From Aug. 23 to 25, the Faculty of Education Summer Institute, FESI 2021 – Reimagining and Restructuring Educational Pipelines, will explore the many ways that social hierarchies are reproduced within educational structures. Participants will reflect on all the different ways that students are sorted and stratified based on perceptions of their social identities. This year’s institute will not only raise questions of pervasive systems that serve to push students out of schools and limit possibilities, but also take a close look at schooling and education in the context of inequities exacerbated by COVID-19.

"While the Ontario government is making moves to de-stream select courses in the forthcoming school year, many students, parents and educators know there are a multitude of other ways our school system 'streams' students," said Sultan Rana, co-chair and organizer of FESI and course director in the Faculty of Education. "Furthermore, many of us have always known it has been predicated on the social identities these students hold. Be it special education, French immersion, gifted programs, parent councils or guidance counsellors, all are being discussed at this year's conference."

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The FESI 2021 planning committee has envisioned a conference with a variety of entry points to meet the needs of the pandemic realities. This year’s conference will have the following format:

• Day 1
  The first day will focus on problematizing practices. Two pre-recorded keynotes/panels will address some of the large barriers we are faced with in allowing students to receive and experience liberatory education. Conference guests will be able to access these recordings on their own time throughout the day.

• Day 2
  On the second day, participants will engage in small workshop sessions to either explore the themes on a deeper level by revisioning practices, or to join others with similar job responsibilities to speak about tensions and solutions to challenges that pertain directly to their work. These sessions will run synchronously and will require pre-registration due to space limitations.

• Day 3
  The third day will involve a community viewing of Pushout – The Criminalization Of Black Girls In Schools, a feature-length documentary that takes a close look at the educational, judicial and societal disparities facing Black girls. The documentary confronts the ways in which the misunderstanding of Black girlhood has led to excessive punitive discipline, which in turn disrupts one of the most important factors in their lives: their education.

"We are excited for the ambitious digital field we are playing in this year," said Rana, "which will be a mix of Zoom and a new social utility tool called Bramble that will emulate a conference hall, allowing attendees, represented by a tiny avatar, to digitally walk around a virtual conference hall and walk up and speak to actual attendees in real time."

To register for FESI 2021, visit yorku.ca/edu/fesi/register.

Article is from the August 16, 2021 issue of .

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FESI, a long-running annual conference that brings together stakeholders in education to evaluate educational beliefs, policies and practices, will continue this year in a virtual format.

Titled "Streaming in Schooling," the event will explore Ontario’s education policy that states that the schools should keep “options open for all students." Some people assert that streaming allows students to choose subjects based on their interests and preferred career pathways. In reality, streaming closes many options to students and limits their life and career choices.

Systemic bias, racism, ableism and deficit thinking results in the streaming and sorting of students based on perceived academic abilities. In particular, Black and Indigenous students, students with disabilities, newcomer and refugee students, and students marginalized by poverty are disproportionately harmed by these processes and structures.

Mechanisms for streaming and sorting happen as early as kindergarten and set students up for pre-determined pathways that impact academic options, career pathways, quality of life, financial security and health. Join the Faculty of Education for a conversation with educators and researchers that are grappling with these very issues to learn, challenge these practices, and reimagine future possibilities to support all students in Ontario.

Themes that will be explored on this panel include:

• Impact of streaming (short term and long term) on minoritized groups.
• What are some of the myths, mindsets, frameworks that give rise to streaming?
• Problematizing streaming as a racist, oppressive, and limiting barrier.
• De-streaming in practice (what does it look like? What should people be aware of? How can we avoid creating more barriers to access in the process?)
• What potential does de-streaming offer? What would an ideal schooling structure that supported all students equitably look like?

Speakers:

Alison Gaymes San Vicente works to disrupt educational practices that continue to disadvantage historically marginalized/underserved students. Her passion for equity and justice has led to a secondment at 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Education and her current position as a centrally assigned principal of a virtual school with 12,000 students and prior to this a centrally assigned principal for Principal Coaching, Equity & School Improvement with the Toronto District School Board. She is the recipient of the Queen Diamond Jubilee Award (2014) as well as one of Canada’s Outstanding Principals in 2016. In addition to being a member of the provincial writing team for the Principal’s Qualification Program (2017), she is also an author in Our Schools, Ourselves - Community Watch: Marginal At Best, A Narrative on Streaming in Public Education (2016);  Restacking the Deck: Streaming by class, race and gender in Ontario schools (2014); Rhymes to Re-education: A Hip Hop Curriculum Resource Guide for Educators with Social Justice Activities (2014); The Leader Reader (2018); RSEKN  (Equity Podcast Series, 2019); VoicEd Radio Interview (2019); and her latest publication  (2019).

