Out of the Closet and into Quarantine: Stories of Isolation and Teaching

Being queer can be filled with moments of isolation: not fitting in to heteronormative rites of passage, not knowing if or when to come out in academia, and now, trying to cope with the difficulties induced by officially-mandated social distancing in a global pandemic. Although isolation is a common human experience, for queer people it is often an intimate part of their stories, leaving lasting scars. Experiences of isolation, loneliness, and being “othered” have serious consequences. Through autoethnographic queer inquiry, we explore isolation and how it shapes teaching and learning. Drawing on concepts of the outsider-within and the uncanny, and distinguishing isolation from loneliness and solitude, we share our personal stories of isolation through the perspective of a performative “I”, examining how our pedagogical philosophies and practices inevitably reflect our queer experiences. Coming from different disciplines of practice, we met because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which prompted this return to old and new forms of social isolation—the old being the experience of growing up queer and the new through teaching online. From our perspectives across a generational divide, we trace the unsettling experiences of being queer and teaching in our COVID bubbles, and we attempt to navigate ourselves and our students safely through disconnection and isolation.

Bauhaus

The Bauhaus is a paradigmatic institution of 20th-century art, in some contexts synonymous with the aesthetic and discursive institution of modernism itself. Founded in 1919 in the city of Weimar, Germany, the Bauhaus school of design (Staatliches Bauhaus) was formed through the merger of the Weimar Grand Ducal Saxon schools of fine and applied arts by its first director, the architect Walter Gropius. Having attracted controversy and persecution in the tense political environment of the Weimar Republic, the Bauhaus was forced to relocate twice (to Dessau in 1925 and to Berlin in 1932) before it was finally shut down by the Nazis in 1933. The move to Dessau, however, gave Gropius an opportunity to design and build a new headquarters for the school, which became one of the most iconic contributions to modern architecture. The Bauhaus also lived on in a constellation of attempts to revive its pedagogical and design principles in a range of geographical contexts through the century. More than that, the “Bauhaus” has entered the lexicon of modern art as a formal and conceptual entity, a “style” and an “idea,” with a profound impact on the visual culture of our time. The Bauhaus school was a wellspring of boundary-breaking experiments across the arts, including architecture, industrial and typographic design, theater, photography, textiles, painting, and sculpture. Through the full array of its initiatives, the Bauhaus emerged as an extended interrogation of the changing status and social role of art in the age of industrial production. At its core, however, the Bauhaus was a collective invention of many gifted instructors and students, who shaped the institution as a laboratory of cooperative living, working, and learning. Studies of individual artists and designers, many with distinguished careers beyond the school (Josef and Anni Albers, László and Lucia Moholy-Nagy, Johannes Itten, Marcel Breuer, Oskar Schlemmer, Marianne Brandt, Gunta Stölzl, Hannes Meyer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Herbert Bayer, and many others) have done much to complicate Bauhaus historiography, demonstrating that its pedagogical philosophies and design approaches shifted with patterns of individual influence and undermining the notion of a cohesive and singular Bauhaus “idea.” The scope of scholarly interest in the institution is matched by the range of artistic disciplines and approaches it encompassed. This means that the extant Bauhaus literature in a plurality of languages and formats could fill a small library building. The 2019 centennial of the school’s founding has provided a fresh infusion of up-to-date scholarship.

Sustainability-as-flourishing: teaching for a sustainable future

Purpose In a recent article, Schaefer et al. (2015) argue that cultivating appropriate beliefs and values, cultivating systems thinking and encouraging responsibility are the stages to be followed to achieve sustainability-as-flourishing from an organizational perspective. This analysis forms the basis for the development and discussion of a conceptual model to educate undergraduate business students at a New Zealand University into responsible leaders who strive to enact sustainability-as-flourishing in organizations. Design/methodology/approach This paper critiques current approaches to sustainability which often reflect a narrow understanding of human needs and do not demand necessary transformation in the way we interact with the world around us. It then provides an overview of sustainability-as-flourishing, and its various stages, with relevant examples from business. This is followed by a discussion of the conceptual model, the pedagogical philosophies underpinning it and the teaching methods required for shifting business students’ mindsets towards this end. Findings This is a conceptual paper that offers a new teaching model for sustainability-as-flourishing. The paper concludes with suggestions for sustainability educators in business. Originality/value To date, sustainability-as-flourishing is underdeveloped in the business literature. This conceptual paper unpacks this notion further. Additionally, it provides a model for business educators to teach sustainability-as-flourishing. While some of these ideas and features have been described in the literature previously, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time they have been brought as a coherent whole under this broader and unique approach of sustainability-as-flourishing.

Building the Broadway Voice

This chapter investigates how differing pressures on the Broadway musical theater industry can contribute to certain vocal stylistic choices. The author considers the ways in which collegiate and professional training programs have responded to these needs through their musical theater curricula. The chapter brings into relief how vocal training in such programs ensures a sonic conformity, which presumably improves the marketability of the performer in an industry demanding predictable sounds. Specifically, it considers the pedagogical philosophies prevalent in Midwestern musical theater training programs where the author has worked as a vocal coach and where many Broadway performers cut their teeth. The chapter takes no position for or against the vocal ideas taught in these or other musical theater training programs, but makes some observations for the unique demands attached to such training and what demands those pressures make on singers today. Furthermore, the chapter suggests that the growth of the Broadway musical as a tourist attraction, the rise of the megamusical, and the formation of this Broadway sound are all interrelated phenomena enabled by a new corporatizing ideology in musical theater that has disciplined the body of the Broadway performer for decades and continues to shape the industry’s sound today.

