March 12, 2024 • 56 mins
Dr. Amélie Lemieux talks to us about authenticity and vulnerability, posthumanism, and the broad scope of literacies. Dr. Lemieux’s research interests include Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility policies as it relates to reading research, literature teaching, and multimodality, all informed by phenomenological and posthumanist perspectives. Her most recent project includes investigating adolescents’ digital literacy practices as ways to leverage social justice. I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Lemieux speak at the University of South Florida’s David C. Anchin Center for the Advancement of Teaching Speaker Series in Tampa, Florida. At her invited talk, Amélie shared her ongoing InstaPoetry project, sharing insights from project development to preliminary results. Our conversation for this episode was recorded the day after her talk. Dr. Amélie Lemieux is an Assistant Professor at the University of Montreal’s Faculty of Education in the department of didactics (teaching and learning).
To cite this episode: Persohn, L. (Host). (2024, Mar 12). A conversation with Amélie Lemieux (Season 4, No. 9) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/1984-8530-6AAF-904B-12BE-Q
Connect with Classroom Caffeine at www.classroomcaffeine.com or on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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Episode Transcript
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Lindsay Persohn (00:10):
Education Research has a problem.
The work of brilliant educationresearchers often doesn't reach
the practice of brilliantteachers.
Classroom Caffeine is here tohelp.
In each episode, I talk with atop education researcher or
expert educator about what theyhave learned from their research
(00:31):
and experiences.
In this episode, dr AmelieLemieux talks to us about
authenticity and vulnerability,post-humanism and the broad
scope of literacies.
Dr Lemieux is known for herwork in the areas of
multi-literacies, literatureteaching and secondary education
(00:53):
.
Her most recent projectincludes investigating
adolescents' digital literacypractices as ways to leverage
social justice.
I had the pleasure of hearingDr Lemieux speak at the
University of South Florida'sDavid C Anchin Center for the
Advancement of Teaching speakerseries in Tampa, florida.
At her invited talk, amelieshared her ongoing Insta-Poetry
(01:17):
project, sharing insights fromproject development to
preliminary results.
Our conversation for thisepisode was recorded the day
after her talk, on November 8,2023.
Dr Amelie Lemieux is anassistant professor at the
University of Montreal's Facultyof Education in the Department
(01:38):
of Didactics, teaching andLearning.
For more information about ourguest, stay tuned to the end of
this episode.
So pour a cup of your favoritedrink and join me.
Your host Lindsay.
Persaud For Classroom Caffeineresearch to energize your
teaching practice, Amelie.
(01:59):
Thank you for joining me.
Welcome to the show.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (02:02):
Thank you for welcoming me.
Lindsay Persohn (02:04):
Today's show is a little bit different.
We are here together, live andin person.
Typically, when you hear aClassroom Caffeine episode, the
guest and I are meeting via Zoom, but Amelie is here in town, in
Tampa Florida, with me today,and so we decided to record a
live conversation.
So, amelie, from your ownexperiences and education, will
(02:25):
you share with us one or twomoments that inform your
thinking now?
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (02:29):
Yeah, that's a very good question.
I think in my experience, youknow, being a professor, a
teacher, a researcher, andseeing all those roles and
responsibilities beingintertwined, I think I've come
to terms with the idea that notevery idea will touch everyone,
but there's hope, incontinuously thinking that it
(02:51):
might and just hanging on tothat hope and, you know, trying
to do the best work that we cando for kids and teachers, with
hope, authenticity andvulnerability, and that's what
I'm aiming to do.
So that's probably the firstnugget of wisdom that I
(03:11):
cultivated over the years.
And the second one could be toknow when is enough.
You know in education, becausewe give so much of ourselves,
not only in academia but inschool settings.
You know teachers like when isit?
Like, am I doing enough grading?
Am I caring enough about thekids?
Am I doing enough planning?
(03:32):
And for us, researchers, likeyou know, am I teaching?
You know enough, Am I doingenough research?
The research that I'm doing,good enough?
So knowing the guidelines andthe boundaries of when is enough
for me and to me it's not whenyou read all the things or not,
when you stop thinking, but whenyou feel that probably you did
(03:56):
your best in speaking to thethings.
You're qualified to speak withthe tools that you have, with
authenticity and respect, soknowing your own limits, in
order to serve the public good.
Lindsay Persohn (04:10):
So I want to ask you a follow up question.
And I can connect with both ofthose ideas you've already
shared with us.
When do you think you reallystarted thinking so much about
when is enough?
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (04:21):
When I gave too much.
Yeah, when I gave.
I think I reached a pointduring the doctorate, maybe the
third year, and then the secondyear of the professoriate Like I
just came to a point where Iwas, you know, I was taking a
plane probably 10 times a year,which is absolutely insane.
Then that was during my PhD,like the final years.
(04:44):
And then entering the jobmarket.
You know, doing interviews notonly in Canada and in the States
, having this sort of you knowbilingual career where I produce
in French, produce in English,right in French, right in
English, navigating those twoworlds because they're quite
different, evenepistemologically speaking.
You know different theories,adapting, adjusting to languages
(05:08):
, cultures, doing interviews indifferent US States versus
different provinces.
So I gave a lot during my lastyears of my PhD and then during
my postdoc.
Postdoc was a breeze.
I loved working with Jen Raozoshe's such a positive mentor and
so was my PhD supervisor aswell.
(05:29):
And then I started my job inNova Scotia at Mount St Vincent
University amazing people there.
But I felt like I had somethingto prove and I think most of us
have this feeling starting offin academia and I wanted to do
good work for racial and socialjustice and speak to what I knew
, and yeah, and then you come toa point where you know you get
(05:52):
reappointment and you get aboost of confidence and you're
like, okay, like it's that sortof balance between knowing what
is enough and externalvalidation, which I don't seek
anymore, or I seek less anywaysin this world.
And I feel like in teachingeducation, you know, we're
always seeking this sort of youknow discourse, to know, like,
(06:14):
okay, what am I doing?
Like is it good enough?
And I feel like I get thisvalidation from myself now more
so than in earlier years.
Lindsay Persohn (06:25):
Yeah, that's really fantastic to hear.
I think that, you know, wedon't always have to look to
something external to say we've,I don't know, have we ever
arrived?
I don't think we've ever reallyreached a destination in
particularly in the world ofeducation, right, so we're
always learning, always growing,but when you can say my day is
done, right.
And I think that it is a reallychallenging balance in
(06:48):
education period, I think, inacademia and in teaching.
Because that actually remindsme of the first idea you
mentioned, that you know, noteverything will touch everyone
that we work with, and thatreminds me of something I
thought about a lot when I was aclassroom teacher.
I always wanted to ensure thatthere was something in every
school day for every child Iworked with.
But I think that if you beginto think that everything you do
(07:12):
has to reach every person, youend up in that too much is too
much kind of mode, right, likeyou're always sort of scrambling
to do it better, to do itfaster to, you know, to learn
the latest thing, when you don'tfeel like you've mastered the
last latest thing you wereworking on.
And I think you end up on thissort of like hamster wheel kind
of mentality that you can neverget off of and you never feel
(07:35):
fully satisfied, no matter howmany hours you put into the work
that you're doing, whichactually, I think, over time
diminishes the total job youknow, you know, because you
can't, you can't keep that upforever.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (07:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
I mean it's what you're saying,you know and you know as
teachers or educators orprofessors, if you're going to
be a teacher, you're going to bea teacher, you're going.
We can reach someone in a day.
Day is made, and I think thatcould count for any profession.
And what's interesting in whatI call cognitive reframing is to
(08:14):
understand what that might looklike in a day.
So like if a kid comes to yourclassroom without having had
breakfast and you have achocolate bar, then you get the
chocolate bar, and then thatcounts as doing the bet that I
could that day and puttingmaking sure that the needs are
met for that kid to learn inyour class.
Things like that, bringing asmile to someone's face or
(08:35):
having someone think or reflect,or just having.
One of my favorite sentences isI hadn't thought of that.
Like when someone tells youthis, you're like okay, like you
plan to seed and then you letthe seed grow and then you see
where it's gonna go or if it'sgonna go anywhere, but at least
you have people think.
So what it might look likemight be different for everybody
(08:59):
and it changes from day to day.
So I think there's valuablelessons in that, and the other
thing about you know knowingwhen enough is enough is what I
do now, which I find that hasworked for me is obviously
balance, like being connected tomy body a lot because I've been
connected to my mind so muchlike in ways that are probably
(09:24):
overzealous and not enough to mybody, and so I make sure that
I'm aligned in that way.
And the other thing is toactually count how many strikes
of things I can care about in aday.
So I have about five, five toseven.
I used to have probably 10 to15, which was too much for me.
(09:46):
So what that might look like,is that okay if I have five to
seven?
I try to balance that out withwellbeing as well.
So you know, a meeting is one,teaching a class can count from
one or two, depending on howmuch prep I have.
So that's, we're already atthree.
A yoga class is one, cooking isone, then meeting with a student
(10:10):
is another one, and then say,driving to work and going back
is another.
So I'm already at seven, rightWith that.
And that to me is a full daywhere I'm at full capacity and I
know if I overbook myself and Igo to 10, the next morning and
the next day I'm gonna pay forit.
Obviously I'm gonna like.
(10:31):
There's this constant thingwhere I have a fuel tank and if
I run it on empty I'm not like,the next morning I'm gonna have
to recuperate and make sure thatI'm good for the day, and the
day after, instead of having myregular seven, I might have
three strikes, you know, likethree things I could do.
(10:53):
So I know that about myselfvery much and I just have to,
you know, do thatself-discipline and ultimately
that leads to self-love.
Lindsay Persohn (11:04):
Yeah, that's really smart.
I love that idea of thinkingabout the things that you do and
really quantifying the qualityof them, right, because I think
that it can be really easy tolose yourself in the day to day
and I know, maybe particularlythis week, I've been feeling
that.
You know that probably not justthis week, but this week in
(11:26):
particular.
I was thinking on my way tomeet with you this morning.
I don't think I've actuallyaccomplished anything on my
to-do list because there havebeen so many other things going
on this week and it's Thursday,right, so it does make it very
tricky.
I think teaching is one ofthose things that we need to
really hold onto and do a verygood job of, right, and I think
(11:50):
but then again, where's thatbalance between am I putting,
you know, five hours intopreparing for a three hour class
?
Am I putting 10 hours intopreparing for a three hour class
?
