more central to the program and was seen not so much as an inconsequential by-product but as a part of the overall purpose (Martin, 2000). Previous Frontier College president, Eric Robinson (1960), stresses the importance of learning for the labourer-teachers by acknowledging the purpose of the college to provide an "[opportunity for male (sic) university students to broaden their experience by living and working with men in frontier camps" (p. 4). Likewise Jack Pearpoint (1987) discusses the potential learning possibilities for labourer-teachers as a product of the organization's practice of "put[ting] talented people in impossible situations with minimal resources and let[ting] them devise programs responsive to local needs" (p. 279).

Whereas Martin (2000) claims these positions on volunteer learning parallel the viewpoint of present day youth development programs, one recent study reveals the differences in pedagogical approaches between the labourer-teacher program and youth international development programs. Simpson (2004) argues that the phenomenon of volunteer tourism permeates the international development sector. She describes this phenomenon as the practice of organizations recruiting youth from the Global North to go and "do" development work in communities in the Global South. Simpson's research illustrates how the organizations involved in her study offer a shallow understanding of development and are more concerned about the participants' consumption of cultural experiences than they are about genuine development or social change. This approach consequently affects the relationships developed between the volunteers and the people they meet while volunteering and as a result a space is created which is "populated by the existence of consumable experiences of "the other", which is the central commodity for sale, mainly through tourism" (p. 683). Accordingly, the "volunteer-tourist" is instructed on "what to expect and how to consume the experience" (p. 683). Simpson argues that by presenting international development as a consumable experience these programs allow youth volunteers to reproduce a sense of distance from the "other" and where learning to construct a socially just world develops peripherally, if at all.

When asked about the importance of learning to the volunteers who participate in the labourer- teacher program, Robert expresses similar concerns: 43

What we want are people who are not looking to consume an experience which would by definition become about them and their role as consumers of a product. In the last 10 years we've had more and more people apply to the program that have international development experience and yet upon probing them they seem to be coming at this work with the idea that it is an experience that they are somehow "purchasing" so to speak.

However, the earlier position of Frontier College did not consider volunteer learning as the consumption of detached experiences of "the other" but rather Robinson and Pearpoint's perspectives offer an entirely different pedagogical approach. Ideally, the learning that occurs for labourer-teachers does not occur as a result of a one-sided consumption of cultural experiences, but as the result of a dialogical approach to adult education that has been espoused by the labourer-teacher program since Fitzpatrick's day, and is still in use. The labourer-teacher experience is rooted in a series of dialogical encounters as much now as ever, resulting in potentially transformative experiences for the volunteers. Robert himself, even though the program does not promote itself as a learning opportunity for its volunteers, hopes that the labourer-teacher program is a transformative experience for labourer-teachers. He says:

One of my hopes is that by informing so many labourer-teachers about the realities of farm workers through direct experience some of these people will go on to be teachers, public officials, or lawyers and that these people will bring the consciousness of those workers' lives to their work.

In contrast to the phenomenon of volunteer tourism that Simpson describes and that the labourer- teacher program is intent on avoiding, the program creates opportunities for learning to occur naturally for both learners and tutors. In the words of Pearpoint: "We believe that learning and teaching are just different sides of the same coin, and that through teaching we learn" (as cited in Forest & Kappel, 1988, p. 5). Volunteer learning is thus an inevitable product of the Frontier College labourer-teacher program. The remainder of the chapter will investigate the dialogical method employed by labourer-teachers and analyze in more detail the potential learning that can take place for labourer-teacher volunteers. 44

Dialogue

Pearpoint (1989) discusses how literacy is more than just about reading and writing. According to him, for Frontier College literacy is understood as a form of social inclusion for marginalized individuals and communities. The practice of literacy is about moving toward a more just and inclusive society. He says: "Frontier College is an organization dedicated to assisting people to be literate citizens — fully able participants in our society" (Forest & Kappel, 1988, p. 5). Frontier College is rooted in this understanding of literacy and the labourer-teacher program is its quintessential manifestation. The labourer-teacher program, since its inception has reached out to Canada's most isolated and excluded communities and Pearpoint reminds us of Frontier College's effort: "Whenever and wherever people shall meet, there shall be the time, place and means of their education" (Pearpoint, 1989, p. 493). Furthermore the pedagogical approach of the labourer-teacher program is described by Pearpoint as an expression of dialogue. He describes the program as "the worker and the teacher [sharing] their daily life experiences working and living together... we have learned to stop, to look, and to listen to the voices seldom heard." (p. 493). As described in both the historical literature and the more recent organizational literature, the central pedagogical approach of the labourer-teacher program is rooted in dialogue, which has been theorized by Buber (1970) and later applied to pedagogical settings by Freire (2006). Buber

Buber (2002) describes "the basic movement of the life of dialogue" as "the turning toward the other" (p. 25). life, for Buber (1970), is experienced through the encounter with the other. One can never entirely come into contact with one's own fullness of being on one's own, rather one requires a "You to become; becoming I, I say You" (p. 62). In Buber's works the world is understood as two-fold. On the one hand, the world is comprised of dialogue, what he calls the "I-Thou", through which one's being is revealed through unordered reciprocal encounters with others. On the other it is comprised of the "I-It" perspective, a world which is ordered and detached where one cannot authentically encounter others. For Buber relations formed in authentic dialogue are reciprocal and are formed in the "pure present" where both subjects respond to the other in genuine relation and each has an unadulterated influence over the other. He sums up the relationship thus: 45

A being to whom I really say "Thou" is not for me in this moment my object, about whom I observe this and that or whom I put to this or that use, but my partner who stands over against me in his own right and existence and yet is related to me in his life (as cited in Rome & Rome, 1964, p. 21)

Subjects that are encountered within the context of the I-It worldview, however, are not confronted in a spirit of mutuality; rather one consumes the experience of the detached other. However, Buber recognizes that in the everyday world it is impossible to live in the pure present at all times, and that people must return to the world of the I-It, as "without it a human cannot live. But whoever lives only with that is not human" (Buber, 1970, p. 85). Authentic encounters that occur in a current of dialogic reciprocity are not therefore required for the everyday function of getting through life in the world, but these encounters produce the existential conditions for understanding not only the authentic being of others but also for becoming conscious of one's own being. Buber (2002) further differentiates between collectivity, the domain of the I-It and community, the domain of the I-Thou. Buber describes collectivity as a "bundling together" of individuals with little more in common than their mutual proximity; it is based on "an organized atrophy of personal existence" (p. 31). Community on the other hand he describes as "being no longer side by side but with one another of a multitude of persons" (p. 31). Commitment to community is therefore a commitment to the I-Thou worldview - community means a commitment to dialogue.

Buber's I-It and I-Thou worldviews are closely related to Habermas' concepts of technical and practical knowledge, respectively. Buber's I-Thou worldview also provides the potential for emancipatory knowledge. Habermas' technical worldview and Buber's I-It worldview are both concerned with an approach to knowledge which is crucial to a person's understanding of and control over their everyday environment. In such circumstances it is inconvenient and not useful to approach the world in a dialogic way, encountering every individual in her or his full humanity (Buber, 1970). Buber's I-Thou worldview is concerned with an approach which makes possible authentic communication between people and facilitates the movement of information which enables mutual understanding. This authentic dialogic communication can also provide windows of opportunity for moments of transformative learning to occur, potentially resulting in the realization of emancipatory knowledge. Habermas (1979) grappled with these issues when 46 arguing for his concept of the ideal speech situation, whereby power differentials between people are put aside in an attempt to reach "inter-subjective mutuality of reciprocal understanding, shared knowledge, mutual trust, and accord with one another" (p. 3). Habermas' ideal speech situation, which is dialogic and supports both practical and emancipatory knowledge, is an expression of Buber's I-Thou worldview (see also Brookfield, 2005b).

If Buber's thought is applied to the context of community development then the work of development workers can be understood as either working within an understanding of dialogue and mutuality (or Habermas' practical knowledge), where inclusively and equality are practiced or from the position of the I-It (Habermas' technical knowledge), where the "other" is encountered from a distance. For Buber, however, the two are not always mutually exclusive categories, rather the I-Thou relationship can be thought of as a heuristic model, one that is sensitive to degrees of mutuality and inclusion based on power differentials between, for example, teachers and students (Berry, 1985). Activists and social service providers do not necessarily conduct their work within purely dialogical or I-It approaches, but rather dialogue in these situations, for Buber, may only be possible to a limited degree. Freire

Freire (2006) applies the dialogic encounter to pedagogical settings. Freire's dialogical method of teaching is a departure from what he calls the banking method of education, where students are treated like receptacles needing to be filled by teachers who are in possession of expert knowledge. Freire's description of the banking method of teaching parallels Buber's I-It worldview. Banker-teachers discuss "reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable... [Their] task is to 'fill' the students with the contents of [their] narration" (p. 72). Learners are not encountered in the pure present; a student is experienced by the teacher as an "It", a mere "other" who is empty and needing to be filled. This pedagogical style is detached from the reality of the learner - the words of the teacher have little or no significance and ring hollow for the student. For Freire, authentic pedagogical encounters cannot occur within the context of the banker approach as people are considered merely objects to be experienced or used. Authentic encounters can only occur through dialogue, where teacher and student communicate freely in true solidarity. For Freire (2006), in authentic pedagogical encounters teachers cannot impose themselves on their students; rather authentic educative encounters begin with educators claiming a position of solidarity with their learners, which requires true 47 communication, the medium through which life holds meaning. Foley (2001) weighs in on the question of authentic encounters in adult education with a description of solidarity, which for him means "to support and provide resources for learners, to challenge and extend them, but never to patronize or try to control them. It means educators using their power to create educational situations in which learners can exercise power" (p. 75). This position, says Foley, mitigates the negative consequences of educators' invasion in the lives of their learners. The act of solidarity involves educators "recognizing the invasiveness of their work and struggling with learners to build a different sort of relationship" (p. 75).

Beginning from a position of solidarity is meant to diminish the negative effects of cultural invasion that can accompany literacy education, a relationship that Freire (2006) describes as teacher-centred where educators begin from their own standpoint and inform the content of their curriculum and their actions from their own values and principles. The relationship that Freire is intent on avoiding involves educators imposing their own experiences and beliefs onto others, essentially transmitting their ideology into the cultural milieu with which they come into contact. The act of solidarity is more closely related to Freire's concept of cultural synthesis which requires an openness to learning "with the people, about the people's world" (p. 180). This relationship is defined by learners who are integrated in the process of learning and who are co authors of the thematic content of curriculum and action. This, for Freire, defines the act of solidarity. He says: "solidarity requires that one enter into the situation of those with whom one is solitary; it is a radical posture" (p. 49). Freire also distinguishes between radicalism and sectarianism and admits that it is quite possible to be an "activist" without being engaged in dialogue. Freire describes the sectarian as not able to "perceive the dynamic of reality - or else misinterprets it" (p. 38). The sectarian, for Freire, is closed off in his own truth, feels threatened if this truth is questions and "considers anything that is not 'his' truth a lie" (p. 39). The more radical person, claims Freire, is devoted to dialogue and does not become prisoner to his own perceived certainties. He says:

[T]he more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into dialogue with them. This person does not consider 48

himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side (p. 39).

To be radical then means to begin from a position of openness and dialogue. The true radical must be prepared to listen and to doubt their own preconceptions.

Above all, listen

Eric told us to listen. Above all, listen. Listen to the labourer- teachers. Listen to the people on the gang. Don't talk all the time. Listen most of the time. They don't need some guy from Toronto to come out and talk to them. Listen to them. They need to talk. You need to listen. We need to know what they say. Your job is to listen and to hear (From the notebook of instructor Archie Campbell, as cited in Morrison, 1989, p. 189).

