Oct 25th Professional Development Day

 For the Province-wide professional development day, I attended AOEC’s conference: “The Anti Oppression Classroom Toolkit: From Theory to Practice”. This was a rich day, though admittedly not explicitly in mathematics. This day involved a keynote speaker and some workshops, all which aligned with the philosophies I associate with anti-racism and SOGI.

My first workshop was about SOGI – Activism as Pedagogy; it was my first exposure to SOGI in an explicit educational context. It was helpful to have discussion around how ideologies associated with SOGI manifest in an educational context. In my second workshop, ‘Navigating Complex Conversations’, we worked with strategies to improve one’s ability to fully engage in conversation. In particular, we discussed some techniques which help one hold space with the intention of helping others share their story.

This conference ‘walked the talk’ as it relates to creating safe, welcoming environments – in this way I most clearly saw the value and importance of the pedagogies being discussed at this conference. This is work that I continue to integrate into my perceptions of the world, as a teacher. That being said, as junior math teacher, I intend to pursue a more math-oriented conference next pro-d day.