I think that those things can betricky to balance, because I
think that quite often, if youare a teacher, if you work in
the world of education, or ifyou are a researcher, you have
(12:13):
this idea that things have to belike good enough is never good
enough, right, things have to beedging on perfection and I
think, being able to pull backfrom that ideal a little bit or,
as you said, that sort ofcognitive reframing, that
sometimes doing things wellenough is the best you're going
to do right.
And so what's the return oninvestment?
(12:35):
If I were to spend two morehours planning for my class, is
it going to be that much better?
Probably not, because at somepoint you meet the point of
diminishing returns, I think.
But yeah, it's hard to knowwhere that is.
You know you have to step backfrom it to really look at the
situation and think what's goodhere, what can I leave behind,
what am I not getting muchreturn on and how can I instead
(12:57):
focus on the most importantthings so that I'm not, you know
, the next day?
That sort of it's like anactivity hangover.
You know where.
You're just so drained from theprevious day that you have a
hard time going into the nextday.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (13:11):
Yeah, Absolutely.
I love the idea of activityhangover because it's real.
Lindsay Persohn (13:17):
Yeah.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (13:18):
Like it's really real and you know, for
teachers and educators andprofessors, like when we talk
about over-preparing for classes, you know, to me the cousin of
that is overthinking becausewhat?
comes before.
Over-preparing is overthinking.
What if I'm not good enough?
What if, you know, I don't haveenough time?
(13:39):
What if they're lacking keycontent?
And it's those what-ifs, youknow, and when we buy and we're
the first clients of that, andwhen we buy into the idea of the
what-ifs, that's when we burnourselves out.
Yeah, we do burn ourselves outand we're like no, no, no, this
is good enough.
You know the conversations aregonna rise from this.
(14:00):
That's gonna be more importantand they're gonna learn more
from me going in circles andlike lecturing or like
over-scheduling, and you know,and that comes from a place of
anxiety.
You know it comes from a placeof anxiety and you know,
learning to be at peace.
The law of detachment, the lawof being present in the present
(14:21):
moment, keeps you from.
You know, overthinking andover-preparing and doing all
that, so I'm getting better atstaying present and that leads
to more authentic, morevulnerable ways of approaching
my teaching and my research.
Lindsay Persohn (14:37):
Yeah, basically , no, I couldn't agree more with
that, and that's something Ifeel like I've certainly been
working on.
The other thing you mentionedthat I connected with is yoga,
and I've mentioned that a fewtimes on the show because that
is a practice that,unfortunately, I don't get to
participate in as often as I'dlike these days, but it is
something that I do weekly,maybe not daily, but at least
(15:00):
weekly.
I touch my yoga practice andthat does help to stay connected
to your body, to be more awareof what's going on and not just
living in my head all the time,and it actually helps me to be
better mentally prepared for theday.
I'm able to focus more and Ijust feel much more connected to
(15:22):
and aware of what's going on.
Rather than ignoring an ache ora pain, you can actually work
through it and think about itand sometimes, before it becomes
a chronic condition, you can,you know, let go of those,
whether you know, it's the kindof the physical holding of
anxiety, and so, yeah, I findthat to be a really important
(15:43):
part of my world as well,absolutely, and you're able to
be more present.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (15:47):
Also, like even, you know, doing the
podcast, they have to be anactive listener, being there,
like working with ideas, workingwith people, and I think one of
the ways in which goodlisteners do that is by being
present in their body and doingthose mind-body connections that
some of us not all of us, butsome of us take for granted.
Yeah, you can't work with yourbrain all the time if you're not
(16:10):
connected to your body, like,those mind-body connections are
so, so, so important Because, asyou said, it brings about
awareness, awareness of your ownbody, your own limits, what you
can do, what you can't do.
When you do that for yourself,you can do that for others and
it's not a given that you knowanybody can access that.
(16:32):
But I find great about yoga andwhat I do.
Now I've been doing that morereligiously over the past year,
probably try to do three, fourtimes a week because it really
calms me down and I do hot yoga.
So, it is a thing that I, likeyou know, I live up North, so
for me it's my way of likeconnecting to this, like Florida
(16:55):
weather or like creating, youknow, some sort of artificial
space where I can live thosemoments, but it allows me to,
you know, go deeper and stretchdeeper in ways that allow me to
be more flexible with my body.
And what that does, literallyand metaphorically, is that it
(17:16):
allows me to be more flexiblewith my thinking.
And when we talk about mybody-mind connections, I think
there's ways in which our bodyteaches things that language
cannot teach us Absolutely, andit makes you realize, okay, well
, I hadn't thought about it, Ihadn't thought about my body
(17:37):
this way and I didn't think Icould do this and I didn't.
So it gives you also confidence.
That can, you know, then haverepercussions in your work and
the ways in which you interactwith people and you're present
with them.
So, yeah, about presence, aboutawareness and about
understanding your own limits,to be able to understand other
(17:58):
people's limits and what you canwork with and work with
people's energies and your own,and that sort of flow.
Lindsay Persohn (18:05):
Well, and it reminds me that so much of the
world and so much of our ownexperience, both in our own
bodies and outside of ourselves,can't really be put into words
right.
I think we try to describe, orI might even say to sort of
textualize, every experience, ifthat makes sense, although of
course I think in our world ofliteracy we tend to think of
(18:27):
texts as being any sort of youknow, not just words but gesture
and environments and all ofthose things.
But I think that we try to putour ideas into words so often
that we forget there are so manythings that you can't express
in words.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (18:43):
Yeah, that's really interesting because it
taps into, you know, the wholenon-representational theory of
literacy and affect theory andall of that, and I know a lot of
my work has touched on that andhas embraced or adopted or
espoused onto epistemologiesthat talk about affect and
(19:06):
non-representational theory andpost-humanism and things like
that.
And back in the day when Istarted working on that, you
know, with Jennifer Rausel andthen by myself, we really tapped
into those ideas.
In terms of entanglement, youknow what it means to affect
someone and being affected,seeing those relationalities,
(19:29):
seeing how we interact with theworld.
And I didn't, like you know wetalked about bodies, but I don't
think I understood it to theextent and the ways in which
that yoga practice allows me tounderstand it now and
understanding it in a way thatmakes my identity present but
(19:49):
not predominant, in the ways inwhich I see what matters and
what doesn't, and in ways inwhich you know we think about
entanglements, say, of humans,non-humans more than humans, and
you know, like, like this,centering the place of humans,
that can be problematic for manyreasons.
You know, when we talk aboutrace and social justice Brad
Odie talks about that, forexample but the idea, the main
(20:13):
idea is that the work and themission is not about us egos,
it's about the greater good.
So once we understand that andwe understand that everything's
interrelated and interconnected,I think it brings more purpose
to the mission and the thingsthat we're trying to do Well and
it helps you to prioritizeright.
(20:33):
It helps you to decide when?
Lindsay Persohn (20:34):
is it when?
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (20:35):
and how, when is it enough, right?
Lindsay Persohn (20:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and what you can let go of
, but you have to continue topursue.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (20:40):
Exactly.
Lindsay Persohn (20:42):
So I love how this conversation about yoga and
mindfulness leads us right toour second question.
So, Emily, what do you wantlisteners to know about?
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (20:50):
your work Well link to that and everything
we just talked about.
It makes me think about howrelational truths exist and
perspectives and you know,multiple perspectives regarding,
say, an object can coexist inways that can be right and also
(21:12):
not right and then it bringsabout conversations about values
and about morals and thingsthat matter, I think, for
education.
Again, you know, it makes meask who are we serving for the
greater good?
And that the mission is notabout us.
It's more about social andracial justice, at least for me,
because it's values that Ibelieve in in education.
(21:35):
So that's part of the work thatI've been doing and that I want
to continue to do, even as aqueer woman in academia, you
know, like an embracing thatidentity more and writing about
it in my positionalitystatements and why I'm doing the
work that I'm doing and forwhom, and like things that I
don't know and were the thingsthat I feel that I'm vulnerable
(21:55):
and that I need to keep onlearning, and I feel like I'm
more connected to myself and theideas that I need to convey,
when I admit in all humilitythat I don't know everything and
that I'm you know, and that I'ma position of continuously
learning.
And that's where I think thework happens.
(22:16):
You know, like I think, in thisposition of always balancing
okay, here are the things that Iknow and here are the things
that I don't, and I'm very awareof what I know and of what I
don't know, and I'm also notaware of what I don't know yet
and being in that continuum andgoing back and forth allows me
(22:37):
to be present and doing the bestthat I can with the tools that
I have in that present moment.
Lindsay Persohn (22:42):
It's so smart, I think, to be so aware of where
your expertise may lie, and itactually reminds me of you know,
along the journey from teacherinto academia, realizing that
it's okay to say you don't know,right, because I think when I
(23:03):
first entered that world Ithought, oh, I'm going to be
expected to know everything.
And so you know, even thingslike being in a conference, you
know at someone's presentationand to hear an experienced
researcher, you know someone whoI may have only known by name
and by work, and then you seethem live and in the flesh, and
(23:25):
someone asks a question and theysay I don't know, I haven't
thought about that yet.
And I remember hearing that andfeeling like, oh, that's
licensed for me not to know also, and not in an ignorant kind of
way, but just in simply statingI know I can't know everything
and it's really naive to thinkthat you can right.
(23:46):
You know, it's such a weirdposition to put yourself in a
thing.
I have to be the master ofeverything.
You just can't it's impossible.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (23:55):
Well, I think it's part of it is lying
to yourself and then lying toothers, right, and when you're
in a position of authenticityand vulnerability, then those
sort of what I call lowervibrational postures become so
irrelevant and so not in theintent of serving the greater
(24:17):
good, right, and so it doesn'tbecome relevant just to be in
that posture anymore.
You know, like, when you gothrough different phases, like
ego death, like you know, likeleaving like low vibrational
energies and being in mindsetsthat are not about abundance and
that are not about creatingknowledge and connecting with
(24:39):
people, like when you leavebehind those sort of layers that
are not productive, you realize, okay, like pretending that I
know everything is actuallylying to myself and it's not
giving the world the mostauthentic version of myself that
(25:03):
helps people grow and beingaligned with themselves.
And I'm saying this in allhumility, like it's not like I'm
changing the world or anything,but it's triggering for people
too.
Like you know, like when youcome in and you say like, okay,
this is my most authentic self,and for people who are not ready
, it can be triggering,absolutely it can be triggering.
Lindsay Persohn (25:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
I mean, I would imagine thattrying to live as if you know
everything there is to know canalso be very exhausting.
Oh, yeah, right, because itwould be like playing a part all
day and all night, every dayand every night, and I can only
imagine how that would erodeyour soul after a while and
(25:47):
eventually make you feel likemaybe you don't really know who
you are at all.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (25:51):
Yeah, yeah, and when you stay in a state of
gratitude, I feel like thingslike you know playing a part
become not part of your ethos.
