Sarah is a faculty member in the English Language Development (ELD) department, as well as one of its co-chairs. As I asked her to tell me a bit about herself, she started with an acknowledgment, “I was born and raised in Victoria and am a grateful, second-generation visitor on the territories of the lÉ™kĚ“ ʷəŋən speaking people.” Sarah started her university studies in theatre and anthropology before moving into Germanic studies and linguistics. But when she moved back to Victoria after graduate school, she decided to come to Camosun to complete the TEFL training program which certified her to teach English as an Additional Language in most of Canada. “I taught for different organizations in town while my kids were young. Then when my youngest at the time was just over a year old, I applied for an instructional assistant (IA) position with ELD. It was perfect: in the field and at the institution where I wanted to work. After a couple of years, I moved to the English Help Center and tutored for the upper levels in ELD.” But Sarah knew she wanted to teach. While she had the credentials, she did not have the classroom teaching experience so, she “taught at Royal Roads for about eight years, and for other organizations in Victoria. Then I started being hired for term work at Camosun until I was regularized.” The ELD department welcomed her throughout all her experiences. “It’s an inclusive department, and everybody is always so supportive.”
Sarah took a short detour from teaching ELD courses when the Multilingual Support Specialist (MSS) positions were formed to support instructors who were working with multilingual, including many international, students. “Joining the MSS group was an exciting opportunity to bring that ELD experience and knowledge into other programs. So, I did that for two years, but then I had another opportunity: to become one of the co-chairs in ELD. I had considered the chair role a few times over the years, but never felt ready. But this time when it came up, even though I loved the MSS work, I was ready and was fortunate to be selected.”
One of the reasons I had wanted to talk to Sarah was because of her work with Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) and anti-racism. She told me she had been working on the EDI certificate offered through UBC, so we started there. “Moving into EDI work was like being swept along by a tidal wave and many factors played into the decision, both professionally and personally. Before COVID, I took the bystander intervention training that the Intercultural-Association of Greater Victoria (ICA) offers, then took it again this year. Similarly, I took TELŦIN TŦE WILNEW (TTW) in 2016 and then took it again a couple of years ago.” When she was in her IA role, she took the Mental Health and Addictions Community Education course through Island Health. “The more I studied the many challenges some people face, the more I wanted to learn. In an ELD classroom, you work with students from different countries, cultures, languages, and religions, but there are so many other factors challenging our students, like neurodiversity and learning disabilities, and it’s important to learn how to support them in the best way possible.”
In addition to her experiences in the classroom, Sarah’s personal life also prepared her for EDI work: two of her kids were in school while curriculum was being Indigenized and her blended family is complex and diverse. And so, she enrolled in the UBC program. “The program is run through their Extended Learning department and designed so you can do one course at a time. Each course stands alone, but if you take the suite of courses, you can earn the certificate.” And now, Sarah is one course away from the certificate. “Each course has a different focus, for example countering micro aggressions and bias, inclusion within institutions, leadership with diversity, and the last one I’m hoping to take is on conflict resolution within a diverse team. You learn all these concepts and then apply them to your own situation, whether it was something in the classroom or in my work on the MSS team.” And already, Sarah is looking forward and considering Educational Doctorate programs. “I’m interested in a practice-based program where I can both learn the concepts and how other people work with them while keeping my institution, my role, and our community in mind while I’m completing the work.”
I was also interested in Sarah’s work on anti-racism at Camosun’s. “As I took classes in the EDI program, I asked myself, and received some coaching around, what my core values are and what direction should I be moving in, considering questions like who do I want to be and what role do I want to fill? This led to me to becoming involved with the Anti-Racism and Decolonization Action Committee that was started by Artemis Fire and Natasha Parrish.” Sarah took some of the committee’s action items and worked on them for her courses which provided her with feedback and some potential next steps to share with the committee. Sarah also had the opportunity to take the Anti-racism Response Training (ART) and the ART Train-the-Trainer series offered by Sanath Training. She collaborated with another Camosun instructor doing the trainer to consider how they might offer the learning back to the college community. Beyond her focus on anti-racism, Sarah shared, “I also became involved with the Women and Gender Equity Committee which was a great opportunity because I had up until then focused more on anti-racism and inclusion, not on gender identity and sexuality.” Unfortunately, Sarah had to step away from this group when she became chair, but she noted how important it is to find those opportunities to meet other people, learn from them and others, and give back.