American philosopher Linda Alcoff (1991) is concerned with the limits of speaking on behalf of others and the ability of community workers and activists to "cross borders" in an attempt to achieve authentic solidarity with others. For Alcoff, there is no neutral space in which to demarcate the boundaries between individuals. Even individuality itself is an abstraction and cannot be conceived of from outside of interpersonal relations. Alcoff argues that "privilege carries with it presumptions in one's favor when one speaks" (p. 30). Those with less privilege have less of a voice and are vulnerable to misrepresentation and to having their words robbed of them from those who have more privilege. As Alcoff argues, even the decision to remain silent in order to avoid the risk of misrepresenting others is not a neutral act - for it only allows the privileged individual the opportunity to avoid responsibility for his or her effects on others, but cannot eliminate those effects. The act of privileged individuals speaking for others necessarily carries with it the risk of misrepresentation, and therefore can result in both the reproduction of unequal power relations and in the expanse of the authority and privilege of those who speak for

The name "Eric" refers to the then Frontier College president, Eric Robinson.

Borrowed from Giroux (1992). 49 others. Alcoff however, in a vein similar to Freire (2006), maintains that educators and community workers should strive to create dialogue and a space for a practice of speaking with rather than speaking for, a position shared by bell hooks (1990):

I am waiting for them to stop talking about the "Other," to stop even describing how important it is to be able to speak about difference. It is not just important what we speak about, but how and why we speak... We fear those who speak about us, who do not speak to us and with us. We know what it is like to be silenced (pp. 151-152).

By no means, however, does building culturally sensitive relationships with learners expunge all power imbalances between teachers and their learners, for as we ascertain from Foucault (1980), power, as a horizontal, "productive network that runs through the entire social body", is a part of people's everyday lives and is exercised at every moment of personal interaction (p. 119). By engaging in friendship with their learners, the awareness of inter-personal power disparity can be heightened for Frontier College labourer-teachers. These relationships tend to highlight the "favorable, mobile, and dominant position vis-a-vis the structures of power/knowledge" that the Frontier College volunteers, as middle-class, educated Canadians occupy (Alcoff, 1991, p. 30).

Empathic imagination and the conscientization of the privileged

True dialogic encounters are mutually beneficial for both people involved. When teachers and learners encounter each other in a context of dialogue, both are influenced by the other and become both teacher and learner. Indeed, this is the pedagogical goal of the labourer-teacher program as, in the words of Pearpoint, "the College arranges learning exchanges among equals, where students are teachers and teachers are students, both parties exchanging their various skills and talents" (as cited in Forest & Kappel, 1988, p. 5). As has been discussed, this type of learning is not limited to formal education, and in fact is more often tied to informal situations where What is learned is often learned incidentally (Foley, 1999). Besides the skills and talents that Pearpoint discusses, what is learned incidentally when these moments of mutuality occur? We learn from Buber (1970) that the true nature of the world is revealed though dialogue and from Freire (2006) that those who experience this relationship are "increasingly posed with problems relating to themselves in the world and with the world" and will "feel increasingly 50 challenged and obliged to respond to that challenge" (p. 81). Dialogue supports the emergence of consciousness (Buber, 1970; Freire, 2006) and can therefore potentially support the movement from technical or practical knowledge to emancipatory knowledge and critical reflection. This section investigates the nature of this emergence of consciousness within the context of the labourer-teacher program.

Bishop, Huntly, Isaac and Johnson (1988) have applied Freire's concept of conscientization to the Canadian context. The authors talk about the need for Canadians to "overcome our isolation and discover solidarity with one another, here and overseas" (p. 9). They describe the process of conscientization for Canadians as becoming "involved in reflection and action in our own context" (Bishop et al., 1988, p. 9). At present, much of the lifestyle of Canada's middle class is owed to the use and often misuse of labour in or from other countries. It is clear that as the market, the economy, and the state begin to operate on a global level adult educators must start thinking in terms of a global civil society (Hoist, 2002).The priority that Frontier College places on student-centred learning and dialogue results in the openness of labourer-teachers to learn from their learners from the Global South. A window of opportunity is thus opened for volunteers to experience the depth of learning that Freire and Bishop et al. describe.

For Freire becoming an ally with those less privileged means a retreat from privilege and is integral to the act of joining in solidarity with others. When dealing with differing social locations between educators and learners, it is not enough for Freire that educators make the effort to join in solidarity with others in educational situations as stand alone, fragmented encounters. For Freire, true solidarity means that privileged individuals must give up their privileged status in order to join the ranks of the oppressed, what in his work in Guinea-Bissau he referred to as class suicide (Freire, 1978, 2006, p. 163).

For Freire (2006), the process of cultural synthesis constitutes a rebirth for the privileged educator. It is not only a shift in social status, but an epistemological shift in understanding what counts as knowledge and action. Collins (1987; 1991) describes this shift as a deliberate effort by educators to engage in the dialogjcal process where the teacher becomes also a learner, and the learner becomes also a teacher. Trust, claims Freire, is a likely result of this dialogical process, and for Collins this learning has not only socio-political implications, but also a deeply personal 51 quality; the dialogical process is an act of "friends educating friends" (Collins, 1987,1991; Freire, 2006).

However, what does it mean for friends to educate friends, and is it even possible to forfeit one's own privilege? Mayo (1999) questions the capacity of privileged adult educators to perform class suicide with regards to social or political differences between them and their learners (p. 117). He gives the example of when Freire, intending to express his solidarity with the women's liberation movement, claimed that he too was a woman. In criticism, Mayo claims that in order to truly understand what it means to be a woman, one must "feel the pain and share the knowledge of gender oppression" (p. 115). Mayo rightly asks to what extent outside educators, regardless of their intentions or felt solidarity, can understand the "everyday pain suffered by disenfranchised people as a result of their social location" (p. 116). Mayo highlights the critical question of solidarity within the context of social difference and the limits of speaking on behalf of others. He considers the viability of class suicide and expresses doubt at its very possibility. Is it possible for an educated member of the middle-class to surrender their identities, their learned values, social norms, and educational backgrounds; namely many of the things that separate adult educators from their learners?

What does it mean to unlearn one's privilege? Mayo, who questions the ability of people to unlearn their privilege, illustrates his misgivings with an analysis of what French sociologists Bourdieu and Passeron refer to as one's habitus. Bourdieu describes habitus as "an acquired system of generative schemes objectively adjusted to the particular conditions in which it is constituted" (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 95). Habitus is a concept intended to provide a representation of the role of the structural in social reality as expressed through the knowledge and action of individuals in their everyday lives; it is a concept which mediates between social structures and human practices (Grenfell & James, 1998). In the words of Bourdieu:

Social reality exists, so to speak, twice, in things and in minds, in fields and in habitus, outside and inside agents. And when habitus encounters a social world of which it is the product, it finds itself 'as a fish in water', it does not feel the weight of the water and takes the world about itself for granted (as cited in Wacquant, 1989, p. 43). 52

For Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) habitus as a process of inculcation of social structures. Habitus is a method of producing and reproducing cultural norms, and results in the individuals' social disposition - the combination of habits and beliefs that consequently guide all practice. Bourdieu and Passeron articulate a very deterministic examination of habitus in so far as the social disposition which is the result of habitus is by its very nature irreversible. They evoke Husserl's exploration of the genealogy of consciousness: they say of Husserl that "he observes that while one can always acquire a theoretic knowledge of another culture and even remake one's education along the lines of that culture... this appropriation... is not possible in the full sense..." (pp. 42-43). Furthermore, "because learning is an irreversible process, the habitus acquired... conditions the level of reception and degree of assimilation of the messages produced and diffused by the culture industry, and, more generally, of any intellectual or semi-intellectual message" [italics added] (pp. 43-44).

However, recognizing that class suicide may not be possible does not diminish the possibility of meaningful encounters between people across class, gender, racial, or cultural divides or power differentials. Rather than understanding this transformation as a process of reversing the learning of one's habitus and privilege, it is more accurate to describe the transformation as a process of learning about the power and privilege that are a consequence of the volunteers' sociopolitical location. When habitus encounters a social world of which it is not a part there opens a window of opportunity for learning about one's social location to occur. Recognizing the existence of power changes the nature of power relationships. Acknowledging power and privilege when it exists is crucial to the act of subverting power relations. Bunkhouse living, working in the fields, and developing genuine friendships with their migrant agricultural worker colleagues and learners can provide this opportunity for labourer-teachers. In the words of Spivak (1990), "[n]o one can quite articulate the space she herself inhabits... [it is] something that one really only learns from other people" (p. 68).

When the educator becomes immersed in the context of those with whom he or she is working (as according to Freire's cultural synthesis), privileged educators are given the opportunity to reflect on and come to an understanding of the social construction of privilege, in some cases for the first time. This is an important step in the transformation of privilege, for "a deepened consciousness of their situation leads people to apprehend that situation as an historical reality susceptible of transformation" (Freire, 2006, p. 85). As adult educators, making the conscious 53 effort to work in solidarity with others "requires action in our lives. It demands that we not only think differently about ourselves and others, but live differently in the world "(Berger-Knorr, 1997, p. 14). For Foley (1999), this type of learning is gained informally and experientially. Formal education rarely addresses the social construction of privileges such as gender, race or class, resulting in what Kincheloe (1999) has referred to as a "plague" of power illiteracy among students in the Global North (p. 176). Concerned with the way in which some white people come to understand the historicity and social construction of their racial privilege, Kincheloe describes a process of dialogue he calls empathic imagination where white people come to be able to see from the perspective of non-whites. This process involves listening to others and taking them seriously. As a phenomenological experience of challenging the boundaries of privilege, it is a necessary part of learning for critical pedagogy.

From the literature of critical international development studies, Kapoor (2004) claims that the type of phenomenological experience that Kincheloe is describing as the expression of the empathic imagination is fundamental to developing an ethical relationship between those from the Global North and those from the Global South. Kapoor begins with the assumption that privilege is not something that one can just shed like a coat once and for all. As Said (1989) recognizes, an individual's decision to retreat from privilege is in itself an act of privilege. To be privileged allows one the choice to be or not to be in solidarity with others. Therefore, the deconstruction of privilege in teacher-learner relationships cannot constitute a suspension or elimination of privilege. For adult educators to enter a situation and choose a path of solidarity is itself an exercise in privilege and does not entail the surrender of one's social location.

The subverting of interpersonal relationships in this context is not a neutral action; it is political and is part of an analysis of power relations. The development of an ethical relationship between those who are privileged with those who are less so begins with an understanding of the historicity of privilege and learned prejudices (Kapoor, 2004). As we have seen from Freire, a deepening understanding of the historicity of one's reality is an integral step in the transformation of that reality. Hence, the process of "unlearning" corresponds to Freire's concept of conscientization and is an essential element in transforming behaviours that reinforce privilege and oppression. The process of coming to a deeper understanding of privilege involves a "reversal of information and knowledge production so that they flow from South to North" (p. 641). 54

Summary

Dialogue, solidarity, true communication, meaningful encounters with others: these are the heuristic ideals of the labourer-teacher program. Frontier College does not arm volunteers with pre-packaged curricula or a strong goal oriented purpose, rather the labourer-teacher is first and foremost expected to build solid and trusting relationships. The most successful labourer- teachers, from Frontier College's point of view, are the most creative, resourceful, flexible, and sympathetic (Forest & Kappel, 1988). Beginning the teacher-learner relationship from where the students are is the most important aspect of the labourer-teacher philosophy. No learner exists in a vacuum; rather each student has a unique personal and social history. This means recognizing social class, race, gender, age, and nationality all as a part of a person's identity: "unless we deal with that reality, unless we see each person in his or her entire context, we wipe out or erase what makes that person truly human... reality, not fantasy, must guide our actions (pp. 106- 107)". The ideal labourer-teacher is sent out to live and work on farms with migrant workers and strives to encounter their learners not as detached others but rather is encouraged to begin from a position of solidarity and dialogue. The labourer-teacher program provides interesting insights into how service or education oriented organizations that are not committed to direct advocacy can contribute to community building through a dedication to a dialogic approach to their work. That said, the present form of the labourer-teacher program tends to understand dialogue as a useful method of teaching, but underestimates the potential for learning that authentic dialogue can bring about for the tutors, essentially overlooking opportunities to understand and make explicit volunteer learning and experience.