Right, Like you can't go there.
You know, like when we haveoffice hours, students come into
our office.
(26:12):
They probably travel 30 minutes, 45 minutes to come into your
office to talk to you aboutthings that they care about.
I'm grateful that someone isscheduling time to come see me
and talk about ideas andconcerns that are gonna help
them in their mission of beingteachers, educators, researchers
(26:33):
, people that are gonna helpkids and people grow.
So when you're in that mindsetof gratitude of having someone
in front of you and listening tothem and exchanging ideas, I
find that's way more fulfillingthan being in a state of, say, a
(26:55):
professor with correctivemeasures or, you know, like
guidelines that are too strictand not flexible thinking.
And that's why I think thebody-mind connections with
flexible thinking come in,because then you embody that and
then you can give that toothers in ways that make sense.
But that comes with a postureof awareness, as you said, and
(27:15):
gratitude, Like I'm grateful tobe here today and be able to
think with you Like how luckyare we to be able to do that,
you know, and then that'sprobably going to reach people,
but then or not, you know.
But my hope is that it will.
And then you know people aregoing to come to work and maybe
find some solace in there andthey are saying like we're
grateful to do the jobs thatwe're doing and just being in
(27:39):
the presence of others andworking together and that's.
Lindsay Persohn (27:43):
I find that to be that sort of posture, to be
so helpful in thatprioritization right and letting
go of the things that reallydon't matter or that may be
matter to someone in somedistant space who's maybe never,
never met you before, neverbeen in a classroom since they
were students themselves.
You know, I think so often aseducators we get hung up on
(28:07):
serving someone else's missionand I think that that is a
really tough space to live in aswell because, again, you can't
bring that authenticity topolicies you don't believe in,
practices that I think cansometimes feel like they're
being crammed down your throat,you know, forced on you.
It's so hard and I thought aboutthis before in the context of
teaching and again, that kind ofsoul-sucking work of doing
(28:29):
someone else's business,especially when you know it
doesn't serve the children infront of you, that's such a
difficult place to be in and inmy mind and in my experience and
in talking with other teachers,I think that is really what
teacher burnout is about.
It's not necessarily about theinteractions with kids it is.
(28:50):
It's that trying to livesomeone else's mission or not
being really even able to findthe authenticity in the work
that you're doing because youhave to be and I say have to
with this sort of legal kind ofmentality, right, that kind of
pressure that you have to bedoing something else that you
may or may not even believe inin the first place, and you have
(29:12):
to let go of the things thatyou do, and I think that that's
really dehumanizing.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (29:17):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And it goes back to thepressures that teachers are
facing in terms of you know thestrikes that they have in a day.
So you know right.
So they should have, of course,like five to seven, but then
the responsibilities of the jobsand the piling up of you know
(29:37):
the things that need to get donemake it so that it's not five
to seven.
We're talking like 12 to 15 to20 in a day on top of personal
life.
So that becomes very burdensome.
And there's one thing I shouldsay about you know values and
knowing yourself in Namaste.
(29:58):
It's all good, you know it'sall good and fine, but then
there's limits to what teacherscan do.
So say, for example, you know Iworked on a project on maker
spaces, many of them and workwith teachers.
The number of teachers that Iwork with in terms of doing
maker space research.
These responsibilities areadded on to regular load in
(30:24):
spaces that are not necessarilygiven to you know, like
resources, specialists orlibrarians.
So who?
Whose responsibility to does amaker space belong to teachers?
It's usually teacher, right,right.
So they want to innovate, theywant to bring in new curriculum
(30:47):
content, they want to do it forthe kids and make it so that you
know like engagement is therebut then it comes to the expense
of their own teaching load ortheir own responsibilities.
So that's where, to me, likethe values and the mission and
the public comes.
(31:08):
In education, I find, and inother fields, like, like, like
being a nurse, for instance,like any profession that comes
with caring and caring aboutpeople, it often comes at a
personal expense and that's whenyou need to know your own
limits and what you can do andwhen to ask.
(31:29):
You know, ask for a librarianaid or ask for it.
And you know it's not thatteachers don't ask, it's because
then they're faced with thebureaucratic and structural I
call it structural violence ofschooling systems where you know
we don't have funding and thenit becomes, you know, like
politics and things like that.
So I'm well aware that there's,you know, responsibilities that
(31:53):
get add on to, but then itcomes back to the strikes we
have in a day I find right.
Lindsay Persohn (32:00):
And it's hard to ask for teachers to do more
than they're already doing.
Absolutely yeah yeah, becauseit's already too much.
Yeah yeah.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (32:09):
Absolutely.
Lindsay Persohn (32:10):
So what else would you like listeners to?
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (32:11):
know about your work.
Very good projects.
We're in year three of theInsta Poetry Project.
This is a collaboration withGeorgina Barton at the
University of SouthernQueensland, david Lukavich at
the University of Alberta andBoyd White at McGill University.
We are working on adolescentsliteracy engagement on social
(32:34):
media, specifically Instagram.
So we asked them to navigateInstagram and then create
decolonial poems based on theirreading and viewing of
decolonial literature, poetryand art, and then we shared
those productions on theresearch media account Insta
(32:56):
underscore poetic with a K, ifanyone is interested in
following the account and seethe artworks that are published.
So this is our year ofdissemination.
We have a couple of articlescoming out in that vein and I'm
working also with Christian Ereton a video game project that we
(33:18):
have together on affect andwell being.
So that's ongoing as well.
And with my colleague,catherine Gosselin at the
University of Montreal, we areworking with pre service
teachers on their positionalitytowards equity, racial and
social justice in terms ofliterature teaching and primary
(33:39):
grades and secondary grades.
So we want them to reflect ontheir own positionality before
going into classrooms andteaching what we call sensitive
topics or sensitive content.
So you know, it's justconversations that happens in
classroom, but we want to equipour teachers to be ready to have
conversations with kids of allraces and genders.
(34:03):
So that's what's going onpretty much right now in terms
of my work.
Lindsay Persohn (34:11):
A few things, A couple of things a couple of
things that back to our earlierconversation.
Yeah, just how much a person cando in a day?
How many?
strikes.
That's right.
So what would you say is someof your biggest learning from
those projects so far?
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (34:28):
Oh my God, so many different projects with
different people in differentlanguages.
So to me, it's just.
It shows the scope ofliteracies and literacies work
and what we can do in thosespaces, and that's a strand
that's been constant in my work,and I did my PhD exactly on
that topic.
I did my PhD on literateengagement and what that might
(34:50):
look like for adolescents, andwhat I'm Coming to know the more
I do this work is that literacyengagement comes in different
shapes and forms, in differenttypes of modalities.
That happens in adolescencedigital lives, so, whether it be
on with video games, withliterature reading, or on social
(35:14):
media, or with poetry, likeit's all about those parks.
You know, though and I talkedabout this in a recent article
that's going to come out inreading research quarterly I
call them little sparks, and thelittle sparks are when you can
see those moments of engagementand the nonrepresentational in a
(35:35):
classroom, and thenonrepresentational allows us to
delve into things that we can'tgrasp in questionnaires, we
can't necessarily grasp ininterviews, nor can we grasp it
in, you know, like productions.
More specifically, and we lookedat data for so many years in
terms of research on readingengagement originally, like we
(35:58):
used to, you know, givequestionnaires and say are you
engaged or not engaged in lifedoesn't work like that.
You know what I mean.
Like you know, like if I watcha Netflix TV show, like there's
moments that I'm going to beengaged, there's moments that
I'm not going to be engaged, andengagement might look like
frustration.
You know, like and and and.
Questionnaires don't look atthe depths of what that might
(36:22):
look like and how it can beexpressed.
And sometimes you're engagedbut you might not say it, or
maybe you don't want to say it,or maybe you don't want to share
that, or maybe you don't evenunderstand it or you don't
understand it as engagement whenyou're frustrated.
Frustration is one of thebiggest markers or indicators of
engagement because you react tosomething right.
(36:42):
It's not like there's apathy,right, like you're.
You know so when you have andthis might be good for teachers
as well like when you're in yourclassroom and you're teaching
content that you deeply, deeply,deeply care about and you have
that one student who you knowmaybe is having a difficult day
(37:04):
but they're asking you questionsand they're you know that
student is going to ask youquestions and ask you questions
and ask you questions and itmight get on your nerves because
you know they're not complying,or you know, like listening, or
you think they're not listening, but they're actually very
actively listening and they wantto understand better, and
that's a marker of engagement inways that might not be positive
(37:27):
, but it's still engagement.
When there's engagement, thereis a door there to bring about
comprehension and interpretationand reaction and appreciation
of the content that you'reteaching.
So to me, like and I'm notsaying that everything is
engagement, but I'm saying thatthere's doors and those doors
(37:47):
might look different.
There might be like a yellowdoor, green door, like a glass
door, like you know but there's,there's a way, you know,
there's always a way to try tohave those conversations that
are productive.
Lindsay Persohn (38:00):
Yeah, and for some kids, I think particularly
maybe who have, who aren'thistorically engaged in the
literacies of schooling.
Maybe that door looks a littlebit more like a roof hatch.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (38:12):
Because it's the only way that you can.
Lindsay Persohn (38:14):
Can find, find a way in.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (38:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
And the literacies of schoolingyou said it, lindsay like they
are, you know they're violentand harmful, like some of them
are violent and harmful for somekids.
So we have to be flexible againin our thinking and being in
the present moment and trying toreach those kids are the best
of our abilities.
Lindsay Persohn (38:35):
Yeah, and you're bringing about some real
questions, I think, maybebringing to the surface in my
mind something that I feel likeI've wrestled with for a long
time.
When school measures literacythrough multiple choice
questionnaires based on some,you know, textoid that kids may
or may not have any interest in,and then we, we put a label on
(38:59):
them based on their responses towhat they may see as a stupid
question about a stupid passage,it does do harm and it really
it leaves me with a big questionabout what we can do as
researchers, as practitioners,as people you know supporting in
(39:19):
schools.
How do we find again back tothat?
Where where's that limit?
How do we in fact work withinthe confines of schools in real
ways, while also pushing back onsome of that very limiting and
limited thinking about whatliteracy really is right?
(39:40):
It's like to me it's.