Gillian Parekh is an assistant professor and Canada Research Chair in Inclusion, Disability and Education within the Faculty of Education at 91��ɫ. As a previous teacher in special education and research coordinator with the Toronto District School Board, Parekh has conducted extensive system and school-based research in Toronto in the areas of structural equity, special education and academic streaming. In particular, her work explores how schools construct and respond to disability as well as how students are organized across programs and systems.

Monday Gala has been an educator in classrooms from elementary to university for almost 36 years, with six years in Nigeria and 30 years in Canada. He earned a BSc from the University of Maiduguri and an MSc in physics from The University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He had the distinct privilege of completing his PhD at Western University in Canada with the support of the Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship, one of the most prestigious scholarships in the world. Gala has been the recipient of many academic and performance awards including the Federal Government of Nigerian Merit Scholarship, the University of Maiduguri Chancellor’s Award for the best graduating average, Western University Teaching Assistantship Excellence Award, Toronto District School Board (TDSB) Excellence Award, and The Learning Partnership Canada’s Outstanding Principals Award. As principal of C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute, Gala led pioneering work to tackle a major systemic learning barrier for students by de-streaming curriculum in grades 9 and 10. He then collaborated with community organizations and academia to share the amazing results of this work with Ontario Ministry of Education, academics and student teachers, staff in the TDSB and several other Ontario school boards, and community stakeholders. The success of this work has led the TDSB to mandate de-streaming by 2021-22 and the Ontario Ministry of Education to de-stream mathematics in Grade 9 beginning next school year. Gala is currently principal at Westview Centennial Secondary School where he continues to inspire students to learn to the best of their abilities.

Jason To is currently the coordinator of secondary mathematics and academic pathways for the Toronto District School Board, where he works with K-12 staff to tackle academic streaming and shift towards more equitable, inclusive and culturally responsive teaching. As a former high school math department head, he began challenging streaming in 2015 by eliminating applied math classes and teaching inclusive Grade 9 academic math, leading to significant gains for students identified with special education needs. To has presented at provincial math conferences and worked with school boards across Ontario with de-streaming, and was also part of the Ministry of Education writing team for the new de-streamed Grade 9 math curriculum. Finally, To is also a member of the steering committee for the Coalition for Alternatives to Streaming in Education.

Kaydeen Bankasingh is a mother, community organizer, facilitator and advocate in North 91��ɫ, who has successfully put her daughter through the public school system. She is advocating intensely for her son in the elementary public system. Bankasingh has led parent engagement initiatives for many years through school council, model schools initiatives and community partnerships. Supporting parents and families to support their children's success at school is her priority. She is passionate about equity, anti-Black, anti-Indigenous racism in the school system and the impacts on all racialized children at having healthy learning experiences. She has been a community representative with CASE since 2020.

Moderator:

Sultan Rana has been an educator for 13 years, and would best describe himself as a person who is “under construction.” Working for the vast majority of his career in the elementary panel with the 91��ɫ Region District School Board, Rana has also taught in both the secondary classroom and on university campuses in Malaysia and the United States. Holding an MEd in digital technologies, Rana worked as a digital literacy consultant for YRDSB for a couple of years, and attempts to be a leader at integrating digital technologies both in his practice as a K-12 educator, and in his current position as a seconded instructor at 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Education. Rana has written resources, conducted workshops, and supported educators (candidates and seasoned) on topics related to modern learning, CRRP, equity, inclusion, anti-racism, and Islamophobia for a number of schools, conferences, symposiums, and organization, both in-person and online for the past decade. In addition to moderating this session, Rana is also the co-chair of the 91��ɫ Faculty of Education Summer Institute (FESI) series, with Sayema Chowdhury.

This event is free and those interested can register .

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Welcome to the November 2020 issue of Innovatus, a special issue of YFile that is devoted to teaching and learning innovation at 91��ɫ.