However, the model of practice that the Frontier College labourer-teacher program applies fits neither a charity (helper model) nor an advocacy model, but rather inhabits a space rooted in mutuality and dialogue. Frontier College labourer-teachers are actively immersed in a culture of dialogic practice with migrant agricultural workers from the Global South and are thus presented with complex situations in which there is a high potential for incidental learning to occur. The labourer-teacher program creates the opportune circumstances for the conscientization of its volunteers, and as a result there is a great potential for the development of a grassroots movement committed to emancipatory social change. As Basok and Ilcan (2003) claim, the voluntary sector contains both oppressive and emancipatory elements. Even though the learning of Frontier College volunteers may be pushed to the margins, even by the administration of the 55 program itself, the content of conscientization implies the possibility of dissent for labourer- teachers. Jenson and Phillips (1996) in fact argue that even within the limited context of a depoliticized civil society there is a place for organized interests from grassroots field workers as they are still "the basis for civic engagement [and] contribute to the development of communities and civil society. They cannot easily separate their activities to become simply the service providers the government seems to want" (p. 129). That the labourer-teacher program continues to promote a dialogic pedagogy, which in the words of Pearpoint (1989) is "profoundly political" (p. 499) is in itself a sign of emancipatory possibility. This chapter suggests that the dialogic model, as it is committed to solidarity (Freire, 2006), community building (Buber, 2002), and authentic relationship building (Buber, 1970) offers a model which can provide a radical foundation for both service provision and advocacy roles within organizations.

At present Frontier College is going through a number of high level administration changes and in the most recent 5-year strategic plan, the college expressed a commitment to a "revitalized version of [their] original labourer-teacher program" (Frontier College, 2008b, p. 4) as well as a commitment to "reaching more people in isolated, rural and remote settings" (p. 6). Another goal is "deepening our understanding of our impact on learners and volunteers" (p. 6), perhaps moving beyond a traditional quantitative approach to program evaluation. This attitude could include a commitment to consolidating volunteer learning, and in fact as this chapter was being written, a letter from Frontier College was being sent to former labourer-teachers as an invitation to share their stories. Other goals include identifying non-traditional funding streams, potentially paving the way for a possible advocacy role, meaning the experiences of labourer-teachers could be used to inform a wider policy debate on the issue of Canadian labour migration policy instead of for merely promotional purposes of Frontier College. 56

Chapter 4 Methodology

Introduction

This chapter presents an overview of the methodological framework for this study, how it was conducted and the justification for its use. The framework is described as qualitative and phenomenological and is presented in contrast to the existing research on the Frontier College labourer-teacher program. A detailed synopsis of the research process is provided from the collection of data to the final process of writing. The chapter concludes with an account of those labourer-teachers who agreed to participate.

Overview of existing research on the Frontier College labourer-teacher program

Over the past century, the vast majority of literature on Frontier College has been written from an historical perspective (Cook, 1987; Martin, 2000; Morrison, 1989,1999a, 1999b; Quigley, 2007; Robinson, 1960). This literature is abundant and illustrates Frontier College's rich institutional history and how it is inextricably bound to that of adult education in Canada (Hay, 1950; Martin, 2000; Quigley, 2007). Outside of historical analysis, the work of Frontier College has not been examined in much detail, with one notable exception: Ross Kidd's (1975) quantitative research analysis of the roles and perceptions of Frontier College labourer-teachers. Kidd recognizes a gap in the Frontier College literature and steps out of the traditional historical framework in order to provide a quantitative, bird's eye view analysis of what roles Frontier College volunteers were fulfilling and what challenges they were facing in the field in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He claimed that "an evaluation of Frontier College's labourer-teacher programme is long overdue" (p. 2). In his study, Kidd recruited a random sampling of 160 former labourer-teachers who were asked to respond to a questionnaire that was designed to gather data regarding individual labourer-teachers' perceptions of performance. Opinions were thus gathered, duly coded and rated using the Likert scale15 for the measurement of attitudes as it "proved to be very useful since it simplifies the problem of expressing opinions on a large

Typically, a researcher who uses the Likert scale will pose a question in the form of a statement followed by a series of possible attitudes toward that statement, i.e. strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, strongly disagree (Mogey, 2008). 57 number of statements and yet simplifies the required data" (p. 39). It was Kidd's intention to provide a broad macro picture of the Frontier College labourer-teacher program from the perspective of former field workers who at the time of his research were widely distributed geographically "on and off the North American continent" (p. 41). A quantitative style analysis was thus chosen over a more qualitative approach which would have used a smaller sample and more personal contact with participants. The purpose of his study was to analyze and describe the views of former labourer-teachers vis-a-vis their Frontier College placements and as such is a descriptive quantitative study that attempts to "identify and describe patterns... that are clear enough and regular enough to guide educational action" (Valentine, 1997, p. 1). The goal of the study as a whole is to provide a useful assessment of the program for purposes of internal evaluation and larger policy level educational strategies (Kidd, 1975). The purpose of the method used is to uncover patterns of opinion in the unnaturally chaotic learning environment where labourer-teachers work - information that agency directors, boards of governors, and policy makers will be able to use in order to improve practice (Valentine, 1997).

Methodological framework of this study

This research project investigates the experiences and learning of Frontier College labourer- teachers and is based on the analysis of interviews conducted one-on-one with former labourer- teachers. Gaining worthwhile insights into the work and experiences of labourer-teachers from the field requires a qualitative approach, as this approach entails "understanding a phenomena in all its complexity and within a particular situation and environment" (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994, p. 13). Although a quantitative approach like Kidd's is good at providing a macro analysis of a situation, there is a tendency for the minutiae of daily experience to fade into the background of the larger picture. As the purpose of my work is to understand the experience and learning of field workers in order to inform the practice of understanding and consolidating the learning of volunteers, theories developed from my study will be derived from the direct and specific experience of practitioners.

The approach taken for this project is qualitative in Shank's (2002) sense of "a systematic empirical inquiry into meaning" (p. 11). The guiding idea of this research is to offer unique insights into and to bring to light the meaning of the labourer-teacher experience by uncovering the significance of participants' learning. For Shank, the qualitative researcher strives to be a 58 searcher, discoverer, and reconciler "of meaning where no meaning has been clearly understood before" and that furthermore the understanding of meaning is incomplete without the understanding of its role in practice and daily experience (p. 11). The method of inquiry of this study is also phenomenological in so far as the guiding principle has been that "experience is not indistinct and unstructured chaos; it appears as differentiated and structured" and that the purpose of conducting qualitative research is to uncover the "meaning, clarity, and discrimination" of experience (Polkinghorne, 1989, p. 51). The approach, therefore, has focused on the meaning that events and situations contain for those labourer-teachers who have agreed to participate in this study (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994).

Data collection and analysis

Giorgj (1997) describes the following steps to qualitative phenomenological research:

(1) collection of verbal data, (2) reading of the data, (3) breaking of the data into some kind of parts, (4) organization and expression of the data from a disciplinary perspective, and (5) synthesis or summary of the data for purposes of communication to the scholarly community (p. 245).

My methodological process follows these five distinct steps, described in detail below.

Collection of verbal data

As stated above, the issues explored and my concerns regarding the value of this research study have come to me through my own field experience as a Frontier College labourer-teacher. As a researcher I am aware of my own potential preconceived notions of what my research may uncover. Participants nevertheless have expressed how it has been powerful to reflect with a researcher who has also been a participant in the program, as our commonality of experience is a validation of the participants' own experiences. Additionally, I am aware that my role as a researcher is part of the process of making tacit knowledge explicit. It was my intention to conduct a research study that could provide an example of the dialogical process as a part of the interview process. As a former labourer-teacher I was more able to approach my participants in a spirit of mutuality and dialogue, and in the process of reflection(-on-action) have provided a space where tacit knowledge could become explicit not only for the participants but also for me, 59 the researcher. I am aware that to a degree, it is possible that through reflection on their work as labourer-teachers the participants of this research were provided with an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of their learning as labourer-teachers and that this environment of mutual learning could produce a context to enable social transformation. As Schugurensky (2002) argues, the context in which we learn and interact with each other, the context in which our tacit learning becomes explicit, is crucial in explaining the connections between individual and social transformation. He says that "a supportive social environment, a social reality that is susceptible to transformation, and a sense of community are important elements in creating the conditions for social transformation" (p. 62). It is my hope that this process has offered such a context for participants to communicate freely about and reflect critically on their work as Frontier College labourer-teachers.

Moreover, in my attempt to collect raw descriptions of the experiences of the participants, it was necessary to make an attempt to be aware of and to set aside any assumptions I may have brought to the investigation (see Polkinghorne, 1989). According to Giorgi (1997), "past interpretations can predetermine present experience, and when they do, then the situation is not being determined by the most rigorous standards possible" (p. 240). My data was therefore collected through semi-structured conversational 90-minute interviews composed of open-ended questions , thus providing participants with the opportunity to reflect on and share the details of their own experiences. Generally, I asked questions about their work and experiences as labourer-teachers in order to facilitate conversations about the complexities and subtleties of their work and learning. In the words of Kvale (1996), the qualitative research interview "is neither an open conversation nor a highly structured questionnaire... the interviewer leads the subject towards certain themes, but not to certain opinions about these themes" (pp. 27-34). Interesting, ambiguous, complex, or contradictory answers were probed more deeply, resulting in a more nuanced understanding of the experiences disclosed.

Reading the data and breaking it off into parts

Verbal interviews were recorded and accordingly transcribed. Transcriptions were initially read with the intent to gain a holistic perspective of the data collected. Subsequent readings were

A list of question is provided in Appendix A. 60 more focused on delineating the data into distinguishable parts. Keeping in mind the spirit of discovery that characterizes the practice of qualitative inquiry (Giorgi, 1997; Shank, 2002) these readings were approached with an attitude of both awareness of the topic at hand and an element of spontaneity so as to stimulate a mind-set of openness to the data which allowed significant meanings to be discerned (Giorgi, 1997). In other words, in seeking to discover "key meaningful themes" that are a part of the lived experiences of my participants, I have attempted to nurture to the best of my abilities a "deliberate openness" and not try to pull "everything together too soon" (Shank, 2002, p. 44).

Organization, synthesis, and summary of data

As the participants' voices represent the pre-theoretical outlook of everyday life, from the phenomenological point of view the opinions and perspectives expressed in the raw data required rigorous re-examination and re-representation within the perspective of the selected discipline, in this case adult education and community/international development studies (Giorgi, 1997; Polkinghorne, 1989). At this point my subjectivity as both a former Frontier College labourer- teacher and as a researcher with the disciplinary intuition of an adult educator began to function as a guide and the basis for my "distinct contribution, which comes from joining personal interpretations with the data that have been collected and analyzed" (Eisenhart & Borko, 1993, p. 96).

Whenever recognizable themes overlapped the experiences of most if not all of the participants, those ideas were analyzed with the intent to build a disciplinary analysis. A literature review was developed as a result of a back and forth between my own preliminary hunches as well as a thorough investigation of the meanings drawn from the data.

Coding

A holistic reading of the data began to slowly reveal similarities in experience between the participants with regards to the practice of their work as well as their learning outcomes. First, as volunteers' learning was not systematically consolidated by Frontier College, it was somewhat difficult for participants to discuss their learning, for reasons explored in the second chapter of this thesis. Their learning was therefore framed as not only acquired incidentally but also as remaining for the most part tacit, hence the first heading, "Labourer-teachers learning more than they could tell". Since the objective of the research is to gain an understanding of learning, it was 61 also necessary to have a sense of the motivating factors that led participants to participate in the labourer-teacher program, hence the second heading, "Motivations".