It's such a big question abouthow we continue to do good work
that leaves space for kids andleave space for their thinking
and for their differences inthinking, while also still being
allowed to do that work insideof schools, because, you know,
everything there has to bemeasured and quantified and
(40:01):
checkmarked, and it's a realtension that I feel like maybe
not in those words, but I feel,I feel like I've been thinking
about that since I was aclassroom teacher.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (40:11):
Yeah, it's a hard one.
It's a tough one.
I think if we go back to thevery principles PLE, of course
the very core idea Ideas oflearning is dynamic and
relational, because humans aredynamic, dynamic and relational
beings Then if we follow thatpremise, which is a very basic
(40:36):
and obvious premise, I think wecan be more intelligent and more
intentional with the questionsthat we ask on the tests that we
have to do because ofstandardizing and, you know,
those bureaucratic measures ofschooling that we have to abide
(40:58):
by.
So if those principles guide thetypes of questions that we ask,
I think that's where we cansave some of the humanizing
literacy practices that we'retrying to do.
I don't think we're going to beable to, although it's my wish,
but I don't think we're goingto be able to get rid of
(41:20):
standardized testing anytimesoon because of the policies
that we're being subjected to.
But if we can work with thepeople who create those tests
and if we have active voices andhumanizing the types of
questions that we ask, I thinkthat you know that could be a
(41:42):
door that could be one of thedoors that we actually open
widely and proudly to make surethat we're not teaching to the
test, but we're teachingrelational and dynamic students.
Lindsay Persohn (41:58):
But there in my mind are many, many fundamental
challenges there.
Right, because the kind of workthat we're talking about, the
engaging, relational, socialkind of work, it's hard to
measure.
Yeah, it's hard to evaluate onsome level.
Right, because you bring in allthese critical perspectives of
(42:19):
well, you know who's whose voiceis it, whose ideas are they,
what really matters, and that isdifferent for everyone.
And thinking can be hard tomeasure.
Right, because I feel likeparticularly and you mentioned,
we mentioned policies policieshave numerical values built
right into them, and so it makesthe education system in some
(42:44):
ways, I think, default to thosekinds of quantifiable sorts of
literacies and I'll use airquotes there, because it's such
a constrained way of thinkingabout being literate in this
world.
There's a fundamental tensionand I think if we could get the
ear of test makers, policymakers, those decision makers,
(43:06):
and help them to understand thatliteracy isn't just reading and
writing.
You know that there's so muchmore to it than that,
particularly in the world welive in, I've thought on many
occasions that we are in someways teaching for the past
rather than teaching for thefuture, and that is because of
(43:27):
policies and those structuresthat are so deeply ingrained
inside of schools that you can't, we could think without them,
but in many ways we're notallowed to.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (43:38):
Absolutely.
Yeah, that makes a lot of senseto me and in ways that you know
, teaching to the future shouldreflect, say, for example, how
engagement has evolved over theyears and how we have a
responsibility as teachers andeducators to take the pulse of
(43:59):
adolescents lives.
And the thing with tests isthat if we don't change them
every year, if we don't, youknow, update them or make them
more cognizant of that pulse,then we're not working for the
greater good.
You know what I mean, right?
(44:20):
So there's something verystatic about reading and writing
in the traditional ways inwhich they were taught, that
don't recognize the relationaland dynamic ways in which
literacy lives.
So in that way, I think it's,you know, again, as you said,
there's a real tension andchallenge and accounting for and
(44:41):
wanting to measure things thatare even outside of our scope
right now, you know, like withI'm thinking about AI literacies
right now, you know and thingsthat we can't even see, you know
, we can't even see what thetools that we have on the daily
and in the ways in whichschooling literacies are built
and enacted right now in schools.
So there's a lot of, you know,literacy learning that happens
(45:03):
behind the scenes, that arehidden from us, but they still
happen, you know and so, but thetests don't account for that
because it's not part of thetraditional reading and writing
and spelling and you know oralliteracies that that are being
measured.
But again, like what kind ofadults are we building?
Right, you know?
(45:23):
Are they going to live in aworld where they're going to be
evaluated for these traditionalliteracies, or are they going to
live in a world in whichcomputers and AI are going to
assist them in making thedecisions that they're going to
make in the workplace and intheir daily lives?
So I think there's a there's aneven bigger disconnect there
(45:47):
between adult literacies, livesand the type of adolescents that
we're educating, and I think inthe years to come, one of the
things that literacies shouldlook at is how to make sure that
adolescents and young peopleare still autonomous in their
literacy learning, and not somuch in the content but in their
(46:09):
decision making and then theirethical choices and things that
pedagogy brings us in ways thatare significant in terms of
engagement.
Lindsay Persohn (46:19):
Right, that idea of being autonomous and a
critical thinker.
There are so many ways thatschooling educates that right
out of us, right?
It actually reminds me of aconversation that I had with an
undergraduate student just lastweek.
We are also working onadolescent literacy project,
where we bring college agementors to work with middle
(46:41):
schoolers and late elementarystudents as a reading mentor,
and it's not necessarily forreading intervention per se, but
it's about what are youinterested in.
Let's find a book that let'sread together.
Let's talk about what you'rereading.
And the other component to thatis with our seventh grade
students.
We are engaging in an inquiryproject.
(47:02):
It's a community engaged inquiryproject, and mentors and their
mentees went on a field triptogether last week to think
about how they can situateliteracies within the community
and also that idea of how we canbe activists in our own right
and investigate our ownquestions and connect back to
the community in order to shapeit the way that we want it to be
(47:25):
in the future.
And so I tell you all of thatcontext to say that one of the
mentors in the project isactually an elementary education
pre-service teacher and we weretalking about their experience
out in the community and theirdeveloping understanding of what
inquiry is.
And her share out to the grouplast week was that inquiry is
(47:47):
teaching her that there isn'tjust one right answer.
And if you think about someonein their early twenties who is
voicing this to a group of peers, she's probably not the only
person in the group who used tobelieve that there was one right
answer.
But it totally makes sense,right, because that's likely.
What she has been taughtthroughout her entire education
(48:09):
is that there's one right answerit's A, b, c or D.
That's it Right and so.
I think that, as now amiddle-aged adult, I can look
back and think about how our ownworldview is so impacted by
what we're taught and what wearen't.
Well right, what we're exposedto and what we aren't.
And so if you think about thesestudents who have tracked
(48:30):
through a world of educationwhere there is one right answer,
it comes directly from the textand somebody else decided what
it was.
If you grow up in that world,it's not a stretch to think that
, oh wow, this idea that there'smore than one right answer to a
real-world problem is a littlebit earth-shattering.
(48:53):
Right To what we think we knowabout what we think we know.
To me it was such an impactfulstatement that she made.
It was not just telling of herexperience, but I think it was
telling of her totality ofeducation.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (49:07):
Absolutely, absolutely and that's very
telling of the roles that wehave as high school teachers and
professors and researchers, inreally espousing this idea that
there is a transitional rolethat needs to happen in high
school settings and adolescencein understanding the shift
(49:31):
between schooling and real-worldliteracies and what awaits them
as adults working in industryor working in universities or
working in the public healthsystem.
There's many ways of workingwith people and finding
different truths, and that's whyone of the things that might
(49:53):
help teachers is understandingthat role and really trying to
convey the message that multipletruths exists, but that's my
epistemological posture.
Now one might think or say thatthat's one truth itself.
Lindsay Persohn (50:12):
I'd like to think about the truth.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (50:15):
If we're going very meta, but this idea
of and as you said itbeautifully, it's about
community work, it's aboutactivist work, it's about the
identities that we want to havein the world and serving for the
greater good, and that can onlybe done if we welcome multiple
perspectives.
Lindsay Persohn (50:35):
Which, again, fundamental tension with.
Choose one, it's ABC or D.
Yeah, Exactly so.
Given the challenges of today'seducational climate, what
message do you want teachers tohear?
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (50:49):
To hang in there, because I find effort is
an expression of interest and ifwe think about this idea,
interest is also an expressionof effort.
It goes both ways and thinkabout the strengths that you
have in a day to make sure thatyour interest doesn't vanish and
(51:13):
that your engagement and yourrole in responsibility towards
students stays pretty muchconsistent.
And sometimes it's not becauseof will, it's because of our
capacity as humans, what we canand why we can do.
So, yeah, if there was one lastthing I wanna say is to link
that engagement piece with ourlimits and basically our roles
(51:36):
of authenticity andvulnerability that we're trying
to carry in this literacy worldthat we're working towards.
Lindsay Persohn (51:44):
Yeah, yeah, that's very powerful advice.
I'm Leah.
I wanna thank you so much forspending this time with me today
.
It was wonderful to hear yourpresentation last night at the
University of South FloridaDavid C Anshan Center for the
Advancement of Teaching and Ilook forward to following your
work and learning more about notonly your Instapoetry project
(52:05):
but the work you're doing withgaming and also with some of
your positionality ofpre-service teachers.
All of those things reallystrike a chord with me and
certainly align with many of myinterests as well.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (52:17):
Thank you so much for having me on the
classroom caffeine podcast,lindsey, much appreciated.
I love the work that you do andthank you so much for being in
conversation with me and I'mvery grateful for that.
Thank you, you've given me somuch to think about.
Thank you.
Lindsay Persohn (52:33):
Dr Emily Lemieux's research interests
include equity, diversity,inclusion and accessibility
policies as it relates toreading, research, literature,
teaching and multi-modality, allinformed by phenomenological
and post-humanist perspectives.
Her work has been published inreading research quarterly,
literacy, professionaldevelopment in education,
(52:55):
british Journal of EducationalTechnology, canadian Journal of
Learning and Technology andother venues.
A bronze Lieutenant Governor'sMedal recipient of Quebec, she
received social sciences andhumanities research council
funding to investigateadolescents, digital literacy
practices and meaning makingprocesses as ways to leverage
(53:16):
racial and social justice.
Dr Lemieux completed a socialsciences and humanities research
council Bombardier funded PhDin literacy and education at
McGill University and apostdoctoral fellowship at Brock
University's Center forResearch in Multiliteracies.
Dr Emily Lemieux is anassistant professor at the
(53:37):
University of Montreal's Facultyof Education in the Department
of Didactics or Teaching andLearning.
You can connect with Dr Lemieuxat AMELIE L-E-M-I-E-U-Xcom
that's AMELIELEMieuxcom, andfollow her most recent research
(53:57):
project on Instagram at instaunderscore poetic.
That's at INS-TA underscoreP-O-E-T-I-K.
For the good of all students.
Classroom caffeine aims toenergize education, research and
practice.
(54:18):
If this show gives you thingsto think about, help us spread
the word.
Talk to your colleagues andeducator friends about what you
hear.
You can support the show bysubscribing, liking and
reviewing this podcast throughyour podcast provider.
