Speaker series brings criminology to life
Professor Shiri Pasternak plans to continue inviting Indigenous speakers to talk to her students through a virtual, synchronous format. Photo Credit: Unsplash.
As a non-Indigenous professor, Shiri Pasternak knew that welcoming the lived experiences of Indigenous peoples into her Indigenous governance and justice class in the department of Criminology was critical to her students’ learning experience.
“Pedagogically and ethically, there are many compelling reasons to use the classroom as an opportunity to centre Indigenous voices,” says Pasternak, a professor in the Department of Criminology. “I really felt it was important for students to hear from Indigenous people themselves with lived experience of colonization, but also with lived understandings of systems of Indigenous governance and justice.”
Over the course of the semester, Pasternak invited Indigenous speakers from a diverse range of backgrounds to address issues such as residential schools, Gladue courts (external link) in the Canadian criminal justice system, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, two-spirit and transgender advocacy, and Aboriginal land rights.
“It’s a powerful opportunity for students,” says Pasternak. “The value of seeing people, noticing their tone, hearing their inflections when they talk about things that are meaningful for them, and connecting their stories to what we are learning in class does so much work that otherwise can’t be done through reading alone, [in terms of a real education on Indigenous issues].”
To support the speaker series, Pasternak applied for a 2019-2020 Learning and Teaching Grant (LTG), an annual initiative facilitated by the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching. It provides funding for projects that improve course delivery and develop inclusive teaching practices. Funded by the Office of the Provost and Vice-President, Academic, the LTG program also fosters projects that apply evidence-informed pedagogical methods to better the undergraduate and graduate student experience at Ryerson.
Invaluable experiences
Pasternak knew that the LTG program was a great way to ensure she was able to meaningfully compensate speakers’ time and labour, animate course material, and implement reflection assignments for students in relation to the speakers. Overall, having the ability to forge positive relationships with speakers, as well as provide students with an experiential learning opportunity has proven to be invaluable.
In reflection assignments and in an end of course exit poll, Pasternak reported that 75 per cent of students were integrating aspects of what they learned directly from the speakers series into their analysis of Indigenous issues. For example, students were able to speak to the direct harms of the Indian Act as well as reference a speaker who practiced law in Gladue courts and had first hand experience with racism, violence and police brutality in the criminal justice system.
“In the reflection assignments, students were asked to think about how their understanding might have changed or been affirmed, as well as what they may do differently in the world as a result. The reflections were very eye opening for students because they had to assimilate their own experiences... [with] what they were hearing [from the speaker] and from what they’d been exposed to or previously understood,” says Pasternak. “They were extremely inspired, enraged, motivated and mobilized after getting to know the speakers and learning the truth behind these critical issues.”
Having secured LTG program funding for the upcoming academic year, Pasternak plans to continue the speaker series in a virtual, synchronous format through interviews and question and answer periods. “Students are touched very differently by people’s stories,” she says. “That is a testament to needing a diverse range of voices in the classroom, be it virtual or in person, as well as exposure to Indigenous people that is grounded in a diversity of forms of life, experiences and professions.”
For more information about the Learning and Teaching Grants Program, visit https://www.torontomu.ca/centre-for-excellence-in-learning-and-teaching/faculty-instructors/grants/.
This is one in a series of stories about the new Ryerson Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, the centre is dedicated to big thinking about curriculum, pedagogy and creative ways to develop inclusive teaching practices that enrich the student learning experience.
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