Given everything Sarah has been learning and her new-ish position as chair, I wondered how she supports faculty with EDI and anti-racism work. “I feel very strongly that we need to accept a person, their truth, their identity, their struggles, their experiences, just as they are – don’t dismiss them, explain them, belittle them, change them, just accept them. When working with faculty and students, we need to recognize they will have different perspectives of an experience, and to honour where each person is coming from, while not negating the experiences of other people.” And the key to that, Sarah says, is to stop talking and listen. “I’ve learned I need to listen to people, whether I agree with what they are saying or not. Often when I am listening to more than one person, I don’t have to say anything – I just let them talk, and enabling that communication resolves the conflict.” And when it comes to inclusion, accessibility, and equity at the college, Sarah says “if someone is struggling, whether it’s a student struggling with course materials or faculty members struggling with a classroom layout, I don’t think they just have to get with the program. We can instead support them and improve their experience by making changes, even small ones.”
I was also curious how Sarah talks to students about EDI, anti-racism, and gender equity. “Because I teach language, I can often talk about these topics as content and not opinions. For example, at one point during the grammar class I taught last term, we were focusing on pronouns, but anytime I gave an example where it wasn’t clear from the sentence what gender the singular subject was, I used they. I then made a point telling them why in case they were confused.” But often, Sarah says, students seem already aware of this usage. “I haven’t encountered any resistance from a student I think because I am just talking about the language, not the concept of gender.”
Sarah also told me she makes a point of acknowledging territory in all her classes, especially since she experienced a personal shift in her understanding of territory and being a visitor despite being born and raised here. “After taking TTW for the second time, I really internalized the idea of being a visitor and truly felt grateful for being here. I learned from Artemis and Natasha to focus on something different in every class when acknowledging territory. For example, to focus specifically on the day, or to say something about an experience I had in town, or to look out the windows and talk about the outdoors.” While Sarah has not Indigenized her courses yet, she is considering completing the Working Together: Indigenizing your Course workshop series in the future.
I wondered what other faculty in ELD are doing to Indigenize ELD courses in addition to making students aware of events related to Indigenous culture and community happening at the college and around town. “As chair, I recently established an Indigenizing the Curriculum committee for ELD to create opportunity for instructors to share the work and learning they have done in recent years. This was inspired by one of our instructors, who during her SD a few years ago, created a D2L site for Indigenizing ELD courses. She created content and set up the D2L space so that other ELD instructors can add content, or access and share what is already there. Initially we started by finding writings by Indigenous authors to include in our courses, but we know there’s so much more to it than that.” And as more ELD instructors explore Indigenization and other learning opportunities, they can share those with the committee and the department. Sarah’s work on the MSS team has also been helpful in opening her eyes to how some international students view Indigenization. “Some students were struggling because unlike students coming through our high-school system where they are learning about Indigenous communities as part of their curriculum, many international students come from countries with very different perspectives of their own Indigenous peoples. So, I wondered, how do we Indigenize for international students? I reached out to someone in instructional support at Simon Fraser University, and we started a conversation which I brought back to Artemis and Natasha. I don’t know what the answer is. Do we run a separate course for international students? Do we train instructors to be aware of the differences so they can adjust their expectations accordingly? How do we approach this? The best part of my MSS work was how many people I was able to connect and collaborate with both at the college and beyond.”
I wondered what else Sarah has learned through all her work related to anti-racism and EDI. “I’ve learned about the value of exploring and sharing your identity and thinking about that identity in an honest way. When I completed the anti-racism response training, we spent time constructing statements of our positionality. I’ve refined my personal statement of identity many times – it’s not easy, but there is so much value in doing that work. I want to model stating every part of my identity so that others feel safe to state their own identity, and so they might also see things in me that they can relate to, make a connection, and feel safer with me.”
As we came to the end of our time together, I wondered what advice Sarah had for anyone coming to work at Camosun. “Be curious, listen, and ask questions. Be willing to share, but more importantly listen to what others are sharing – watch for opportunities to learn from other faculty or employees or even students and build those relationships. And don’t be afraid to do something “wrong”. This community, this college, is so supportive of people learning and growing – you will get a lot further if you’re open to trying something new and asking questions than if you’re too scared to say anything at all.”