Oral reading: practices and purposes in secondary classrooms

Purpose This paper aims to investigate teacher-initiated whole-group oral reading practices in two ninth-grade reading intervention classrooms and how teachers understood the purposes of those practices. Design/methodology/approach In this qualitative cross-case analysis, a literacy-as-social-practice perspective is used to collaboratively analyze ethnographic data (fieldnotes, audio recordings, interviews, artifacts) across two classrooms. Findings Oral reading was a routine instructional reading event in both classrooms. However, the literacy practices that characterized oral reading and teachers’ purposes for using oral reading varied depending on teachers’ pedagogical philosophies, instructional goals and contextual constraints. During oral reading, students’ opportunities to engage in independent meaning making with texts were either absent or secondary to other purposes or goals. Practical implications Findings emphasize the significance of understanding both how and why oral reading happens in secondary classrooms. Specifically, they point to the importance of collaborating with teachers to (a) examine their own ideas about the power of oral reading and the institutional factors that shape their existing oral reading practices; (b) investigate the intended and actual outcomes of oral reading for their students and (c) develop other instructional approaches to support students to individually and collaboratively make meaning from texts. Originality/value This study falls at the intersection of three under-researched areas of study: the nature of everyday instruction in secondary literacy intervention settings, the persistence of oral reading in secondary school and teachers’ purposes for using oral reading in their instruction. Consequently, it contributes new knowledge that can support educators in creating more equitable instructional environments.

Environments for Self-Learning

In this chapter, the author contributes to the definition of somatic pedagogy as a means to encourage self-learning in students in different learning environments, from somatic movement lessons to dance technique and online dance appreciation, by drawing on the pedagogical philosophies of Howard Gardner and Paulo Freire. Her discussion includes approaches to facilitate self-learning through various somatic experiences and classrooms, including online learning. She emphasizes that the focus of somatics is always on the individual having the experience leading to the discovery (or rediscovery) of the wisdom of the self. Also certified in Bill Evans Method of Teaching Dance, the author describes the transformative somatic principles at work in his teaching of dance technique. She concludes by arguing that the theories she presents can be interwoven and considered in a cyclical process.

Building Competence

A flurry of new instructional approaches has recently emerged in post-secondary education; one approach receiving the most attention is competency-based education (CBE). While many think CBE is relatively new, its roots are deeply seeded in decades-old pedagogical philosophies. The frequency with which CBE is now appearing in conversations about higher education instruction and reform gives the false impression that most practitioners actually know what CBE is, or how it contrasts with other instructional approaches. In fact, the modern dilemma faced by many in higher education is that few institutional leaders have a comprehensive understanding of what CBE is, how it differs from other instructional approaches, the historical significance behind it, and how it might be used to effect pedagogical change and instructional innovation. This chapter explores the historical basis of CBE, its benefits and detriments, and its operational elements.

Making Through the Lens of Culture and Power: Toward Transformative Visions for Educational Equity

In this essay, Shirin Vossoughi, Paula Hooper, and Meg Escudé advance a critique of branded, culturally normative definitions of making and caution against their uncritical adoption into the educational sphere. The authors argue that the ways making and equity are conceptualized can either restrict or expand the possibility that the growing maker movement will contribute to intellectually generative and liberatory educational experiences for working-class students and students of color. After reviewing various perspectives on making as educative practice, they present a framework that treats the following principles as starting points for equity-oriented research and design: critical analyses of educational injustice; historicized approaches to making as cross-cultural activity; explicit attention to pedagogical philosophies and practices; and ongoing inquiry into the sociopolitical values and purposes of making. These principles are grounded in their own research and teaching in the Tinkering Afterschool Program as well as in the insights and questions raised by critical voices both inside and outside the maker movement.

Consumption, Health, and Disposability inSpongeBob SquarePants

In recent years, food scholarship has extended its preoccupation with consumption to interrogating the relationship between eating, culture and waste, and their effects on the environment. Simultaneously, food-related concerns have also become a recurrent part of popular culture, where examples from children's television provide fertile ground for discussion. This article analyses the multiple representations of food, consumption, and waste in Stephen Hillenburg's animated seriesSpongeBob SquarePants. Focusing on the specific food-related pedagogical philosophies that seem recurrent in the series, and following in Henry Giroux's footsteps by seeing a link between popular culture and educational structures, my discussion unravels the show's engagement with the over-consumption of fast food, the acculturation of the burger as the American meal par excellence, and environmental issues of ‘over-production’. I aim to show how, ultimately,SpongeBob SquarePantsoffers an evaluation of the connection between consumption, health, and disposability in contemporary Western societies.

MODELS FOR LEADERSHIP IN CURRICULAR INNOVATION: CONCORDIA’S CENTRE FOR ENGINEERING IN SOCIETY

This paper provides an overview of emerging trends in Innovative engineering pedagogy incorporating interdisciplinary ventures in universities. These trends encompass both pedagogical philosophies and institutional modes of delivery. We examine similar models across North America, with special reference to the Canadian context. We conclude with a case study of Concordia University’s Centre for Engineering in Society (CES), a small academic unit of interdisciplinary humanities and social science scholars housed within the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science and staffed by disciplinary experts working together with engineers; CES presents a unique model in Canada. The CES model offers some promising opportunities for engineering education as it pursues its mission to articulate the difference between the competent technician and the professional as citizen and leader who pilots the technological trajectory of society. The presence of non-engineering faculty members leads to interdisciplinary research and collaboration, improved integration of risk, social impact and equity assessment in curricular and project design, and innovation in addressing CEAB graduate attributes. CES also presents a neutral space for activities that cross engineering and computer science boundaries, in particular collaborative global engineering projects, humanitarian engineering, and groups such as Engineers without Borders. Challenges include faculty and students indifference to non-technical subject matter, inability to negotiate critical studies of technology, and a tendency for marginalization of faculty without technical expertise.