Visit classroomcaffeinecomwhere you can subscribe to
receive our short monthlynewsletter, the espresso shot.
(54:41):
On our website, you can alsolearn more about each guest,
find transcripts for ourepisodes, explore topics using
our dropdown menu of tags,request an episode topic or
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(55:04):
Twitter.
We would love to hear from you.
Special thanks to the classroomcaffeine team Leah Berger,
abaya Veluru, stephanie Bransonand Shaba Hojfath.
As always, I raise my mug toyou teachers.
Thanks for joining me.
Thank you, thank you.
Education Research has a problem.
The work of brilliant educationresearchers often doesn't reach
the practice of brilliantteachers.
Classroom Caffeine is here tohelp.
In each episode, I talk with atop education researcher or
expert educator about what theyhave learned from their research
(00:31):
and experiences.
In this episode, dr AmelieLemieux talks to us about
authenticity and vulnerability,post-humanism and the broad
scope of literacies.
Dr Lemieux is known for herwork in the areas of
multi-literacies, literatureteaching and secondary education
(00:53):
.
Her most recent projectincludes investigating
adolescents' digital literacypractices as ways to leverage
social justice.
I had the pleasure of hearingDr Lemieux speak at the
University of South Florida'sDavid C Anchin Center for the
Advancement of Teaching speakerseries in Tampa, florida.
At her invited talk, amelieshared her ongoing Insta-Poetry
(01:17):
project, sharing insights fromproject development to
preliminary results.
Our conversation for thisepisode was recorded the day
after her talk, on November 8,2023.
Dr Amelie Lemieux is anassistant professor at the
University of Montreal's Facultyof Education in the Department
(01:38):
of Didactics, teaching andLearning.
For more information about ourguest, stay tuned to the end of
this episode.
So pour a cup of your favoritedrink and join me.
Your host Lindsay.
Persaud For Classroom Caffeineresearch to energize your
teaching practice, Amelie.
(01:59):
Thank you for joining me.
Welcome to the show.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (02:02):
Thank you for welcoming me.
Lindsay Persohn (02:04):
Today's show is a little bit different.
We are here together, live andin person.
Typically, when you hear aClassroom Caffeine episode, the
guest and I are meeting via Zoom, but Amelie is here in town, in
Tampa Florida, with me today,and so we decided to record a
live conversation.
So, amelie, from your ownexperiences and education, will
(02:25):
you share with us one or twomoments that inform your
thinking now?
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (02:29):
Yeah, that's a very good question.
I think in my experience, youknow, being a professor, a
teacher, a researcher, andseeing all those roles and
responsibilities beingintertwined, I think I've come
to terms with the idea that notevery idea will touch everyone,
but there's hope, incontinuously thinking that it
(02:51):
might and just hanging on tothat hope and, you know, trying
to do the best work that we cando for kids and teachers, with
hope, authenticity andvulnerability, and that's what
I'm aiming to do.
So that's probably the firstnugget of wisdom that I
(03:11):
cultivated over the years.
And the second one could be toknow when is enough.
You know in education, becausewe give so much of ourselves,
not only in academia but inschool settings.
You know teachers like when isit?
Like, am I doing enough grading?
Am I caring enough about thekids?
Am I doing enough planning?
(03:32):
And for us, researchers, likeyou know, am I teaching?
You know enough, Am I doingenough research?
The research that I'm doing,good enough?
So knowing the guidelines andthe boundaries of when is enough
for me and to me it's not whenyou read all the things or not,
when you stop thinking, but whenyou feel that probably you did
(03:56):
your best in speaking to thethings.
You're qualified to speak withthe tools that you have, with
authenticity and respect, soknowing your own limits, in
order to serve the public good.
Lindsay Persohn (04:10):
So I want to ask you a follow up question.
And I can connect with both ofthose ideas you've already
shared with us.
When do you think you reallystarted thinking so much about
when is enough?
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (04:21):
When I gave too much.
Yeah, when I gave.
I think I reached a pointduring the doctorate, maybe the
third year, and then the secondyear of the professoriate Like I
just came to a point where Iwas, you know, I was taking a
plane probably 10 times a year,which is absolutely insane.
Then that was during my PhD,like the final years.
(04:44):
And then entering the jobmarket.
You know, doing interviews notonly in Canada and in the States
, having this sort of you knowbilingual career where I produce
in French, produce in English,right in French, right in
English, navigating those twoworlds because they're quite
different, evenepistemologically speaking.
You know different theories,adapting, adjusting to languages
(05:08):
, cultures, doing interviews indifferent US States versus
different provinces.
So I gave a lot during my lastyears of my PhD and then during
my postdoc.
Postdoc was a breeze.
I loved working with Jen Raozoshe's such a positive mentor and
so was my PhD supervisor aswell.
(05:29):
And then I started my job inNova Scotia at Mount St Vincent
University amazing people there.
But I felt like I had somethingto prove and I think most of us
have this feeling starting offin academia and I wanted to do
good work for racial and socialjustice and speak to what I knew
, and yeah, and then you come toa point where you know you get
(05:52):
reappointment and you get aboost of confidence and you're
like, okay, like it's that sortof balance between knowing what
is enough and externalvalidation, which I don't seek
anymore, or I seek less anywaysin this world.
And I feel like in teachingeducation, you know, we're
always seeking this sort of youknow discourse, to know, like,
(06:14):
okay, what am I doing?
Like is it good enough?
And I feel like I get thisvalidation from myself now more
so than in earlier years.
Lindsay Persohn (06:25):
Yeah, that's really fantastic to hear.
I think that, you know, wedon't always have to look to
something external to say we've,I don't know, have we ever
arrived?
I don't think we've ever reallyreached a destination in
particularly in the world ofeducation, right, so we're
always learning, always growing,but when you can say my day is
done, right.
And I think that it is a reallychallenging balance in
(06:48):
education period, I think, inacademia and in teaching.
Because that actually remindsme of the first idea you
mentioned, that you know, noteverything will touch everyone
that we work with, and thatreminds me of something I
thought about a lot when I was aclassroom teacher.
I always wanted to ensure thatthere was something in every
school day for every child Iworked with.
But I think that if you beginto think that everything you do
(07:12):
has to reach every person, youend up in that too much is too
much kind of mode, right, likeyou're always sort of scrambling
to do it better, to do itfaster to, you know, to learn
the latest thing, when you don'tfeel like you've mastered the
last latest thing you wereworking on.
And I think you end up on thissort of like hamster wheel kind
of mentality that you can neverget off of and you never feel
(07:35):
fully satisfied, no matter howmany hours you put into the work
that you're doing, whichactually, I think, over time
diminishes the total job youknow, you know, because you
can't, you can't keep that upforever.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (07:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
I mean it's what you're saying,you know and you know as
teachers or educators orprofessors, if you're going to
be a teacher, you're going to bea teacher, you're going.
We can reach someone in a day.
Day is made, and I think thatcould count for any profession.
And what's interesting in whatI call cognitive reframing is to
(08:14):
understand what that might looklike in a day.
So like if a kid comes to yourclassroom without having had
breakfast and you have achocolate bar, then you get the
chocolate bar, and then thatcounts as doing the bet that I
could that day and puttingmaking sure that the needs are
met for that kid to learn inyour class.
Things like that, bringing asmile to someone's face or
(08:35):
having someone think or reflect,or just having.
One of my favorite sentences isI hadn't thought of that.
Like when someone tells youthis, you're like okay, like you
plan to seed and then you letthe seed grow and then you see
where it's gonna go or if it'sgonna go anywhere, but at least
you have people think.
So what it might look likemight be different for everybody
(08:59):
and it changes from day to day.
So I think there's valuablelessons in that, and the other
thing about you know knowingwhen enough is enough is what I
do now, which I find that hasworked for me is obviously
balance, like being connected tomy body a lot because I've been
connected to my mind so muchlike in ways that are probably
(09:24):
overzealous and not enough to mybody, and so I make sure that
I'm aligned in that way.
And the other thing is toactually count how many strikes
of things I can care about in aday.
So I have about five, five toseven.
I used to have probably 10 to15, which was too much for me.
(09:46):
So what that might look like,is that okay if I have five to
seven?
I try to balance that out withwellbeing as well.
So you know, a meeting is one,teaching a class can count from
one or two, depending on howmuch prep I have.
So that's, we're already atthree.
A yoga class is one, cooking isone, then meeting with a student
(10:10):
is another one, and then say,driving to work and going back
is another.
So I'm already at seven, rightWith that.
And that to me is a full daywhere I'm at full capacity and I
know if I overbook myself and Igo to 10, the next morning and
the next day I'm gonna pay forit.
Obviously I'm gonna like.
(10:31):
There's this constant thingwhere I have a fuel tank and if
I run it on empty I'm not like,the next morning I'm gonna have
to recuperate and make sure thatI'm good for the day, and the
day after, instead of having myregular seven, I might have
three strikes, you know, likethree things I could do.
(10:53):
So I know that about myselfvery much and I just have to,
you know, do thatself-discipline and ultimately
that leads to self-love.
Lindsay Persohn (11:04):
Yeah, that's really smart.
I love that idea of thinkingabout the things that you do and
really quantifying the qualityof them, right, because I think
that it can be really easy tolose yourself in the day to day
and I know, maybe particularlythis week, I've been feeling
that.
You know that probably not justthis week, but this week in
(11:26):
particular.
I was thinking on my way tomeet with you this morning.
I don't think I've actuallyaccomplished anything on my
to-do list because there havebeen so many other things going
on this week and it's Thursday,right, so it does make it very
tricky.
I think teaching is one ofthose things that we need to
really hold onto and do a verygood job of, right, and I think
(11:50):
but then again, where's thatbalance between am I putting,
you know, five hours intopreparing for a three hour class
?
Am I putting 10 hours intopreparing for a three hour class
?
I think that those things can betricky to balance, because I
think that quite often, if youare a teacher, if you work in
the world of education, or ifyou are a researcher, you have
(12:13):
this idea that things have to belike good enough is never good
enough, right, things have to beedging on perfection and I
think, being able to pull backfrom that ideal a little bit or,
as you said, that sort ofcognitive reframing, that
sometimes doing things wellenough is the best you're going
to do right.
And so what's the return oninvestment?
(12:35):
If I were to spend two morehours planning for my class, is
it going to be that much better?
Probably not, because at somepoint you meet the point of
diminishing returns, I think.
But yeah, it's hard to knowwhere that is.