It became clear that even though the participants worked in a wide variety of workplaces, the nature of the work expected of the participants was comparable in certain respects. All of the participants were expected to "hit the ground running" and to begin to forge trusting relationships with their learners. All participants were expected to live and work in solidarity with their learners as a prerequisite of their teaching responsibilities, which were expected to be learner-centred and rooted in dialogue. Additionally, all of the participants were expected to manage as best as they could a variety of complex circumstances and relationships. These responsibilities contributed to what I call the "The 'how' of learning: Solidarity, dialogue and struggle". Participants' learning was thus framed in terms of solidarity and struggle, each participant giving their unique perspective on these two integral aspects of their labourer-teacher experiences.

When probed, participants discussed their learning, some with facility, and others with more difficulty. As stated above, participants' learning is expressed as largely tacit, meaning it was necessary to probe more deeply in some instances in order for participants to become aware of and make explicit the outcomes of their learning. It was thought that the participants' shift in perspective, while not always similar to each other, were dramatic enough to qualify as a raising of consciousness and hence was coded as "Conscientization", which included shifts in perspectives and values. One topic in particular kept cropping up in participants' stories of what they had learned, and that was the theme of participants learning about themselves and their place in the world. Hence, a final subsection to "Conscientization" was added which dealt with participants' learning of power and privilege. This heading is presented as "From South to North: Learning and unlearning lessons about privilege".

The participants

In an effort to maintain an unambiguous relationship with Frontier College as a researcher, I sought the institutional approval of this study from Frontier College administrators. Recruitment of participants was conducted through an informal Frontier College database of email addresses of former labourer-teachers. Potential participants were informed of the focus of the research and were asked to participate in a 90-minute person-to-person interview for the purpose of gathering 62 information about their work as labourer-teachers - their daily tasks, relationships developed, problems faced, educational strategies, personal motivations, and the like. To begin, I approached 10 former labourer-teachers and surprisingly, all of those asked agreed to participate, thus making further recruitment unnecessary. Of those 10 who agreed to be interviewed, 7 were chosen due to their geographic proximity to Toronto. Of these 7, in addition to being former labourer-teachers 2 were also present labourer-teachers at the time of their interviews.

That everyone who was approached agreed to participate in this study is indicative not only of the importance that their contribution to the labourer-teacher program has had on their lives, but also on how they want to gain an outlet for their experiences. In the words of one participant, 17 Paul : "Participating in the program has been the most transformative experience of my life. Being able to vocalize and reflect on my experience allows me to understand myself better." On accepting the invitation to be interviewed, some participants expressed their excitement at having had the opportunity to share their stories, and yet others said they felt honoured to have been asked to participate. In order to ensure the maximum level of confidentiality, all participants were informed that their names and any precise details of their individual placements, as well as workplace or interview scenarios were to be changed (e.g. Wheatly, Ontario becomes "a small farming community in Southern Ontario"). Nonetheless, as Frontier College is the only adult literacy organization working with migrant agricultural workers on farms in Southern Ontario, participants were cautioned of the unlikely possibility that an energetic and enterprising investigator could come to know their identities through an analysis of their responses as presented in the final thesis.

At the time of the interviews all 7 of the participants had worked as labourer-teachers in the past three years. Two of the 7 were just finishing their current placements when they were interviewed, although both of these interviewees had participated in the program in previous years. Five of the 7 interviewees participated in the program longer than one agricultural season. All participants were in their early to mid-twenties when they worked as labourer-teachers, and although 4 of the participants had worked with Caribbean farm workers to a certain extent, all of

In order to minimize the risk of participants being identified, both their names and the specific details of their workplace scenarios have been changed - see below. 63 the participants worked primarily with Mexican farm workers. The participants of this study worked in a wide variety of agricultural settings, from small family-owned tobacco farms in Ontario's tobacco belt of Norfolk County, to medium-sized orchards and tree nurseries in the Niagara area, to large tomato and cucumber greenhouse operations in Essex County. While Frontier College does not keep formal records of the hours worked by labourer-teachers, when asked, the participants of this study responded that they worked between 60 to 100 hours a week for the duration of their placements (including both teaching and manual labour).

As noted above, very little has been written about the Frontier College labourer-teacher program since it began working with migrant agricultural workers in 1990, and what has been written has been from a purely historical perspective. It was therefore necessary to conduct an interview with the director of the labourer-teacher program in order to get a clearer depiction of the way in which the program in its present form is run. For the purposes of confidentiality, his name has also been changed. This interview took place at the Frontier College national office in Toronto. We discussed the genesis, mandate, challenges, and methods of the labourer-teacher program.

Summary

As is clear from much of the historical literature about the Frontier College labourer-teacher program as well as Kidd's study, the labourer-teacher program is a defining experience for many young educators and community workers who often go on to become significant members in their respective communities (see discussion of this above). The present and former labourer- teachers that I contacted have been eager to participate in a study that intends to discover the meanings of their lived experiences and learning as labourer-teachers. Given how the details and nuances of lived experience tend to get lost in large quantitative analyses like Kidd's, a questionnaire approach to this topic would have discouraged participants and not provided my study with the detail needed to formulate a meaningful analysis.

As well, as this thesis is an exploration of the informal/incidental learning of labourer-teachers, the dialogic nature of the qualitative and phenomenological approach, in addition to providing insights into the lived experiences of labourer-teachers, provides an integral opportunity to make explicit the implicit learning of both the participants and the researcher.

The following chapter provides a detailed analysis of the data collected. 64 65

Chapter 5 Data Analysis Introduction

This thesis has been designed to provide a useful opportunity for reflection in informal and incidental learning for Frontier College volunteer labourer-teachers. The findings of this research, i.e. the process and content of participants' learning, highlight several paradoxes of the labourer-teacher program, contrasting what actually happens in the field as opposed to Frontier College policy. Findings suggest:

1) Even though Frontier College is not an advocate for the rights of migrant agricultural workers and focuses primarily on the provision of literacy and basic skills, the labourer- teacher program, as it is rooted in a pedagogy of dialogue, blurs the line between service provision and social justice.

2) Whereas Frontier College does promote a degree of reflection among its volunteers in terms of efficacy of practice, the organization is not in a position to promote critical reflection, and to a certain extent also interrupts reflection which would support practical or social knowledge.

3) The role that dialogue plays in the work of Frontier College labourer-teachers provides volunteers with the opportunity to have consciousness-raising learning experiences.

The findings suggest that by employing a dialogical approach to their work, the participants of this study became more receptive to learning; for, in the words of Collins (1991): "in remembering to let the learner learn, the teacher has to be open to being taught" (p. 49). This echoes the words of one participant: "There is no way that I could have done anything but learn from my migrant worker learners" (Barbara). However, as Frontier College does not presently express an overt interest in consolidating the learning of their volunteers, the learning often remains tacit. To illustrate: Anna, a labourer-teacher for seven consecutive agricultural seasons, describes her experience with her own learning and the labourer-teacher program by claiming that her learning is merely a: 66

by-product of the program. It is probably true that we take away more than we put in, but at the same time the focus is really on the people you're working with and the issues that they are dealing with, and not your own learning.

The stress on dialogue and relationship-building promotes the creation of a space where volunteers strive meet their learners not as distanced "others" but as whole persons, leading to what Freire (2006) refers to as a "deepening awareness of the reality of the situation" (p. 109). Often this deepening awareness leads to volunteers gaining feelings of social awareness, responsibility, and a more intimate understanding of the lives and ultimately, exploitation of migrant workers, irrespective of Frontier College's ability or inability to advocate.

Labourer-teachers learning more than they could tell

All of the participants felt as though that they had learned more from their learners than they were able to teach even though, in keeping with what they were instructed at Frontier College orientation before arriving on their placements, every participant prioritized the learning of their learners before their own learning. When participants were asked directly about what they had learned, all participants claimed that they learned a variety of technical and social skills while working as a labourer-teacher, such as Spanish, various farm-related skills, and two even commented on how they learned salsa dancing during their time as a volunteer labourer-teacher. However, participants also spoke of a learning that was hard to pin-point and difficult to explain. It is this learning that is of primary interest to this study. In answering general open-ended questions about their work as labourer-teachers, participants revealed knowledge which was tacit; knowledge that one participant claimed was more "spiritual than rational", as she could not imagine it could be described or grasped through reason alone (Kate). By and large, the participants of this study had learned more than they could tell, as Polanyi (1983) puts it.

Motivations

The participants of this study are considered active volunteers according to Reed and Selbee's (2003) description discussed above. Most of the participants had come across the advertisement at school or had heard about the program through word of mouth. However, only one of the participants knew of the existence of migrant agricultural workers in Canada before participating 67 in the program. When asked to describe their motivations to become a labourer-teacher, participants referred to a broad spectrum of reasons, from a desire to work toward social justice to wanting to spend a fun summer working on a farm and reconnecting with nature.

Three of the volunteers were motivated to participate out of a sense of social justice and had an expectation of working toward social change. Of all of the participants, this feeling was strongest for Dennis. He says that he felt there was "some kind of moral imperative to do the work as it dealt with issues so relevant to labour exploitation in Canada today." Dennis had just finished a master's thesis and was feeling detached from the social justice struggles in which he was most interested. He says that he thought of the labourer-teacher program in terms of putting "theory into practice. I saw it as both a personal challenge and a logical outcome of my academic work. I felt that I had something to offer and I think I thought opportunities would present themselves for addressing injustice." Kate also expressed the desire to work toward social justice as a motivational reason for participating in the program. This was in addition to her interest in the opportunity to practice her Spanish skills and work on a farm, as she was also interested in issues of food security. Barbara, whose grandfather had been a labourer-teacher, was motivated by the program's philosophy of working with individuals from the most marginalized communities through a framework of social inclusion.

Three of the participants, Paul, Anna, and Margo, discuss the importance of relationship-building as a key motivating factor to participating in the program. In the words of Paul: "It seemed like a good way to spend the summer... I mean trying to understand the life experiences of people in my community that I have little contact with. That was pretty powerful." He also discusses the desire to challenge himself: "Sometimes the idea of it scared me, but in the end it was definitely worth it." Anna, who already spoke Spanish and had some experience doing physical labour, was also interested in migration and teaching and was intrigued by the program, she says:

Oddly enough I was really attracted to the idea of being in a closed bunkhouse environment where I had no choice but to really get to know people better. I felt like people who lived together would be more comfortable learning together.

And Margo, who was interested in working with new Canadians and who had spent some time in Central America, found out about the program from some university colleagues who had 68 participated in the past. She was really impressed by the level of enthusiasm that her friends expressed when talking about their experiences. She says she decided to participate because her friends talked about how "they had made some really intense connections with people and that they just couldn't get enough of 'labourer-teaching' and connecting with those people again and again."

Lastly, in response to what motivated her to become a labourer-teacher, Carmen claimed she was mostly interested in working on her tan. She says: "I had this idea of spending the summer going to work on a farm, you know, getting back to nature. I had this idea of an ideal summer under the sun learning Spanish and teaching English."

The "how" of learning: Solidarity, dialogue and struggle

For all of the participants, the Frontier College labourer-teacher program was an intense learning experience. When asked directly about their learning, Anna claims that the labourer-teacher program had "completely changed her life", while Dennis claims that it was the "most intense educational experience" of his life. When asked to elaborate on why the learning was so intense, participants talked about how the very nature of the program allows for profound learning. Reminiscent of Pearpoint (1987) and Bradwin (1963) participants talk about independence as a key factor in their learning. Paul in particular talks about how having to set up his own program on the farm under unusually stressful conditions "forced [him] to learn a lot about [himself] and to mature in the process." Similarly, Anna says she learned from not feeling coddled:

It's hard work; it's really hard work. You can get injured; I got injured. It wasn't always clear what your role was and you often had to figure that out for yourself depending on the different farm culture and environment you were in. You're just not coddled. Even being able to take the initiative for yourself to figure out how you're going to teach and when you're going to teach. These things aren't directed for you, and it's challenging.

