News and events

  • Upcoming on-the-spot admissions opportunities

    Wednesday, December 11, 2019 | By

    Interested in our Bachelor of Early Childhood Education or Adult Education programs? Visit one of our on-the-spot admissions tables to apply. Applicants must bring unofficial copies of transcripts or a printed copy of their mark-book, $100 for full-time study/$55 for part-time study (cash, credit, cheque accepted) and a form of government ID.

    Mohawk College – Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2020, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Pathways Fair
    Niagara College (Welland Campus) – Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
    Niagara College (NOTL Campus) – Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2020, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

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  • Education students journey to Guatemala

    Friday, November 29, 2019 | By

    A group of 19 Brock students, along with two faculty members and a staff member, are pictured in front of Volcan de San Pedro.

    A group of Brock students have brought back life-changing lessons from a recent trip to Guatemala.

    The group of 19 graduate and undergraduate students, along with two faculty members and one staff person, traveled to Guatemala from Oct. 11 to 21 as part of a Faculty of Education course on global education.

    In Guatemala, students learned how indigenous Mayan communities are working to preserve their cultures and languages in two regions of the country. Before leaving, they prepared for with classes and resources on culture, history and current issues in these regions.

    The journey challenged the views and values of many of the students.

    “During our stay in Guatemala, a number of the students commented on ‘the bubble’ they viewed themselves as living in back home in Canada,” said Michael O’Sullivan, the course instructor. O’Sullivan is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean, Graduate Student Services, Research and International in the Faculty of Education.

    “The students were deeply moved by the people they met and the activities in which they participated that were organized by young indigenous people, by women and by traditional knowledge keepers,” said O’Sullivan.

    The itinerary included a visit to an elementary school, where students were able teach a lesson to local children and observe local teachers.

    While Tiffany Harrilal, a fourth-year Concurrent Teacher Education student, saw some similarities between the elementary school they visited and schools in Canada, there were some striking differences.

    “Something that I found interesting was they really do try to include a lot of Mayan Indigenous culture into the curriculum,” said Harrilal. These cultural elements included the local Mayan language and traditional teachings.

    The group also visited a bilingual, cross-cultural secondary school and met with students from a local university created by the Mayan Ixil people to preserve traditional knowledge and create educational opportunities for the Ixil youth.

    “It gets you out of your traditional outlook on what a school is and it should be or what you have always seen or experienced,” said Sarah Burger (BA ’16), Master of Education, of visiting the schools and Ixil university.

    “I definitely think its going to inform the way I teach or how I think about teaching because there are so many ways to conduct a lesson or to engage with your students,” agreed Harrilal.

    Despite language barriers, students were able to immerse themselves in Mayan culture, even sharing home-cooked dinners with Mayan families. In some cases, double translation from English to Spanish to a local Mayan language was necessary to communicate with community members. Through these conversations, students better understood the efforts of Mayan communities to recuperate their traditional values.

    The group also toured Mayan chocolate and weaving cooperatives using traditional techniques, attended cultural performances and participated in a traditional Mayan smoke ceremony and lessons on Mayan teachings.

    “I think that social responsibility came in,” said Burger of the larger themes she observed during the trip. Making a positive impact on an individual basis, such as through her purchasing decisions, is something she’ll take away from her time in Guatemala.

    Harrilal echoed similar ideas when reflecting on her experience.

    “What I noticed on the trip is that we forget how connected we are to people,” she said.

    Harrilal also found herself making connections between the challenges facing Mayan communities and Canada’s Indigenous communities.

    “Seeing those connections, you would think that hearing that Mayan Indigenous peoples are facing the same things would be disheartening, but it was so empowering” said Harrilal.

    She was encouraged by seeing people of all ages working to rescue Mayan cultures, histories, teachings and knowledge. She hopes to bring Indigenous knowledge into her classroom as a teacher and to be an ally in the work of preserving Indigenous cultures in Canada.

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  • OSSTF updates for students

    Friday, November 22, 2019 | By

    The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) will begin a legally constituted strike action on Tuesday, November  26, 2019. It’s the Faculty’s understanding that this strike action will take the form of a partial withdrawal of services and that these actions don’t currently include a withdrawal of associate teaching services.

    Teacher candidates who are on practicum and students who are participating in structured experiences are expected to appear at their designated assignments. Teacher candidates who are on practicum should consult with their Associate Teachers on the appropriate protocol for crossing picket lines (if applicable) and other in-school protocols.

    As more details becomes available, Brock staff and Faculty will communicate to students through this page and by email.

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  • ETFO updates for students

    Friday, November 22, 2019 | By

    The Ontario Teachers’ Federation (OTF) has communicated that the Elementary Teachers’ Federation (ETFO) will be on legal strike on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 if a settlement is not negotiated before that date.  During the strike, teachers will withdraw partial services and this withdrawal of services does not currently affect teacher candidates.

    Associate teachers will still host preservice teachers in their classrooms. Teacher candidates can continue to attend structured experience days or practice teaching but should not take part in those activities that associate teachers are not participating in.

    As more details becomes available, Brock staff and Faculty will communicate to students through this page and by email.

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  • Academic Writing Retreat

    Sunday, November 17, 2019 | By

    Writing, Mindfulness, & Memoirs

    December 8-12, 2019 at Crieff Hills Community in Puslinch, ON.