You know you have to step backfrom it to really look at the
situation and think what's goodhere, what can I leave behind,
what am I not getting muchreturn on and how can I instead
(12:57):
focus on the most importantthings so that I'm not, you know
, the next day?
That sort of it's like anactivity hangover.
You know where.
You're just so drained from theprevious day that you have a
hard time going into the nextday.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (13:11):
Yeah, Absolutely.
I love the idea of activityhangover because it's real.
Lindsay Persohn (13:17):
Yeah.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (13:18):
Like it's really real and you know, for
teachers and educators andprofessors, like when we talk
about over-preparing for classes, you know, to me the cousin of
that is overthinking becausewhat?
comes before.
Over-preparing is overthinking.
What if I'm not good enough?
What if, you know, I don't haveenough time?
(13:39):
What if they're lacking keycontent?
And it's those what-ifs, youknow, and when we buy and we're
the first clients of that, andwhen we buy into the idea of the
what-ifs, that's when we burnourselves out.
Yeah, we do burn ourselves outand we're like no, no, no, this
is good enough.
You know the conversations aregonna rise from this.
(14:00):
That's gonna be more importantand they're gonna learn more
from me going in circles andlike lecturing or like
over-scheduling, and you know,and that comes from a place of
anxiety.
You know it comes from a placeof anxiety and you know,
learning to be at peace.
The law of detachment, the lawof being present in the present
(14:21):
moment, keeps you from.
You know, overthinking andover-preparing and doing all
that, so I'm getting better atstaying present and that leads
to more authentic, morevulnerable ways of approaching
my teaching and my research.
Lindsay Persohn (14:37):
Yeah, basically , no, I couldn't agree more with
that, and that's something Ifeel like I've certainly been
working on.
The other thing you mentionedthat I connected with is yoga,
and I've mentioned that a fewtimes on the show because that
is a practice that,unfortunately, I don't get to
participate in as often as I'dlike these days, but it is
something that I do weekly,maybe not daily, but at least
(15:00):
weekly.
I touch my yoga practice andthat does help to stay connected
to your body, to be more awareof what's going on and not just
living in my head all the time,and it actually helps me to be
better mentally prepared for theday.
I'm able to focus more and Ijust feel much more connected to
(15:22):
and aware of what's going on.
Rather than ignoring an ache ora pain, you can actually work
through it and think about itand sometimes, before it becomes
a chronic condition, you can,you know, let go of those,
whether you know, it's the kindof the physical holding of
anxiety, and so, yeah, I findthat to be a really important
(15:43):
part of my world as well,absolutely, and you're able to
be more present.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (15:47):
Also, like even, you know, doing the
podcast, they have to be anactive listener, being there,
like working with ideas, workingwith people, and I think one of
the ways in which goodlisteners do that is by being
present in their body and doingthose mind-body connections that
some of us not all of us, butsome of us take for granted.
Yeah, you can't work with yourbrain all the time if you're not
(16:10):
connected to your body, like,those mind-body connections are
so, so, so important Because, asyou said, it brings about
awareness, awareness of your ownbody, your own limits, what you
can do, what you can't do.
When you do that for yourself,you can do that for others and
it's not a given that you knowanybody can access that.
(16:32):
But I find great about yoga andwhat I do.
Now I've been doing that morereligiously over the past year,
probably try to do three, fourtimes a week because it really
calms me down and I do hot yoga.
So, it is a thing that I, likeyou know, I live up North, so
for me it's my way of likeconnecting to this, like Florida
(16:55):
weather or like creating, youknow, some sort of artificial
space where I can live thosemoments, but it allows me to,
you know, go deeper and stretchdeeper in ways that allow me to
be more flexible with my body.
And what that does, literallyand metaphorically, is that it
(17:16):
allows me to be more flexiblewith my thinking.
And when we talk about mybody-mind connections, I think
there's ways in which our bodyteaches things that language
cannot teach us Absolutely, andit makes you realize, okay, well
, I hadn't thought about it, Ihadn't thought about my body
(17:37):
this way and I didn't think Icould do this and I didn't.
So it gives you also confidence.
That can, you know, then haverepercussions in your work and
the ways in which you interactwith people and you're present
with them.
So, yeah, about presence, aboutawareness and about
understanding your own limits,to be able to understand other
(17:58):
people's limits and what you canwork with and work with
people's energies and your own,and that sort of flow.
Lindsay Persohn (18:05):
Well, and it reminds me that so much of the
world and so much of our ownexperience, both in our own
bodies and outside of ourselves,can't really be put into words
right.
I think we try to describe, orI might even say to sort of
textualize, every experience, ifthat makes sense, although of
course I think in our world ofliteracy we tend to think of
(18:27):
texts as being any sort of youknow, not just words but gesture
and environments and all ofthose things.
But I think that we try to putour ideas into words so often
that we forget there are so manythings that you can't express
in words.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (18:43):
Yeah, that's really interesting because it
taps into, you know, the wholenon-representational theory of
literacy and affect theory andall of that, and I know a lot of
my work has touched on that andhas embraced or adopted or
espoused onto epistemologiesthat talk about affect and
(19:06):
non-representational theory andpost-humanism and things like
that.
And back in the day when Istarted working on that, you
know, with Jennifer Rausel andthen by myself, we really tapped
into those ideas.
In terms of entanglement, youknow what it means to affect
someone and being affected,seeing those relationalities,
(19:29):
seeing how we interact with theworld.
And I didn't, like you know wetalked about bodies, but I don't
think I understood it to theextent and the ways in which
that yoga practice allows me tounderstand it now and
understanding it in a way thatmakes my identity present but
(19:49):
not predominant, in the ways inwhich I see what matters and
what doesn't, and in ways inwhich you know we think about
entanglements, say, of humans,non-humans more than humans, and
you know, like, like this,centering the place of humans,
that can be problematic for manyreasons.
You know, when we talk aboutrace and social justice Brad
Odie talks about that, forexample but the idea, the main
(20:13):
idea is that the work and themission is not about us egos,
it's about the greater good.
So once we understand that andwe understand that everything's
interrelated and interconnected,I think it brings more purpose
to the mission and the thingsthat we're trying to do Well and
it helps you to prioritizeright.
(20:33):
It helps you to decide when?
Lindsay Persohn (20:34):
is it when?
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (20:35):
and how, when is it enough, right?
Lindsay Persohn (20:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and what you can let go of
, but you have to continue topursue.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (20:40):
Exactly.
Lindsay Persohn (20:42):
So I love how this conversation about yoga and
mindfulness leads us right toour second question.
So, Emily, what do you wantlisteners to know about?
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (20:50):
your work Well link to that and everything
we just talked about.
It makes me think about howrelational truths exist and
perspectives and you know,multiple perspectives regarding,
say, an object can coexist inways that can be right and also
(21:12):
not right and then it bringsabout conversations about values
and about morals and thingsthat matter, I think, for
education.
Again, you know, it makes meask who are we serving for the
greater good?
And that the mission is notabout us.
It's more about social andracial justice, at least for me,
because it's values that Ibelieve in in education.
(21:35):
So that's part of the work thatI've been doing and that I want
to continue to do, even as aqueer woman in academia, you
know, like an embracing thatidentity more and writing about
it in my positionalitystatements and why I'm doing the
work that I'm doing and forwhom, and like things that I
don't know and were the thingsthat I feel that I'm vulnerable
(21:55):
and that I need to keep onlearning, and I feel like I'm
more connected to myself and theideas that I need to convey,
when I admit in all humilitythat I don't know everything and
that I'm you know, and that I'ma position of continuously
learning.
And that's where I think thework happens.
(22:16):
You know, like I think, in thisposition of always balancing
okay, here are the things that Iknow and here are the things
that I don't, and I'm very awareof what I know and of what I
don't know, and I'm also notaware of what I don't know yet
and being in that continuum andgoing back and forth allows me
(22:37):
to be present and doing the bestthat I can with the tools that
I have in that present moment.
Lindsay Persohn (22:42):
It's so smart, I think, to be so aware of where
your expertise may lie, and itactually reminds me of you know,
along the journey from teacherinto academia, realizing that
it's okay to say you don't know,right, because I think when I
(23:03):
first entered that world Ithought, oh, I'm going to be
expected to know everything.
And so you know, even thingslike being in a conference, you
know at someone's presentationand to hear an experienced
researcher, you know someone whoI may have only known by name
and by work, and then you seethem live and in the flesh, and
(23:25):
someone asks a question and theysay I don't know, I haven't
thought about that yet.
And I remember hearing that andfeeling like, oh, that's
licensed for me not to know also, and not in an ignorant kind of
way, but just in simply statingI know I can't know everything
and it's really naive to thinkthat you can right.
(23:46):
You know, it's such a weirdposition to put yourself in a
thing.
I have to be the master ofeverything.
You just can't it's impossible.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (23:55):
Well, I think it's part of it is lying
to yourself and then lying toothers, right, and when you're
in a position of authenticityand vulnerability, then those
sort of what I call lowervibrational postures become so
irrelevant and so not in theintent of serving the greater
(24:17):
good, right, and so it doesn'tbecome relevant just to be in
that posture anymore.
You know, like, when you gothrough different phases, like
ego death, like you know, likeleaving like low vibrational
energies and being in mindsetsthat are not about abundance and
that are not about creatingknowledge and connecting with
(24:39):
people, like when you leavebehind those sort of layers that
are not productive, you realize, okay, like pretending that I
know everything is actuallylying to myself and it's not
giving the world the mostauthentic version of myself that
(25:03):
helps people grow and beingaligned with themselves.
And I'm saying this in allhumility, like it's not like I'm
changing the world or anything,but it's triggering for people
too.
Like you know, like when youcome in and you say like, okay,
this is my most authentic self,and for people who are not ready
, it can be triggering,absolutely it can be triggering.
Lindsay Persohn (25:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
I mean, I would imagine thattrying to live as if you know
everything there is to know canalso be very exhausting.
Oh, yeah, right, because itwould be like playing a part all
day and all night, every dayand every night, and I can only
imagine how that would erodeyour soul after a while and
(25:47):
eventually make you feel likemaybe you don't really know who
you are at all.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (25:51):
Yeah, yeah, and when you stay in a state of
gratitude, I feel like thingslike you know playing a part
become not part of your ethos.
Right, Like you can't go there.
You know, like when we haveoffice hours, students come into
our office.
(26:12):
They probably travel 30 minutes, 45 minutes to come into your
office to talk to you aboutthings that they care about.
I'm grateful that someone isscheduling time to come see me
and talk about ideas andconcerns that are gonna help
them in their mission of beingteachers, educators, researchers
(26:33):
, people that are gonna helpkids and people grow.