Learning by living in solidarity

The feelings of solidarity that the participants experienced are derived from the experiences of both living and working with their farm-worker colleagues and facilitating student-centred 69 teaching and learning encounters with their learners. The participants learned about the issues faced daily by migrant workers through the relationships they developed with their learners and colleagues. Margo talks about how this was integral to her learning: "Learning people's stories makes policies seem more real than learning them from a book or in a class in university. You get a much better idea of what it means to be a migrant worker in Canada." At labourer-teacher orientation volunteers are instructed in how to create a learning environment where pedagogical encounters begin from the experiences of learners and where learners are not treated like empty vessels: a space where dialogue is encouraged and can be practiced. By creating an educational space where labourer-teachers are encouraged to foster an authentic interest in their learners' lives and experiences and to strive for a democratic environment for learning to take place, the participants feel that they had cultivated an openness to learning with their learners. In other words, by facilitating learner-centred ESL and literacy lessons the participants of this study feel as if they had no choice but to put themselves in a position where they were open to learning. For Dennis, who had never taught adults before, this approach was intensely educational. He says that when he started with the program he was ready to take himself and his work very seriously, that he thought that "the road to empowerment was a rigid commitment to structure." He says that at first letting go of this assumption felt unnatural, that he had to learn to be open to his learners' perspectives and to the unexpected. Barbara gives one example of this openness to the unexpected from her teaching a group of women on her farm placement. She talks about how she was ready to teach English for shopping or getting around town, but instead her colleagues wanted to learn how to respond effectively to racist or sexist comments made towards them by their employer. Barbara molded her lessons in response to the needs of her learners, who gained the capacity to defend themselves at work. In doing so Barbara developed stronger relationships with her learners and learned more about the reality of her colleagues' lives in Canada. Barbara's practice can be described as what Foley (2001) calls a "radical yet ordinary" method of facilitating adult learning, where negative learning is identified, in this case "learning to stand there mute when someone is insulting you" (Barbara) and where positive learning, in this case resistance to disrespectful behaviour, is fostered. This type of learning encounter, Foley claims, is radically educative for both the learners and the educators. 70

Activism and dialogue: "hit" vs. "I-Thou"

When asked about their work, participants spoke about the synergies between their work and the work of overtly political organizations. Participants do not consider their work with the labourer- teacher program as social activism and feel the need to disassociate themselves from an overtly political agenda in order to maintain professional relationships with the farmers who invite labourer-teachers onto their worksites. Some common findings are:

• All of the participants sense as if they were in a unique position to build meaningful friendships with migrant workers and believe they were in more of a position to hear to the interests of their colleagues than were their activist counterparts.

• All participants value their role as day labourers living on the farms and feel that as a result of their function on the farm they had countless opportunities to become more directly involved in the daily lives of migrant workers.

• All participants are keenly aware of the differences in roles between them and those representing advocacy organizations and claim that the act of solidarity with their learners was fundamental to their work as adult educators.

Barbara talks about how being treated the same as the workers was integral to her work as a labourer-teacher. She says: "The farmer treated me with the exact same disrespect he treated everybody else with." Being in this position day in and day out provided the participants with a unique perspective on the lives of their learners. However, participants also expressed frustration at not having the capacity to act on any learning that they may have been gaining as a result of their positions of solidarity in their workplaces. Barbara expressed this sentiment thus: "Once you begin to hear stories of unjust situations that people find themselves in as guests in our country it's hard not to stand up and say something without compromising your values." Although many participants feel frustrated at their inability to support their colleagues on a macro scale, all participants underscored the importance of their role as a friend and all felt there was great value in building trust and camaraderie as an alternative to what one participant called "putting on the activist hat and just barnstorming" (Paul). 71

When asked to elaborate on how their work is different from the work of activists, most of the participants expressed a certain degree of apprehension regarding the role of the activist as an advocate for migrant workers. Participants expressed a general feeling that the role of the advocate is at least partly disingenuous as few activists have the occasion to encounter actual workers in workplace contexts. Participants expressed frustration with activists who purport to speak on behalf of workers without actually spending the time working and living with them. Although it is by no means necessarily the case that political activists cannot employ dialogical relationship-building in their work, some participants of this study felt as though some activists, whereas their intentions may be good, spend too much time trying to push their own agendas. Paul, who had more contact with advocacy groups than most of the other participants, feels as though there was an unambiguous difference between his work and the work of activists. He says:

I find sometimes the activists I met didn't always listen to the concerns of the workers. I'm not saying that people shouldn't be advocating for change at the structural level, but I think that working directly with people is crucial and somehow just more real.

That the experience of the program was "real" is a sentiment that is shared by all of the participants. Anna especially stresses the "realness" of her experience throughout her interview as do Carolyn and Kate. This realness that participants claim was such a tangible element of their experience can be construed as part and parcel of the dialogic encounter between labourer- teachers and their learners; the mutual connection that Buber describes. Participants consider the purely activist model was somehow less real, interpreted here as more closely related to Buber's understanding of the I-It worldview where migrant labourers are encountered from a distance in a capacity other than their full humanity. The I-It worldview is associated with Habermas' technical concept of knowledge, as it is concerned with information related to the understanding and control of people's everyday environments - information which is detached from the spirit of mutuality that Buber describes. Rather than representing a categorical difference, however, for Buber the I-It and the authentic I-Thou worldviews are understood more as bookends to a continuum of dialogue, and that working as an activist, teacher, or community development worker from a position of pure dialogue is only possible to a limited degree (Berry, 1985). That 72 said, participants feel that their experiences were rooted in dialogue and friendship, and that the labourer-teacher program at its best strives to create spaces and relationships where both migrant workers and labourer-teachers are empowered to "become actors in their own situation" (Dennis). Dennis emphasizes the importance of dialogue when working with members of marginalized communities: "When so much about the situation is just pushing them into sort of passive positions it's vital even just to provide people with a place to assert their own needs". For Paul, striving to encounter migrant workers in their full humanity is a radical disruption of racial and class-based social categories. He says:

It shows people, other Canadians, that migrant workers are actual people that should be respected. These people are branded as "the other", I mean there's a lot of racism out there, and for me as a white, educated, and relatively privileged person to go and do this work... I mean there's something really radical about that.

The dialogic encounter that participants describe is closely related to Habermas' understanding of practical knowledge, as it is concerned with communication and enabling people to understand each others' ways of knowing (Habermas, 1971). Living in solidarity and building relationships based on communicative dialogue with migrant workers can also lead to moments of reflexive learning and critical reflection, thus opening the door to emancipatory knowledge, and as shall be discussed below, participants expressed frustration at being present in an unjust situation and not having the capacity to bring about systemic change.

Learning through struggle

For all of the participants, the act of solidarity means learning to live, work, and build meaningful relationships within the context of what one participant describes as a "schizophrenic work environment" (Dennis) due to the need to maintain a variety of conflicting relationships. Each participant feels they were placed in a difficult workplace, regardless of the relative kindness or toughness of their respective employers. Participants describe the difficulty of their placements in a variety of ways, depending on their individual experiences. Carolyn for example describes the living conditions at her farm as "atrocious" and that even though the labourer- teachers had the best and cleanest accommodations, her. and her labourer-teacher colleague were still "living out in the barn with two other women"; she portrays the situation as "really bad." 73

"The cockroaches," she exclaimed with a grimace, "were the worst. They'd climb up your walls and into your bed. I would close my eyes at night and see cockroaches everywhere." She makes clear however that her migrant worker colleagues had it worse, as they had "absolutely no privacy — people had to put up towels and sheets and stuff to try and give themselves the semblance of some privacy. It was really dirty, old, and just plain nasty." Kate on the other hand, who felt that while her accommodations were reasonably pleasant, complains of having to work for an "aggressive and temperamental" employer who spoke no Spanish. A Spanish-speaker, she feels that her colleagues became

dependent on [her] as a sort of method of communication with the employer, which was a drag because he was really pushy and really manipulative to the workers and it's pretty hard for a bunch of Mexican guys to say 'no' to a guy who's like 6'6" and will scream at you any moment.

Furthermore, most participants expressed frustration at trying to find the time to conduct ESL or literacy lessons after long days working on the farm. Kate's experiences are representative of this general sentiment:

We did some informal "lessons" in the field when we had long days, but once we got on the harvester, I mean you can't even hear yourself think on that thing, so then we had no time at all. I think at the end of the season everybody's exhaustion was at such a point that nobody even wanted to try to understand another language anymore. It was just as easy to look to me to translate everything. At the end I felt I wasn't able to accomplish what I had gone there to achieve.

These difficulties provided the participants with a window of opportunity through which genuine insight could be gleaned into the experiences of their colleagues. In the words of Dennis: "you are up against so many barriers. Getting a sense of all the interests and the complexity of the issue and developing skills in trying to deal with all of that. You are learning through that struggle." And Paul: "There is something very radically educational about the work we are doing, because we have to suffer a little bit and learn from that suffering." 74

The struggle, as described by the participants can be expressed as having three elements: first, participants speak of the struggle to accomplish the physical labour; second, participants describe the emotional burden of bearing witness to and sharing in the experiences of migrant workers' everyday struggles, and third; participants illustrate the complexity of juggling a variety of competing interests. Carrying out the manual labour

With respect to the physical labour, it is important to point out that with the exception of one person all of the participants of this study were at the time of their placements either university graduates or university students on summer vacation. The one participant who was the exception was a participant who was starting her college program in the fall after her first Frontier College placement. For these educated Canadian volunteers, physical labour was outside of the realm of what was considered desirable work. Although the physical labour aspect of their work was paid and cannot be considered a part of their volunteer work, all participants discussed the importance of the physical work in gaining the trust and building relationships with their learners and colleagues. The physical labour is hence foundational to and cannot be separated from the realm of their volunteer activities. In the words of one participant:

The fact that we were co-workers gave us an instant bond. Even though you can never get past the fact that you are an outsider, you can share the experience that you are working the same job, especially since it's a hard job, and you are all experiencing the same aches and rashes (Barbara).

Margo talks about the importance of the physical labour to create a level playing field in order to gain the respect of her colleagues: "I always try to work the same hours as the migrant workers 18 and I don't take the weekends off like other Canadians . I would never do that, so I think there is respect there because of that." Anna, who sustained a shoulder injury as a result of the manual

Here she is referring to the other Canadian farm-hands with whom she worked. It is generally understood that locals who work farms take at least one day off a week, which is not the case for migrant workers, who generally work at least a half-day on Sundays (which, incidentally, would be considered a full day by many Canadians). 75 labour, talks about how the physical struggle of doing the work reinforced her relationships with her colleagues and solidified her learning around the issue of labour migration. She says:

I feel it in my body, in the aches and pains and difficulties. Actually doing the work and having injuries to show for it act as reminders of the experience in a way that intellectually I don't think I'd have gotten if I had just worked on these issues in an intellectual way (Anna).

Hence, the paid physical labour was a crucial element in the dialogic encounter, meeting their learners where their learners are, and developing trusting and meaningful relationships. Bearing witness to everyday struggles

The second part of the struggle, described as that of bearing witness and sharing in the experience of migrant workers' everyday struggles, is described as a formative experience for all of the participants regardless of their workplace. In the words of one participant:

It's important to recognize that a big part of the value of the [labourer-teacher] program is to just be a sort of witness to a certain degree. Just by being on the farm it is important to try to get a better understanding of what the people who are facing injustice directly are experiencing what their options are. Because it's really easy to say, "why didn't you say anything," when really we have no idea of the difficulties that migrant farm workers are going through or the risks that they face in terms of what can happen if they stand up for themselves. Just being on the farm was the biggest part of my learning (Dennis).

Those participants who felt they had been placed on a farm with a challenging employer1 feel they had learned from sharing in their colleagues' particularly strained workplace circumstances. Barbara speaks of this:

It is important to note that the responsibility for any injustices that occur within the CSAWP cannot be placed solely on the shoulders of employers. That said it is also important to stress that there are a wide range of farmers 76

The farmer treated his labourer-teachers with the same disrespect that he treated everybody else with. It was an eye-opening experience just to know people could be treated that way at work and the personal realization as to why somebody might allow that to keep going on.