This issue of Innovatus focuses on teaching, learning and the student experience in the Faculty of Education. I am so pleased by the rich variety of stories offered in this issue because they showcase the expansive depth of the Faculty's approach to the "act of education" to quote Interim Dean Sharon Murphy.

Education is universal and the Faculty's work with refugees in the Dadaab Refugee Complex in Kenya, homeless youth and in re-envisioning early childhood education are displayed among the fine stories offered in this issue. As well, Dean Murphy's letter is a testament to the Faculty's commitment to excellence, and the story highlighting the innovation shown in moving the Faculty of Education's Summer Institute online and transforming it to a year-long effort is amazing. Encore!

Thank you again for the many wonderful comments about our September and October issues. I value each of your responses. Please continue to contact me with your ideas, classroom innovations and thoughts about teaching, learning and the student experience.

As I close, the snow is starting to fly and with it, the holidays are approaching. I would like to take a moment to wish each of you good health and happiness at home, which is especially important this year.

Featured in the November 2020 issue of Innovatus

In her letter to the community, Interim Dean Sharon Murphy writes about how the Faculty of Education is constantly working to enliven new visions of education and society, visions of possibility, equity and social justice. "Our work focuses not only inward on curriculum and pedagogy, but very much looks outward towards the idea of education being situated within a complex and seemingly evermore fragile world."

One of 91��ɫ's hallowed traditions, the Faculty of Education Summer Institute (FESI), may have bowed to COVID-19 in terms of format, but it is unbowed in terms of mission and content. For 2020-2021, the institute has morphed into a series of five free webinars titled Up Close and Personal: Conversations on Anti-Oppression.

Stephen Gaetz, the 91��ɫ Research Chair in Homelessness and Research Impact and a professor in the Faculty of Education, is using his excellent research and communications skills and grant-writing ability to attack the challenges within youth homelessness, which need broad solutions and a meeting of many perspectives.

Rachel Silver, an assistant professor of education at 91��ɫ, with the help of a team of her colleagues in both Toronto and Dadaab, has created a virtual colloquium series, Reciprocal Learning in Times of Crisis, for the Faculty's Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) program. The series considers the issues arising from the confluence of education, the COVID-19 pandemic and new waves of resistance to anti-Black racism.

Lucy Angus and Cristina Delgado Vintimilla, assistant professors new to 91��ɫ and the Faculty of Education, have created a lecture series titled Disrupting Early Childhood: Inheritance, Pedagogy, Curriculum to explore new ideas about early childhood education (ECE) and create a space to bring together the innovative research conversations that are changing the field of ECE.

Innovatus is produced by the Office of the Associate Vice-President Teaching & Learning in partnership with Communications & Public Affairs.

I extend a personal invitation to you to share your experiences in teaching, learning, internationalization and the student experience through the Innovatus story form, which is available at .

Will Gage
Associate Vice-President, Teaching & Learning

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The Faculty of Education Summer Institute (FESI) 2020-21, will present the second webinar of its ‘Conversations on Anti-Oppression’ series on October 21 from 7:00 – 8:30 p.m.

The event “What does the journey towards Anti-Racist, Anti-Oppressive practice look like in a child welfare agency” will look at The Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto (CCAS) which receives almost 5,000 referrals a year about children and youth who may be in need of protection, the majority of which come from schools and the police. These referrals are disproportionately about Black children, and this disproportionality maintains itself throughout the child welfare service continuum, culminating in a significant overrepresentation of Black children/youth in care.

Featured speakers Carol Wade (Child Protection Supervisor, Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto), Kate Schumaker (Manager, Quality Assurance & Outcome Measurement, Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto), Priscilla Manful (Manager, Intake Services, Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto ) and Vanessa Cocco (Chief Social Worker, Toronto Catholic District School Board ) will share reflections about what the journey towards Anti-Racism Anti-Oppression practice has looked like both at the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto and in Education, the data and feedback from the Black community that have compelled action, and the beginning dialogue about the ways in which child welfare and education can join forces to help families receive the support they need without unnecessary intrusiveness and/or surveillance.

The session will be moderated by Carl James (91��ɫ Professor and Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora) and Jack Nigro (Superintendent of Elementary Curriculum at the Durham District School Board).

Registration is free! Register online at by October 20, 2020.