So when you're in that mindsetof gratitude of having someone
in front of you and listening tothem and exchanging ideas, I
find that's way more fulfillingthan being in a state of, say, a
(26:55):
professor with correctivemeasures or, you know, like
guidelines that are too strictand not flexible thinking.
And that's why I think thebody-mind connections with
flexible thinking come in,because then you embody that and
then you can give that toothers in ways that make sense.
But that comes with a postureof awareness, as you said, and
(27:15):
gratitude, Like I'm grateful tobe here today and be able to
think with you Like how luckyare we to be able to do that,
you know, and then that'sprobably going to reach people,
but then or not, you know.
But my hope is that it will.
And then you know people aregoing to come to work and maybe
find some solace in there andthey are saying like we're
grateful to do the jobs thatwe're doing and just being in
(27:39):
the presence of others andworking together and that's.
Lindsay Persohn (27:43):
I find that to be that sort of posture, to be
so helpful in thatprioritization right and letting
go of the things that reallydon't matter or that may be
matter to someone in somedistant space who's maybe never,
never met you before, neverbeen in a classroom since they
were students themselves.
You know, I think so often aseducators we get hung up on
(28:07):
serving someone else's missionand I think that that is a
really tough space to live in aswell because, again, you can't
bring that authenticity topolicies you don't believe in,
practices that I think cansometimes feel like they're
being crammed down your throat,you know, forced on you.
It's so hard and I thought aboutthis before in the context of
teaching and again, that kind ofsoul-sucking work of doing
(28:29):
someone else's business,especially when you know it
doesn't serve the children infront of you, that's such a
difficult place to be in and inmy mind and in my experience and
in talking with other teachers,I think that is really what
teacher burnout is about.
It's not necessarily about theinteractions with kids it is.
(28:50):
It's that trying to livesomeone else's mission or not
being really even able to findthe authenticity in the work
that you're doing because youhave to be and I say have to
with this sort of legal kind ofmentality, right, that kind of
pressure that you have to bedoing something else that you
may or may not even believe inin the first place, and you have
(29:12):
to let go of the things thatyou do, and I think that that's
really dehumanizing.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (29:17):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And it goes back to thepressures that teachers are
facing in terms of you know thestrikes that they have in a day.
So you know right.
So they should have, of course,like five to seven, but then
the responsibilities of the jobsand the piling up of you know
(29:37):
the things that need to get donemake it so that it's not five
to seven.
We're talking like 12 to 15 to20 in a day on top of personal
life.
So that becomes very burdensome.
And there's one thing I shouldsay about you know values and
knowing yourself in Namaste.
(29:58):
It's all good, you know it'sall good and fine, but then
there's limits to what teacherscan do.
So say, for example, you know Iworked on a project on maker
spaces, many of them and workwith teachers.
The number of teachers that Iwork with in terms of doing
maker space research.
These responsibilities areadded on to regular load in
(30:24):
spaces that are not necessarilygiven to you know, like
resources, specialists orlibrarians.
So who?
Whose responsibility to does amaker space belong to teachers?
It's usually teacher, right,right.
So they want to innovate, theywant to bring in new curriculum
(30:47):
content, they want to do it forthe kids and make it so that you
know like engagement is therebut then it comes to the expense
of their own teaching load ortheir own responsibilities.
So that's where, to me, likethe values and the mission and
the public comes.
(31:08):
In education, I find, and inother fields, like, like, like
being a nurse, for instance,like any profession that comes
with caring and caring aboutpeople, it often comes at a
personal expense and that's whenyou need to know your own
limits and what you can do andwhen to ask.
(31:29):
You know, ask for a librarianaid or ask for it.
And you know it's not thatteachers don't ask, it's because
then they're faced with thebureaucratic and structural I
call it structural violence ofschooling systems where you know
we don't have funding and thenit becomes, you know, like
politics and things like that.
So I'm well aware that there's,you know, responsibilities that
(31:53):
get add on to, but then itcomes back to the strikes we
have in a day I find right.
Lindsay Persohn (32:00):
And it's hard to ask for teachers to do more
than they're already doing.
Absolutely yeah yeah, becauseit's already too much.
Yeah yeah.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (32:09):
Absolutely.
Lindsay Persohn (32:10):
So what else would you like listeners to?
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (32:11):
know about your work.
Very good projects.
We're in year three of theInsta Poetry Project.
This is a collaboration withGeorgina Barton at the
University of SouthernQueensland, david Lukavich at
the University of Alberta andBoyd White at McGill University.
We are working on adolescentsliteracy engagement on social
(32:34):
media, specifically Instagram.
So we asked them to navigateInstagram and then create
decolonial poems based on theirreading and viewing of
decolonial literature, poetryand art, and then we shared
those productions on theresearch media account Insta
(32:56):
underscore poetic with a K, ifanyone is interested in
following the account and seethe artworks that are published.
So this is our year ofdissemination.
We have a couple of articlescoming out in that vein and I'm
working also with Christian Ereton a video game project that we
(33:18):
have together on affect andwell being.
So that's ongoing as well.
And with my colleague,catherine Gosselin at the
University of Montreal, we areworking with pre service
teachers on their positionalitytowards equity, racial and
social justice in terms ofliterature teaching and primary
(33:39):
grades and secondary grades.
So we want them to reflect ontheir own positionality before
going into classrooms andteaching what we call sensitive
topics or sensitive content.
So you know, it's justconversations that happens in
classroom, but we want to equipour teachers to be ready to have
conversations with kids of allraces and genders.
(34:03):
So that's what's going onpretty much right now in terms
of my work.
Lindsay Persohn (34:11):
A few things, A couple of things a couple of
things that back to our earlierconversation.
Yeah, just how much a person cando in a day?
How many?
strikes.
That's right.
So what would you say is someof your biggest learning from
those projects so far?
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (34:28):
Oh my God, so many different projects with
different people in differentlanguages.
So to me, it's just.
It shows the scope ofliteracies and literacies work
and what we can do in thosespaces, and that's a strand
that's been constant in my work,and I did my PhD exactly on
that topic.
I did my PhD on literateengagement and what that might
(34:50):
look like for adolescents, andwhat I'm Coming to know the more
I do this work is that literacyengagement comes in different
shapes and forms, in differenttypes of modalities.
That happens in adolescencedigital lives, so, whether it be
on with video games, withliterature reading, or on social
(35:14):
media, or with poetry, likeit's all about those parks.
You know, though and I talkedabout this in a recent article
that's going to come out inreading research quarterly I
call them little sparks, and thelittle sparks are when you can
see those moments of engagementand the nonrepresentational in a
(35:35):
classroom, and thenonrepresentational allows us to
delve into things that we can'tgrasp in questionnaires, we
can't necessarily grasp ininterviews, nor can we grasp it
in, you know, like productions.
More specifically, and we lookedat data for so many years in
terms of research on readingengagement originally, like we
(35:58):
used to, you know, givequestionnaires and say are you
engaged or not engaged in lifedoesn't work like that.
You know what I mean.
Like you know, like if I watcha Netflix TV show, like there's
moments that I'm going to beengaged, there's moments that
I'm not going to be engaged, andengagement might look like
frustration.
You know, like and and and.
Questionnaires don't look atthe depths of what that might
(36:22):
look like and how it can beexpressed.
And sometimes you're engagedbut you might not say it, or
maybe you don't want to say it,or maybe you don't want to share
that, or maybe you don't evenunderstand it or you don't
understand it as engagement whenyou're frustrated.
Frustration is one of thebiggest markers or indicators of
engagement because you react tosomething right.
(36:42):
It's not like there's apathy,right, like you're.
You know so when you have andthis might be good for teachers
as well like when you're in yourclassroom and you're teaching
content that you deeply, deeply,deeply care about and you have
that one student who you knowmaybe is having a difficult day
(37:04):
but they're asking you questionsand they're you know that
student is going to ask youquestions and ask you questions
and ask you questions and itmight get on your nerves because
you know they're not complying,or you know, like listening, or
you think they're not listening, but they're actually very
actively listening and they wantto understand better, and
that's a marker of engagement inways that might not be positive
(37:27):
, but it's still engagement.
When there's engagement, thereis a door there to bring about
comprehension and interpretationand reaction and appreciation
of the content that you'reteaching.
So to me, like and I'm notsaying that everything is
engagement, but I'm saying thatthere's doors and those doors
(37:47):
might look different.
There might be like a yellowdoor, green door, like a glass
door, like you know but there's,there's a way, you know,
there's always a way to try tohave those conversations that
are productive.
Lindsay Persohn (38:00):
Yeah, and for some kids, I think particularly
maybe who have, who aren'thistorically engaged in the
literacies of schooling.
Maybe that door looks a littlebit more like a roof hatch.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (38:12):
Because it's the only way that you can.
Lindsay Persohn (38:14):
Can find, find a way in.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (38:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
And the literacies of schoolingyou said it, lindsay like they
are, you know they're violentand harmful, like some of them
are violent and harmful for somekids.
So we have to be flexible againin our thinking and being in
the present moment and trying toreach those kids are the best
of our abilities.
Lindsay Persohn (38:35):
Yeah, and you're bringing about some real
questions, I think, maybebringing to the surface in my
mind something that I feel likeI've wrestled with for a long
time.
When school measures literacythrough multiple choice
questionnaires based on some,you know, textoid that kids may
or may not have any interest in,and then we, we put a label on
(38:59):
them based on their responses towhat they may see as a stupid
question about a stupid passage,it does do harm and it really
it leaves me with a big questionabout what we can do as
researchers, as practitioners,as people you know supporting in
(39:19):
schools.
How do we find again back tothat?
Where where's that limit?
How do we in fact work withinthe confines of schools in real
ways, while also pushing back onsome of that very limiting and
limited thinking about whatliteracy really is right?
(39:40):
It's like to me it's.
It's such a big question abouthow we continue to do good work
that leaves space for kids andleave space for their thinking
and for their differences inthinking, while also still being
allowed to do that work insideof schools, because, you know,
everything there has to bemeasured and quantified and
(40:01):
checkmarked, and it's a realtension that I feel like maybe
not in those words, but I feel,I feel like I've been thinking
about that since I was aclassroom teacher.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (40:11):
Yeah, it's a hard one.
It's a tough one.
I think if we go back to thevery principles PLE, of course
the very core idea Ideas oflearning is dynamic and
relational, because humans aredynamic, dynamic and relational
beings Then if we follow thatpremise, which is a very basic
(40:36):
and obvious premise, I think wecan be more intelligent and more
intentional with the questionsthat we ask on the tests that we
have to do because ofstandardizing and, you know,
those bureaucratic measures ofschooling that we have to abide
(40:58):
by.