    Join retreat facilitators Snežana Ratković, Michelle McGinn and Dragana Martinovic for a chance to hone your academic writing skills. Melinda Burns and Pinar Sen will be guest facilitators at the retreat. The retreat will include:

    • Individual Writing Time
    • Workshops & Mindfulness Activities
    • Group Editing
    • One-on-One Consultations
    • Informal Gatherings in a Natural Environment

    Food, Accommodation & Facilitation fees are $650.00 per writer. Enrolment is limited and closes on Nov. 22, 2019. Email snezana.ratkovic@brocku.ca to register.

  • Event: Student communication feedback sessions

    Thursday, November 14, 2019 | By

    Too many emails? Tell us about it!

    In the Faculty of Education, we want you to have the information you need from staff in a way that works for you. Join us for a 50-minute guided discussion to help shape future communications.

    Sign up today to participate and have your voice heard:

    Categories: Events

  • Event: Book Launch and Signing

    Wednesday, November 13, 2019 | By

    Lissa Paul recently published a book tracing the journey of Eliza Fenwick (1766-1840) from being a promising writer at the centre of radical London in the late 1700s to running a school in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

    Eliza Fenwick: Early Modern Feminist by Dr. Lissa Paul

    Thursday, Nov. 21st, 2019
    7 to 9 p.m.
    Niagara Historical Society Museum
    43 Castlereagh Street
    Niagara-on-the-Lake

    Join Dr. Lissa Paul to celebrate the release of Eliza Fenwick, Early Modern Feminist.

    More than a century before feminism was invented, British author, teacher and single-working grandmother, Eliza Fenwick (1766-1840) was making it on her own. In tracing Fenwick’s odyssey to 240 Centre Street in Niagara-of-the-Lake in the 1830s from radical London of the 1790s (via Barbados and New York), Dr. Paul reveals Fenwick as a Canadian heroine and author. Learn more about this fascinating book.

    Research for Eliza Fenwick, Early Modern Feminist (U Delaware Press, 2019) was generously supported by SSHRC.

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  • Event: Geographies of Spectacle and Education

    Wednesday, November 13, 2019 | By

    Kelvin Sealey

    Teachers at Play in the Liquid Now

    A Lunchtime talk and dialogue with Dr. Kelvin Sealey

    Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2019
    12:30 to 2 p.m.
    WH 209

    The present is liquid, or so Zygmunt Bauman, noted sociologist, would have us believe. As an educator, my interest in the “liquidity” or mutability of the modern moment intersects with an intimate concern for what Guy Debord has called the Society of the Spectacle, a place ruled not by the day-to-day need to survive, but by the interests of media and communications conglomerates interested solely – and perhaps soullessly – in accumulating profits. Not a day goes by in the contemporary west that some spectacle or another doesn’t draw our collective attention, or that actors, good and bad alike, don’t find a way to bend our realities into spectacular formations. What can educators do? In partial answer to this question, I will lend insight into my research on education and spectacle, giving authority to an argument which posits that educators are well placed to contextualize the modern spectacle, particularly in their mediacentric formations, for the benefit of classroom teaching. Drawing upon examples from a long and varied teaching practice, it will be further argued that cinematic, journalistic and photographic incarnations of the spectacle are delightfully protean in ways that can advance wide-ranging pedagogical initiatives, affording educators the opportunity for playfulness, criticality and innovation.

    About Kelvin S. Sealey, Ed.D

    Beginning in June 2019, Dr. Kelvin Sealey, became the second Head of School of the Dragon Academy in Toronto. For over twenty-seven years, Dr. Sealey has been an independent school educator, adjunct instructor in undergraduate and graduate education programs, and educational consultant. As a scholar of cultural studies, and reflective of his doctorate in Interdisciplinary Studies in Education, Dr. Sealey’s research and lectures have embraced the sub-fields of Architecture and Education, Spectacle and Education, Entrepreneurship and Education, and Film and Education. As an instructor at Teachers College, Columbia University, he co-founded two academic research labs: The Film and Education Research Academy (FERA), and the Design Lab for Learning Organizations at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Across his professional career, Dr. Sealey has blended academic practice with entrepreneurial pursuits, leading small technology ventures in wireless gaming and wireless finance in the payment card industry as social ventures. His edited texts Film, Politics and Education (Peter Lang 2008), Restoring Hope (Beacon Press 1997) and A Reader in Social Enterprise (Pearson 2000) remain strong contributors in their respective fields of study.

     

    Categories: Events

  • Brock Education journal welcomes new editor-in-chief

    Wednesday, November 06, 2019 | By

    Trevor Norris

    Brock Education: A Journal of Educational Research and Practice recently entered an exciting new chapter under the leadership of its new editor-in-chief, Trevor Norris.

    An Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education, Norris succeeds Dolana Mogadime in leading the journal, which is run by the Faculty of Education. Norris was previously the Journal’s associate editor and has also served as the editor of Professing Education, a journal published by the Society of Professors of Education.Read more

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  • Meet our graduates: Jaime Barratt

    Tuesday, October 22, 2019 | By

    Jaime Barratt

    Crossing the stage at Convocation on Oct. 18 marked the beginning of a unexpected adventure for Jaime Barratt.

    The new Master of Education (MEd) graduate is travelling about 15,000 km to complete a PhD at the University of Queensland (UQ) in Australia.Read more

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