For more information on upcoming webinars for FESI 2020-21 visit .

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“As is the tradition with this conference, FESI 2020 will continue to challenge and question long-held educational beliefs, policies and practices that have normalized inequities in education,” said assistant professor Vidya Shah who is also a member of the FESI organizing committee. “FESI 2020 has and will continue to address the ways in which anti-Blackness permeates our thinking and practice in education. Given the heightened global awareness of anti-Black racism, spurred by the unconscionable deaths of many members of the Black community, we recommit to centering the experiences and aspirations of Black students, families and communities in support of Black life.”

The first webinar in the series Designing for/with Criticality and Community, will take place on August 19^th from 7 - 8:30 p.m. and will feature a discussion with panelists Kimberley Tavares, Elizabeth Tunstall and Natalie Wood who will share frameworks for how to engage community when thinking critically about curriculum, activism, policy and structures in education. Moderated by Shah, the guiding questions for the webinar are:

• Who and what influences how you think about curriculum, activism, policies and structures in the education system?
• How might you enhance your decision-making skills to better serve students who are most marginalized in the system?

Tavares is an Education Officer, cross-appointed to the Education Equity Secretariat and the System Evidence and Design Branch, in the Ontario Ministry of Education. She serves as an Educational Policy & Systems Advisor and the Equity and Literacy Lead, respectively. Kimberley has been seconded from a vice-principalship in the 91��ɫ Region District School Board, and prior to this was an Equity Officer in the 91��ɫ Region Board serving students of African and Caribbean heritage. Much of Kimberley's work in the Ministry is to develop innovative tools and resources that work to dismantle the systemic barriers faced by many students in the Ontario education system.

Tunstall is a design anthropologist, public intellectual, and design advocate who works at the intersections of critical theory, culture, and design. As Dean of Design at Ontario College of Art and Design University, she is the first Black and Black female Dean of a Faculty of Design. She leads the Cultures-Based Innovation Initiative focused on using old ways of knowing to drive innovation processes that directly benefit communities. With a global career, Tunstall served as Associate Professor of Design Anthropology and Associate Dean at Swinburne University in Australia.

Wood is a Professor in the Service Work Program (SSW) at George Brown College (GBC) who often describes herself as wearing 3 kinds of bowties; She is a social innovation specialist, co-founder of the GBC Social Innovation Hub who designs and performs change within institutions and communities; A PhD student using her research time to challenge the devastating impact of anti-Black racism through documenting and developing Afro-Caribbean diasporic-inspired community organizations and models of empowerment, healing and inclusion; and she is an award-winning visual and multi-media artist.

Shah is an educator, scholar and activist committed to issues of equity and racial justice. She is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at 91��ɫ and her research explores anti-racist approaches to educational leadership and school district reform. She has worked in the Model Schools for Inner Cities Program in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and was a teacher in the TDSB. She is also actively involved in community initiatives.

Additional questions that will be addressed at future webinars include:

• How do current values and ideologies continue to subject youth to oppressive practices and pose barriers to achievement and well-being?
• How can all aspects of curriculum (including hidden and null curricula), teaching and learning perpetuate stereotypes, biases and assumptions about racialized, marginalized and Indigenous students?
• Which voices are consistently and historically ignored, silenced and omitted in our curriculum, classrooms, schools and communities?
• How have historical practices influenced current policies and practices that have manifested in discrimination, especially anti-Black racism and anti-Indigenous racism?
• How might the knowledge of families, students, staff and community partners be honoured and how can these groups be consulted and engaged in meaningful ways to imagine and enact different practices and beliefs in education?
• How might we promote and encourage collaboration, solidarity and movement building in the current climate of a global pandemic?
• What possibilities are being presented to us during these times to learn and support all learners?

“Our education system was founded on colonialism, white supremacy and other intersecting forms of oppression. If left unexamined, we continue to perpetuate these systems of oppression in our educational structures," says Shah. "FESI 2020 brings together community partners, educators, researchers and policy makers to think and collectively towards disrupting these long-standing inequities.”

Upcoming webinar dates for FESI 2020 are:
October 21, 2020 - Webinar 2
November 18, 2020 – Webinar 3
February 17, 2021 - Webinar 4
April 21, 2021 - Webinar 5

Register for Webinar 1 at . For further information on FESI 2020 viisit .

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