Similarly Carmen describes how even though she felt it. would have been better to somehow have been able to change the behaviour of the farmer, "just having someone there taking stock, seeing what's going on and to a certain degree experiencing it for themselves is important even if nothing comes of it." It is interesting to note that the importance of "taking stock" was emphasized by all of the participants. Dennis, in particular, discusses the similarities between the labourer-teacher program and international accompaniment programs that send volunteers to conflict areas to provide protective accompaniment to human rights advocates whose lives are 20 threatened by violence . Different in scale and intensity from accompaniment programs, for Dennis the labourer-teacher program inadvertently provides a type of protective safeguard between migrant workers and employers, leveling out the power relations to some degree. He 21 explains: "I think the worst abuses of the program happen when there is no oversight or outside scrutiny, and to a certain degree just being on the farm can provide a sense of an outside presence keeping an eye on things." Volunteers placed with more considerate employers did not diminish the importance of bearing witness to their colleagues' struggles to manage lives shaped by international migration. Paul, who developed respectful relationships with both of his employers, reflects on his experience of sharing in his coworkers' struggles thus:

who hire and manage migrant agricultural workers. Some participants described their employers as abusive or manipulative while others described their employers as caring and friendly. 20 For example see Peace Brigades International at http://www.peacebrigades.org/index.php. 21 The Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (CSAWP) 77

There is something in just going in and trying to share and experience or even understand the experience of people who suffer oppression from a larger political or social system. It would be difficult to come out of that situation without a greater perspective or analysis on the lives of migrant workers.

Anna, when reflecting on one placement where she had also built up a good relationship with the farmer, expresses a similar sentiment:

I felt like having the opportunity to work on the farm and share in the lives of my colleagues afforded me so much insight into the issues and problems inherent to the Seasonal Agricultural Workers' Program and just the daily toil in general. These are insights that other Canadians just never get because they haven't lived through it.

For many of the participants the labourer-teacher program provided a first and very intimate glimpse of labour exploitation in Canada. All the participants felt that this experience, what they referred to as "witnessing", was crucial to gaining an understanding of the lives of the learners, the issue of labour migration, and the reality of how food is grown in Canada. Managing opposing interests

Struggling to accomplish the physical labour as well as bearing witness and sharing in the experiences of migrant workers' everyday struggles were often described by participants as integral aspects of the process of joining in solidarity with migrant workers. However, the third component of struggle is perceived as compromising in some way the integrity of their work. It is described as the necessity to juggle the interests of a number of divergent stakeholders, including the growers. While the program's relationships with growers are usually initiated and cultivated in the long term by Frontier College administrative personnel, volunteer labourer- teachers are expected to maintain at the very least the appearance of political impartiality, thus suspending any political or historical analysis they may have developed prior to becoming labourer-teachers or that they may be developing as a result of their bourgeoning relationships with their learners. Even though it is clear that participants value their ability to maintain 78 solidarity and dialogue with their colleagues, as Was stated above, all of the participants also expressed frustration at their inability to vocalize their concerns.

Historically this has not always been as much of a worry for Frontier College, as Fitzpatrick, Bradwin, and Pearpoint all spoke of the ability of the labourer-teacher to "shed light" on injustice (Bradwin, 1968; Fitzpatrick, 1923; Pearpoint, 1989). However, within the context of a civil society which is becoming more and more depoliticized (Basok & Ilcan, 2003) and with the gradual emergence of the CSAWP in the public consciousness, the participants feel as though they were caught in the middle between Frontier College who is trying to maintain volunteer placements, growers who are trying to keep their businesses afloat, and the interests of their migrant worker colleagues. The CSAWP has gotten a lot of press in the past decade, not all of it good. The documentary film, El Contrato, (Lee, 2003) for example, which portrays migrant workers as the oppressed subjects of their oppressor employers has been shown on numerous occasions on TVO, Ontario's public television network. This documentary has particularly aggravated many farmers and has greatly politicized the atmosphere in which labourer-teachers work. Consequently, some farmers have become apprehensive of having labourer-teachers' in their workplace. Dennis speaks to this:

[After El Contrato] farmers were a lot more cautious and really a lot more suspicious and skeptical of the labourer-teacher program and wondering to what degree it was caught up in or associated 22 with the UFCW and to what degree it would expose their workers to radicalized politics. From Robert's interview it is clear that as a result of working in a more politically charged environment, Frontier College has become very sensitive to how their work is perceived in the farming community. Labourer-teachers who speak out could lose valuable placements. He says:

It's always a fear that we might lose a placement due to a labourer- teacher acting in a way that strains at what the farmer feels are his or her domain. I would say the most consistent cause of lost

United Food and Commercial Workers 79

placements is either a labourer-teacher acting overtly political or being perceived to have acted in a political way.

As a result participants felt as though they were being pulled in several different directions at once and ultimately found it difficult to forge a variety of allegiances while simultaneously maintaining all of them. This was especially difficult when an allegiance with the farmer can be construed as deceitful from the point of view of workers with whom participants were building trusting relationships. Carmen describes this struggle thus:

That was so hard. I spent a huge amount of energy all summer just keeping my feelings bottled in and really trying to keep up those relations. I don't think it's necessarily okay to keep quiet about what we see. You feel like you're betraying the workers. I think that labourer-teachers are a strong voice and I think we should be saying more than we are saying.

One of the forms that the issue of managing opposing interests took was in the form of translating between Mexican migrant worker colleagues and their Canadian employers. The participants feel as though by acting as a translator it is difficult to maintain a practice of dialogue. Margo talks about how as a labourer-teacher the ability to speak Spanish can paradoxically be an obstacle to creating a space for genuine dialogue to occur because inevitably you will be expected to be the voice of both the farmer and the worker. She says:

There have been instances where Spanish was a hindrance, like I've translated for farmers when they want to yell at workers and say very nasty things to them, so you do become responsible for that because anything that people don't understand they will come and ask you.

Anna also speaks to this predicament:

I unfortunately got into the habit of always interpreting, and it just felt like it was always me delivering the information, even if it is coming from the boss or from the worker it was still coming out of 80

my mouth, and I think that can change the power dynamic and how you are viewed if you are the one always spewing the information.

In response to this challenge, Barbara learned to be a translator when required but stated emphatically that she would not represent the employer or her learners as their voice. She tells a story of when the farmer had decided to fire one of his workers. In solidarity, one of the other workers decided to quit. The farmer approached Barbara and asked her to go and convince her colleague not to quit and that he "should not act in solidarity with him because he's been bad mouthing him all summer. I offered to translate if he felt he needed it, but that I wouldn't speak on his behalf." She tells a similar story of when another worker was threatened with being fired and he asked her to speak to the farmer on his behalf and she said "I would go with him if he wanted me to speak with him, but that I wouldn't speak for him. He ended up going alone and he worked out his differences with the farmer without my assistance."

In conclusion, struggle on the farm appears in many forms and is a key learning tool for the labourer-teachers. The difficulty of the physical labour, bearing witness to their learners' daily struggles, and the need to juggle a variety of competing interests in a politically sensitive environment result in moments of genuine growth and often profound insights into the complexity of their colleague's lives.

What was learned: Conscientization and the labourer-teacher

All of the participants discussed how the labourer-teacher program had changed their lives. According to Reed and Selbee (2003), a volunteer's level of commitment is determined by their personal values and beliefs. This was consistent with the participants of this study. Even though there were several differing motivating factors in deciding to participate in the labourer-teacher program, values were an important factor in participants' level of commitment, which in every 23 case was very high . This section will analyze participants' shifts in perspectives and values.

As was mentioned above, the participants of this study worked between 60 to 100 hours a week not including the hours spent volunteer tutoring, which could reach up to 12 hours a week or more, depending on how much time was spent in the field. 81

Shifts in perspective

Living and working with migrant workers, sharing their stories, eating all of their meals together, and sharing all of the minutiae of everyday life was transformative for all the participants. As mentioned, labourer-teachers talked about a wide variety of learning outcomes as a result of their work as labourer-teachers. All participants talked about learning how to conduct a variety of new tasks, for example becoming more proficient at teaching, improving their Spanish skills, as well as increasing self-confidence and gaining an appreciation for the value of hard work. However, the process of solidarity and struggle that the participants experienced as labourer-teachers also resulted in political and cultural learning. All of the participants involved in this study experienced in various degrees what Freire calls conscientization (Freire, 2006).

Participants' incidental learning facilitated shifts in values and understandings of the issue of labour migration in Canada, food security, political organizing, and social change. In the words of Kate the program made her

much more conscientious about buying produce and thinking about where my food comes from, it made me a lot more interested in farm work, which was actually hell a lot of the time. The whole experience of getting to know those guys completely changed my life. I mean just getting to experience how the people who grow my food live gave me a greater perspective on life in general. It's difficult to explain, I think it is a spiritual thing. It changed my life so positively and pushed me to get excited about learning again.

When asked about changes to their values or attitudes, both Dennis and Paul talked about how their political positions had become more nuanced. Paul, who is from a town that is home to farmers who participate in the CSAWP, had had encounters with activists from Justicia for Migrant Workers and the UFCW from a job in a non-profit organization that he held prior to participating in the labourer-teacher program. He says that when he first started learning about migrant workers through his previous work it was all about how important it was for migrant workers to unionize. He says that he still believes that collective organizing and labour rights are an important goal, but he also talks about more fundamental changes in his understanding of this issue. He says: 82

Once you get in there and just start to get to know people and see the reality for workers and their families it is just so much more complicated. There are a lot more dynamics at play and you just can't say, "Ah, these people are oppressed and they need this and that..." The experience of living on the farm and getting a better understanding of all the dynamics, I mean I know I can never really know what it's like to be a migrant worker, but you start to get some idea about the rhythm of life and that understanding puts you in a different mental space. Everything becomes a bit grey when you've actually lived through that and have been there.

Dennis, who was primarily motivated to participate out of a desire to work toward minimizing the exploitation and injustice that migrant workers face, talks about how his perceptions of social change became more nuanced as a result of his participation in the program. He says:

I think that structurally the CSAWP as a whole is an abomination in a lot of ways. In terms of a model of organizing work it is really terrible. I think there is a lot of work to be done to challenge that and it's hard to know where to start. It has to happen on so many different levels. I came to see that no matter how small, my work as a labourer-teacher was important; I mean a big part of it is just recognizing that even if your overall goal is something fairly radical that you just can't get there directly from here. In order to do this work and to do it well, which is important whether or not you get there, you have to accept certain premises, and I mean if you think of our work in terms of "the path of least resistance" it can be quite effective in terms of "water still gets down the hill even if it has to go all the way around something". It's about not creating resistance where there need not be any. I learned how to find my way around things while still being effective, I mean trying to empower myself and others without necessarily making a lot of noise. 83

Likewise, Barbara discusses how by sharing people's lives so intimately she learned that standing up for yourself and making a change is not an easy process. She claims that she gained a better understanding of why people may decide not to stand up for themselves even in humiliating or unjust situations. She says:

I mean, in my normal everyday life I would never have put up with an employer treating me so badly but on the farm I just took it. It's interesting to reflect back on that and to remember that my friends and co-workers weren't standing up to the bullying either. For so many different and complex reasons no one felt they could do anything.

On this note, Anna talks about how being non-resistant in her work was helpful not only to her work as a labourer-teacher, but also how it was integral to her learning about the issue of labour migration in general and the everyday lives of migrant workers in particular. She says: "Being able to move freely around the farm and in the community afforded me so much insight that I could never have gotten otherwise and that many Canadians never have the opportunity to get."

Of all the participants, Carmen, who decided to participate in the program twice, had the most radical shift in perspective. Carmen, who began the program expecting a fun and relaxing summer under the sun, realized pretty quickly that the program was not able to meet those expectations. When asked to describe how her actual experience did not match up with those expectations she answers:

First of all I was working in a greenhouse and not in a field, so there was absolutely no fun in the sun. The working conditions were so bad that basically I spent my whole summer just being frustrated and upset and angry at what was going on. It felt like that became the focus of my whole summer, more than learning Spanish or teaching English or anything like that. I just couldn't understand how our government was bringing in these people just to work them to the bone for low pay and then sending them back to where they're from when they're no longer needed. There was no respect for anyone and my government was in support of this. I 84

just walked into this horrible situation that I wasn't prepared for. I came out politicized.

In summary: building relationships through solidarity and working through struggle provided a transformative experience for the participants of this study. Participants experienced sometimes subtle and other times not so subtle shifts in political perspectives and social values as some gained more nuanced political understandings while still others left the experience politically invigorated. When probed a bit more deeply, participants spoke of the importance for Canadians to learn about their own privilege.

From South to North: Learning and unlearning lessons about privilege

The learning of the participants not only incorporated a shift in people's motivations, or learning about their individual learners or the culture their learners come from, but also about the ways that their understandings of these things are connected to larger structures and institutions. This occurred through listening to their learners and experiencing through solidarity the structural inequities of a flawed system and their own and their learners' place within that system. This learning represents a shift from the practical framework to the emancipatory framework (see the discussion on Habermas above). While employing a dialogical pedagogy in their work, labourer- teachers developed the capacity to reflect critically, but paradoxically, were not permitted to add action to the cycle of reflection. The participants were thus at risk of interrupting the process of praxis and overemphasizing reflection to the detriment of action that Hoist (2002) claims is all too common amongst adult educators and which can lead to pessimism and political paralysis (see discussion on praxis above).

Nevertheless, it is clear from the interviews that labourer-teachers can and do experience reflexive learning which Habermas (1975) describes as learning which questions taken-for- granted systems of authority. Most central to the experience of labourer-teachers is the transfer of knowledge from the Global South to the Global North and the learning that the transfer produces for the volunteers. Participants learned about the nature of power, privilege, and oppression, the significance of being a witness to injustice, and the importance of listening and not always speaking on behalf of others. Participants gained a deeper understanding of the issues faced by migrant workers and learned to better understand their own status and role in Canadian society. This learning was powerful for all of the participants. In the words of Kate: "Every 85

Canadian who eats should do this program." Likewise Margo, when asked about what she had learned took a while before responding that the most important things she learned were "difficult to put her finger on." After a pause she continued that "the most important things that I learned were about Canada and about being Canadian. I learned so much from my migrant worker friends about Canada. I was always so impressed by the "realness" of their stories. That was unexpected." Similarly Anna: "I found myself questioning my attitudes toward my own culture." Barbara reflects on her time as a volunteer:

Just being in solidarity, bearing witness and being open to others is so important. Even just my own personal reflections and just coming to an understanding of what my role is in the larger system is so important.

Paul, who had the opportunity to work as a labourer-teacher on a farm in his hometown claims that "having the experience of working with migrant workers in my own community helped me to understand where I came from better." He says: "I remember seeing Caribbean workers at the grocery store when I was a teenager and hearing racist comments. Back then I didn't understand my own place in that situation." He talks about walking down the main street in his home town with Mexican migrant workers and getting strange looks from fellow townspeople. For Paul this experience is both strange and transformative as it so radically goes against the grain of his town's social norms.

At least to some extent, all of the participants felt that the volunteer work had itself facilitated the process of learning about or "unlearning" privilege. In the words of Paul:

I think the idea of solidarity and becoming an ally is embedded in the work that we are doing, especially because we are putting ourselves in a position that is not coveted by society. I mean, for the most part we are university educated Canadians, and being a general labourer on a farm, it's like you're downgrading yourself and it's not really fun. It's not like poverty tourism; it's just hard work. 86

However, whereas she recognizes the importance of her own learning, Carmen expresses her hesitation at claiming to have sacrificed her privilege as a young, English speaking, university educated Canadian volunteer. She says:

Another thing I found difficult was when I was burned out and tired and I was like, "I just can't do this anymore, this is crazy." What was so clear to me in those moments was that I could always just leave. I always had someplace else to go. This wasn't my reality. It was just a pit stop for me and isn't it just great that I'm a university student and I'm going to go out and do this good work for the summer? I found being in that position really difficult to deal with.

For Carmen, the knowledge that she always had the choice to turn her back on a difficult situation and return to her regular life was vital to her understanding of herself as a privileged outsider. Carmen never considered the concept of class suicide as a realistic option. Whereas she felt a strong sense of camaraderie and solidarity with her colleagues while on the farm, she claims to understand the limits of creating a level playing field in her work as an educator. As long as she had the choice to be or not to be on the farm, the social gap between her and her learners could never be completely filled.

Paul, on the other hand, when pressed to reflect on the significance of the program on his life insists the most important outcome of the labourer-teacher program is for volunteers to come to terms with their positions of privilege relative to other countries. He discusses the consequence of the program thus:

I think it reveals to middle-class Canadians that migrant workers are actual people. They have rights that should be respected. A lot of people ask why I would put myself in that position [of labourer- teacher]. For me it's about solidarity. We are trying to understand the experience of our learners and learn from that.

He continues: 87

It's difficult for a white middle-class man like me to see the structures of oppression because I am so embedded in that oppression, but my migrant worker colleagues seem to understand it so clearly. The more I think about it the more I think it's about middle-class Canadians having to unlearn their privilege. This work has taught me more about social justice than anything else I've ever done. It's allowed me to develop a level of analysis of privilege that I would not have developed otherwise. My learners have to negotiate those relations more than me, whose life is so cushioned in comparison. The labourer-teacher program has allowed me to develop a level of analysis of privilege that I wouldn't have developed otherwise.

Employing dialogue in their pedagogical methodology, living in solidarity and learning through struggle provide the volunteer labourer-teacher with the opportunity to gain an understanding of their role in the oppression of others, which, as Bishop (2002) explains, is an integral step to those with more privilege becoming an ally to those with less privilege. In the words of Kate: "It was important for me as a Canadian who buys produce at the local grocery store to see the kind of desperation and isolation that a lot of migrant workers experience." Correspondingly, Carmen talked about how as a Canadian she felt complicit in what she called the systemic disrespect toward and exploitation of migrant workers.

Participants often felt uncomfortable with their position of privileged outsider. Carmen, for example, was always conscious of her outsider status:

I wasn't experiencing what they were experiencing. It didn't matter that I was doing the exact same thing; it was a different experience. I often felt like I was this little "do-gooder" sweeping in to save the day which is so ridiculous.

However, for the participants involved in this study, Dennis comments on his heightened awareness of his own privilege: 88

I have no illusions to the fact that I never stopped carrying my privilege and how my course was smooth in countless ways. My brief glimpse of the experience is immeasurably different from someone who does that work for 25 years because that's the best option they have.

When probed about their learning, participants all spoke of the importance of learning lessons about the nature of privilege. All of the participants learned unexpected and transformative lessons about what it means to be Canadian and how Canada and Canadians are perceive by some people from the Global South. Participants gained clearer understandings of global migration and their own complicity in global food production and labour exploitation.

Summary

The findings discussed in this chapter suggest that the approach to adult education that the labourer-teacher program employs supports not only the learning of the learners, but also promotes transformative learning for the participants who took part in this study. The learning that occurred for these volunteers did not occur in a formal educational context, but rather incidentally as a component of genuine encounters with their learners in what Buber (1970) calls the "pure present". As the participants were not only ESL and literacy tutors, but were also employed as farm-labourers and thus lived and worked with their learners on a daily basis, participants felt they were able to negotiate a position of solidarity with their learners that they would not have been able to negotiate had they represented a more political agenda. However, most of the participants felt that their ability to speak out about injustices that they had witnessed was compromised by having to maintain relationships with not only their learners but also with a variety of other stakeholders, including the growers. All of the participants experienced shifts in social and political values, most notably a more nuanced and in depth understanding of power and privilege in a globalized era. 89

Chapter 6 Summary, concluding reflections and recommendations

The following is an excerpt taken directly from my 2003 labourer-teacher final report.

Having the chance to work as a Frontier College labourer-teacher is an incredible privilege. As a labourer-teacher I was able to get to know some of the migrant workers that many Canadians unfortunately do not even know exist. Whenever a Canadian consumes an agricultural product produced in Ontario they are likely consuming a product that was made with blood, sweat, hard work, loneliness, isolation, family separation, tears and silence. This summer I took a glimpse into the daily lives of some of those who keep us fed. I could never truly put myself into their shoes, however. I will never know what it is like to have to leave my country for extended periods of time in order to support my family. This summer I lived and worked in solidarity with my Mexican colleagues. I also taught some English. Nevertheless, I am the one who received the education (Perry, 2003).

"You learn all that and all they learn is English?" asked one of the participants' friends when he was told about the labourer-teacher program (Barbara). When former labourer-teachers are asked by friends and family to describe their experiences as labourer-teachers, it becomes clear to any one who will listen that for the volunteers the program is about more than just tutoring basic literacy skills and ESL. It is clear that the Frontier College labourer-teacher program is a veritable education like no other for those volunteers who participate. Certainly this was how I felt about my own experience with the labourer-teacher program. However, this education was not received formally as a part of some institutional program and was for the most part difficult to express. Regardless of my trouble describing the knowledge that I felt I had acquired as a labourer-teacher, I am convinced that this knowledge has had a major impact on my life decisions, my personal relationships and the way that I conduct myself in the world. But how did this happen, and was this a phenomenon experienced by other former labourer-teachers? This question was a guide throughout the research process. 90

This thesis tells a story about Canada's oldest literacy program from a perspective that is rarely heard. In fact, it is told from a perspective that is rarely heard from the Canadian charitable sector in general: the perspective of the experiences of the volunteers and their learning experiences. Whether people are used to thinking about learning in terms of formal education or because the object of informal/incidental learning is so tacit as to not be considered learning, the learning experienced by volunteers involved in charitable activities has been largely ignored by adult educators, Frontier College, and the participants themselves. However, as charitable organizations in Canada work within a socio-political context where they are increasingly veered away from participating in political debates and are more and more encouraged to focus exclusively on service provision activities, an understanding of the day to day experiences and learning outcomes of volunteers is crucial to developing an understanding of the critical/emancipatory potential of charitable organizations in Canada. The findings of this research provide an understanding of the importance of developing cross-border alliances that can contribute to reflexive learning in an increasingly global era.

This thesis reveals that Frontier College supports a pedagogy rooted in dialogue that has the potential to bring about not only technical knowledge but also practical and emancipatory knowledge for its volunteers and thus could provide an important model for other learning organizations, advocacy groups, and international development agencies. The Frontier College labourer-teacher program has been making use of this pedagogy since Alfred Fitzpatrick's early experiments with an informal and dialogic student-centred approach to adult education — work that predates formal advances in the field of adult education by up to seven decades. Since 1899 the labourer-teacher program has been bringing its dialogic approach to adult learning to the most marginalized and isolated of Canadian and non-Canadian labourers. In recent years, Frontier College has become less focused on advocacy and more focused on service delivery as a result of the political context of charitable work in Canada and the sensitive nature of the relationships that develop between the organization and its stakeholders, most notably farmers. However, even given this context, Frontier College has maintained its commitment to taking education to the most marginalized and to employing a student-centred pedagogy based on dialogue and the I-Thou relationship. That said, Frontier College does not formally support the learning of their volunteers. 91

The findings of this research project suggest a paradox. Frontier College, a small Canadian charitable literacy organization, considers access to literacy services a fundamental right and describes its mission the promotion of lifelong learning through the provision of basic literacy instruction to people across Canada (Frontier College, 2008d). Volunteer tutors are trained to deliver literacy lessons from a student-centred pedagogical standpoint rooted in the concept of dialogue. Even though present-day labourer-teachers who are sent out to farms to work with migrant agricultural workers are instructed in how to foster dialogue in their pedagogical work, the focus of the program is solely on dialogue as a method of teaching, essentially disregarding the effect of mutual learning and the capacity of the labourer-teacher to learn as a result of employing a dialogical methodology. Interestingly, this position is in opposition to the historical position of the labourer-teacher program, where learning and teaching were seen as two sides of the same coin, and where the learning experienced by labourer-teachers was understood as a part of the goal rather than as a by-product of the program. Current labourer-teachers are encouraged to reflect on their practice only insofar as it benefits: (a) the teaching and (b) the continuation of the program. Frontier College does not therefore encourage labourer-teachers to reflect critically on their own learning or to share their learning with other labourer-teachers in any systematic way. What is happening in the field, however, is a different story. Naturally, labourer-teachers have no choice but to learn as a result of their employing a dialogical process to their pedagogical approach, only this learning often remains tacit as a result of a lack of interest on the part of Frontier College to take seriously the learning of their volunteers.

It is recommended that Frontier College regain a focus on the collective learning of volunteer labourer-teachers with the idea to promote the consolidation of this knowledge for the purpose of collective action. For me, conducting this research study and writing this thesis have been integral to making explicit the largely implicit outcomes of my own learning as a labourer- teacher. My intention has been to create a space where other volunteers can reflect on their experiences with the Frontier College labourer-teacher program and the effects of their learning as volunteer participants and to create a context within which personal/social transformation is possible. Recently, as was mentioned in the introduction to this thesis, this research project has developed into the formation of an unofficial labourer-teacher alumni association - an informal network of former labourer-teachers. These former labourer-teachers have come together to communicate experiences with each other with the intention to carry out activities related to their 92 shared principles and a collective understanding of labour migration in Canada. The association has organized a retreat where not only former labourer-teachers are invited but where activists, academics, educators, and artists involved with migrant workers have come together to connect and develop collaborative projects.

In keeping with Frontier College's present strategic plan, which stresses the need to revitalize the labourer-teacher program, and which includes a plan to deepen the organizational understanding of the impact the program has on its volunteers, I recommend that Frontier College consider organizing a similar volunteer alumni association. Additionally, the organization's 2008 strategic plan states that alternative funding streams to Frontier College's programs will also be investigated, creating the potential to move beyond the limits of service provision toward participating in policy debates on not only literacy but also labour and migration policy. This provides a unique opportunity for Frontier College to take into consideration the findings of this research. Ideally, this research should (a) highlight the importance of dialogue and mutual understanding to the experiences of not only the learners, but also of the volunteer tutors and (b) offer a glimpse of the praxis cycle that spontaneously developed through the process of this project. 93

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Appendix A

Frontier College consent form

Title of Project:

Beyond the bunkhouse: Exploring the learning of Frontier College volunteer labourer-teachers

Attention national director Frontier College labourer-teacher program:

I will be investigating the Frontier College labourer-teacher program and the work performed by their volunteers who work with migrant agricultural workers. The intention of my thesis is explore and to shed light on the particular brand of adult education and community development work that Frontier College labourer-teachers carry out in the communities in which they work. The research will examine the learning, experiences, daily activities, motivations, successes and failures of labourer-teachers.

The objectives of this research project are:

1) To contribute to the scholarship on the learning of volunteers involved in adult education work.

2) To gain an understanding of the philosophical assumptions as well as the practical applications of the adult education and community development work Frontier College labourer-teachers carry out.

3) Provide Frontier College with research which will enable the organization to develop further adult education and community development programming with migrant agricultural workers and members of other vulnerable populations. 104

I am requesting permission that potential labourer-teacher participants can be recruited through the labourer-teacher alumni list-serve. I will develop information letters for former and present labourer-teachers that will be presented via e-mail, fax, or regular mail. I will use this letter to explain the study in detail and direct those who are interested to contact me personally.

The participants will be asked to contact me either by e-mail or by phone if they are interested in participating in the study. Once the participants contact me voluntarily they will be presented with a detailed consent form and will be reviewed of the information contained in the information letter.

When all of this is completed I will be conducting one-on-one interviews of approximately 90 minutes with 6-12 former and present labourer-teachers.

The following is a list of questions that will be asked.

Interview questions

1) Describe your average day.

2) Why did you decide to become a labourer-teacher?

3) Did you have any doubts about the program before beginning your placement?

4) Describe the relationships that you have developed as a labourer-teacher.

5) What did you learn as a labourer-teacher? You can be as specific or as general as you like in your response.

6) What impact do you feel you are having on your learners, your colleagues, or your community?

7) In what ways were you most successful in your work?

8) Describe your frustrations as a labourer-teacher.

9) Describe your strategies for balancing your manual labour responsibilities and your adult education responsibilities. How does one affect the other either negatively or positively? 105

10) Can you speak to any difficulties in balancing the relationships that you forge with your colleagues in relation to those with your employer? Does your relationship to your employer affect in any way your work either as a colleague or as an adult educator?

11) Can you describe some ways in which your work has improved the lives or living conditions of your learners?

12) To what extent is your work not able to bring about social changes or improvements to the lives of your learners?

13) How are you able to prevent and/or respond to conflicts in your workplace?

14) Have you encountered a situation where you were expected to speak 'on behalf of your migrant worker colleagues? If so, describe the situation and your reaction to it.

The interview will be conducted at a place and time suited to the convenience of the interviewee. The data collected for this project will be used to develop my Master's thesis and findings will be published and may be presented at academic conferences. Neither the names of participants, the names of their workplaces, nor a description of the specific type of agricultural work they are engaged in will be used in the study unless otherwise indicated by the participant(s). All conversations and information pertaining to this project will remain confidential. The only people who will have access to this information will be my supervisor, Dr. Anne Goodman, and me. I will keep the contents of my compiled data (i.e. transcriptions) on my hard-drive for five years before termination.

Participants will be asked at the beginning of the interview for permission to record the audio portion of the interview. No portions of the interview will be recorded without the permission of the participant(s). If a participant is uncomfortable with being recorded I will take written notes of the interview. I will transcribe the interview afterwards and send the transcript back to participants for their verification. Once the transcription process is complete I will immediately destroy all data pertaining to the project. Participants will also receive a summary of the findings and may have access to the thesis once it is published.

Participation in this project is completely voluntary. If a potential participant decides to participate, that participant may withdraw their participation from the study at any time, with no 106 negative consequences. If a potential participant decides to participate they may also decline to answer any question at any time during the interview. If participants have any concerns or questions throughout the study, they may discuss their concerns with me.

As the only adult education/literacy group working with migrant agricultural workers on farms in Southern Ontario, there is a risk that participants being interviewed may be identified through their responses. I will seek to protect participants and minimize this risk by changing the names of participants as well as the scenarios (without affecting the integrity of the research).

I will not be offering any payment or compensation for participation. However, potential benefits towards scholarship in adult education and community extension work, as well as an analysis of the Frontier College labourer-teacher program for program purposes will come about as a result of interviewees' participation.

If you are in agreement with my request please sign one copy of this consent protocol and return it to my attention in the included return envelope. You may also contact me at [my phone number here] or [my email address here] if you have any questions or comments.

Yours sincerely,

Adam Perry

Signature Date

Name printed 107

Appendix B

Information letter for present and former Frontier College labourer-teachers

Title of Project:

Beyond the bunkhouse: Exploring the learning of Frontier College volunteer labourer-teachers

My name is Adam Perry and I am a Master's student in the department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT) working under the supervision of Dr. Anne Goodman. I am currently conducting a research project as a part of my M.A. thesis on the Frontier College labourer- teacher program and the work performed by their volunteers who work with migrant agricultural workers. The intention of my thesis is explore learning outcomes of Frontier College labourer- teachers. Participants will be asked about their own experiences as labourer-teachers.

As a former or present volunteer Frontier College labourer-teacher who has worked or is working with migrant agricultural workers I would like to invite you to participate in an interview. I am interested in conducting one-on-one interviews with 6-12 former and present labourer-teachers. Interviews will last approximately 90 minutes.

Participants will be asked about their work as a labourer-teacher - their daily tasks, relationships developed, problems faced, educational strategies, motivation, and the like.

The interview will be conducted at a place and time suited to your convenience. The data collected for this project will be used to develop my Master's thesis and findings will be published and may be presented at academic conferences. Neither your names, the names of your workplaces, nor a description of the specific type of agricultural work you are engaged in will be used in the study unless otherwise indicated by you. All conversations and information pertaining to this project will remain confidential. The only people who will have access to this information will be my supervisor, Dr. Anne Goodman, and myself.

You will be asked at the beginning of the interview for permission to record the audio portion of the interview. No portions of the interview will be recorded without your permission. If you are uncomfortable with being recorded I will take written notes of the interview. I will transcribe the 108 interview afterwards and send the transcript back to you for your verification. Once the transcription process is complete I will immediately destroy all data pertaining to the project. You will also receive a summary of the findings and may have access to the thesis once it is published.

Participation in this project is completely voluntary. If you decide to participate, you may withdraw your participation from the study at any time, with no negative consequences. If you decide to participate you may also decline to answer any question at any time during the interview. If you have any concerns or questions throughout the study, you may discuss your concerns with me.

Any further questions regarding the content of this project may be directed to me at [my phone number] or via e-mail at [my email address]. Also feel free to contact my departmental supervisor, Dr. Anne Goodman, via email at [Dr. Goodman's email address]. If you have any questions about your rights as a participant in this project please do not hesitate to contact the University of Toronto Ethics Review Office at 416-946-3273.

Yours sincerely,

Adam Perry

M.A. candidate, OISE/UT Appendix C Participant consent form

Title of Project:

Beyond the bunkhouse: Exploring the learning of Frontier College volunteer labourer-teachers

I, agree to participate in a research project that will attempt to investigate the experiences and work of Frontier College labourer-teachers working with migrant agricultural workers in agricultural settings in Southern Ontario. It will examine the experiences, daily activities, motivations, successes and failures of labourer-teachers and consider the impact these factors have on the learning of the participants.

You are invited by the student-investigator to respond to questions in a one-on-one interview.

Please note that:

The interview will be conducted at a place and time suited to your convenience. The data collected for this project will be used to develop the student investigator's Master's thesis and findings will be published and may be presented at academic conferences. Neither your name, the names of your workplaces, nor a description of the specific type of work you are engaged in will be used in the study unless otherwise indicated by you. All conversations and information pertaining to this project will remain confidential. The only people who will have access to this information will be the student investigator and his academic supervisor, Dr. Anne Goodman. The student investigator will keep the contents of his compiled data (i.e. transcriptions) on my hard-drive for five years before termination.

At the beginning of the interview you will be asked for permission to record the audio portion of the interview. No portions of the interview will be recorded without your permission. If I you are uncomfortable with being recorded the student investigator will take written notes of the interview. The student investigator will transcribe the interview afterwards and send the transcript back to you for your verification. Once the transcription process is complete the student-investigator will immediately destroy all data pertaining to the project. You will also receive a summary of the findings and may have access to the thesis once it is published. 110

Please note that participation in this project is completely voluntary. If you decide to participate, you may withdraw your participation from the study at any time, with no negative consequences. If you decide to participate you may also decline to answer any question at any time during the interview. If you have any concerns or questions throughout the study, please discuss your concerns with the student investigator.

As the only adult education/literacy group working with migrant agricultural workers on farms in Southern Ontario, there is a risk that you may be identified through your title and your responses. However, the student-investigator will seek to protect participants and minimize this risk by changing your name as well as the scenario (without affecting the integrity of the research).

You will not be offered any payment or compensation for participation. However, potential benefits towards scholarship in adult education and community extension work, as well as an analysis of the Frontier College labourer-teacher program for program purposes will come about as a result of your participation.

I have read the consent letter provided to me by Adam Perry and agree to participate in an interview for the purposes described. One copy of the consent form will be provided to the interviewee.

Signature Date

Name printed