So if those principles guide thetypes of questions that we ask,
I think that's where we cansave some of the humanizing
literacy practices that we'retrying to do.
I don't think we're going to beable to, although it's my wish,
but I don't think we're goingto be able to get rid of
(41:20):
standardized testing anytimesoon because of the policies
that we're being subjected to.
But if we can work with thepeople who create those tests
and if we have active voices andhumanizing the types of
questions that we ask, I thinkthat you know that could be a
(41:42):
door that could be one of thedoors that we actually open
widely and proudly to make surethat we're not teaching to the
test, but we're teachingrelational and dynamic students.
Lindsay Persohn (41:58):
But there in my mind are many, many fundamental
challenges there.
Right, because the kind of workthat we're talking about, the
engaging, relational, socialkind of work, it's hard to
measure.
Yeah, it's hard to evaluate onsome level.
Right, because you bring in allthese critical perspectives of
(42:19):
well, you know who's whose voiceis it, whose ideas are they,
what really matters, and that isdifferent for everyone.
And thinking can be hard tomeasure.
Right, because I feel likeparticularly and you mentioned,
we mentioned policies policieshave numerical values built
right into them, and so it makesthe education system in some
(42:44):
ways, I think, default to thosekinds of quantifiable sorts of
literacies and I'll use airquotes there, because it's such
a constrained way of thinkingabout being literate in this
world.
There's a fundamental tensionand I think if we could get the
ear of test makers, policymakers, those decision makers,
(43:06):
and help them to understand thatliteracy isn't just reading and
writing.
You know that there's so muchmore to it than that,
particularly in the world welive in, I've thought on many
occasions that we are in someways teaching for the past
rather than teaching for thefuture, and that is because of
(43:27):
policies and those structuresthat are so deeply ingrained
inside of schools that you can't, we could think without them,
but in many ways we're notallowed to.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (43:38):
Absolutely.
Yeah, that makes a lot of senseto me and in ways that you know
, teaching to the future shouldreflect, say, for example, how
engagement has evolved over theyears and how we have a
responsibility as teachers andeducators to take the pulse of
(43:59):
adolescents lives.
And the thing with tests isthat if we don't change them
every year, if we don't, youknow, update them or make them
more cognizant of that pulse,then we're not working for the
greater good.
You know what I mean, right?
(44:20):
So there's something verystatic about reading and writing
in the traditional ways inwhich they were taught, that
don't recognize the relationaland dynamic ways in which
literacy lives.
So in that way, I think it's,you know, again, as you said,
there's a real tension andchallenge and accounting for and
(44:41):
wanting to measure things thatare even outside of our scope
right now, you know, like withI'm thinking about AI literacies
right now, you know and thingsthat we can't even see, you know
, we can't even see what thetools that we have on the daily
and in the ways in whichschooling literacies are built
and enacted right now in schools.
So there's a lot of, you know,literacy learning that happens
(45:03):
behind the scenes, that arehidden from us, but they still
happen, you know and so, but thetests don't account for that
because it's not part of thetraditional reading and writing
and spelling and you know oralliteracies that that are being
measured.
But again, like what kind ofadults are we building?
Right, you know?
(45:23):
Are they going to live in aworld where they're going to be
evaluated for these traditionalliteracies, or are they going to
live in a world in whichcomputers and AI are going to
assist them in making thedecisions that they're going to
make in the workplace and intheir daily lives?
So I think there's a there's aneven bigger disconnect there
(45:47):
between adult literacies, livesand the type of adolescents that
we're educating, and I think inthe years to come, one of the
things that literacies shouldlook at is how to make sure that
adolescents and young peopleare still autonomous in their
literacy learning, and not somuch in the content but in their
(46:09):
decision making and then theirethical choices and things that
pedagogy brings us in ways thatare significant in terms of
engagement.
Lindsay Persohn (46:19):
Right, that idea of being autonomous and a
critical thinker.
There are so many ways thatschooling educates that right
out of us, right?
It actually reminds me of aconversation that I had with an
undergraduate student just lastweek.
We are also working onadolescent literacy project,
where we bring college agementors to work with middle
(46:41):
schoolers and late elementarystudents as a reading mentor,
and it's not necessarily forreading intervention per se, but
it's about what are youinterested in.
Let's find a book that let'sread together.
Let's talk about what you'rereading.
And the other component to thatis with our seventh grade
students.
We are engaging in an inquiryproject.
(47:02):
It's a community engaged inquiryproject, and mentors and their
mentees went on a field triptogether last week to think
about how they can situateliteracies within the community
and also that idea of how we canbe activists in our own right
and investigate our ownquestions and connect back to
the community in order to shapeit the way that we want it to be
(47:25):
in the future.
And so I tell you all of thatcontext to say that one of the
mentors in the project isactually an elementary education
pre-service teacher and we weretalking about their experience
out in the community and theirdeveloping understanding of what
inquiry is.
And her share out to the grouplast week was that inquiry is
(47:47):
teaching her that there isn'tjust one right answer.
And if you think about someonein their early twenties who is
voicing this to a group of peers, she's probably not the only
person in the group who used tobelieve that there was one right
answer.
But it totally makes sense,right, because that's likely.
What she has been taughtthroughout her entire education
(48:09):
is that there's one right answerit's A, b, c or D.
That's it Right and so.
I think that, as now amiddle-aged adult, I can look
back and think about how our ownworldview is so impacted by
what we're taught and what wearen't.
Well right, what we're exposedto and what we aren't.
And so if you think about thesestudents who have tracked
(48:30):
through a world of educationwhere there is one right answer,
it comes directly from the textand somebody else decided what
it was.
If you grow up in that world,it's not a stretch to think that
, oh wow, this idea that there'smore than one right answer to a
real-world problem is a littlebit earth-shattering.
(48:53):
Right To what we think we knowabout what we think we know.
To me it was such an impactfulstatement that she made.
It was not just telling of herexperience, but I think it was
telling of her totality ofeducation.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (49:07):
Absolutely, absolutely and that's very
telling of the roles that wehave as high school teachers and
professors and researchers, inreally espousing this idea that
there is a transitional rolethat needs to happen in high
school settings and adolescencein understanding the shift
(49:31):
between schooling and real-worldliteracies and what awaits them
as adults working in industryor working in universities or
working in the public healthsystem.
There's many ways of workingwith people and finding
different truths, and that's whyone of the things that might
(49:53):
help teachers is understandingthat role and really trying to
convey the message that multipletruths exists, but that's my
epistemological posture.
Now one might think or say thatthat's one truth itself.
Lindsay Persohn (50:12):
I'd like to think about the truth.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (50:15):
If we're going very meta, but this idea
of and as you said itbeautifully, it's about
community work, it's aboutactivist work, it's about the
identities that we want to havein the world and serving for the
greater good, and that can onlybe done if we welcome multiple
perspectives.
Lindsay Persohn (50:35):
Which, again, fundamental tension with.
Choose one, it's ABC or D.
Yeah, Exactly so.
Given the challenges of today'seducational climate, what
message do you want teachers tohear?
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (50:49):
To hang in there, because I find effort is
an expression of interest and ifwe think about this idea,
interest is also an expressionof effort.
It goes both ways and thinkabout the strengths that you
have in a day to make sure thatyour interest doesn't vanish and
(51:13):
that your engagement and yourrole in responsibility towards
students stays pretty muchconsistent.
And sometimes it's not becauseof will, it's because of our
capacity as humans, what we canand why we can do.
So, yeah, if there was one lastthing I wanna say is to link
that engagement piece with ourlimits and basically our roles
(51:36):
of authenticity andvulnerability that we're trying
to carry in this literacy worldthat we're working towards.
Lindsay Persohn (51:44):
Yeah, yeah, that's very powerful advice.
I'm Leah.
I wanna thank you so much forspending this time with me today
.
It was wonderful to hear yourpresentation last night at the
University of South FloridaDavid C Anshan Center for the
Advancement of Teaching and Ilook forward to following your
work and learning more about notonly your Instapoetry project
(52:05):
but the work you're doing withgaming and also with some of
your positionality ofpre-service teachers.
All of those things reallystrike a chord with me and
certainly align with many of myinterests as well.
Dr. Amélie Lemieux (52:17):
Thank you so much for having me on the
classroom caffeine podcast,lindsey, much appreciated.
I love the work that you do andthank you so much for being in
conversation with me and I'mvery grateful for that.
Thank you, you've given me somuch to think about.
Thank you.
Lindsay Persohn (52:33):
Dr Emily Lemieux's research interests
include equity, diversity,inclusion and accessibility
policies as it relates toreading, research, literature,
teaching and multi-modality, allinformed by phenomenological
and post-humanist perspectives.
Her work has been published inreading research quarterly,
literacy, professionaldevelopment in education,
(52:55):
british Journal of EducationalTechnology, canadian Journal of
Learning and Technology andother venues.
A bronze Lieutenant Governor'sMedal recipient of Quebec, she
received social sciences andhumanities research council
funding to investigateadolescents, digital literacy
practices and meaning makingprocesses as ways to leverage
(53:16):
racial and social justice.
Dr Lemieux completed a socialsciences and humanities research
council Bombardier funded PhDin literacy and education at
McGill University and apostdoctoral fellowship at Brock
University's Center forResearch in Multiliteracies.
Dr Emily Lemieux is anassistant professor at the
(53:37):
University of Montreal's Facultyof Education in the Department
of Didactics or Teaching andLearning.
You can connect with Dr Lemieuxat AMELIE L-E-M-I-E-U-Xcom
that's AMELIELEMieuxcom, andfollow her most recent research
(53:57):
project on Instagram at instaunderscore poetic.
That's at INS-TA underscoreP-O-E-T-I-K.
For the good of all students.
Classroom caffeine aims toenergize education, research and
practice.
(54:18):
If this show gives you thingsto think about, help us spread
the word.
Talk to your colleagues andeducator friends about what you
hear.
You can support the show bysubscribing, liking and
reviewing this podcast throughyour podcast provider.
Visit classroomcaffeinecomwhere you can subscribe to
receive our short monthlynewsletter, the espresso shot.
(54:41):
On our website, you can alsolearn more about each guest,
find transcripts for ourepisodes, explore topics using
our dropdown menu of tags,request an episode topic or
potential guest, support ourresearch through our listener
survey or learn more about theresearch we're doing on our
publications page.
Connect with us on social mediathrough Instagram, facebook and
(55:04):
Twitter.
We would love to hear from you.
Special thanks to the classroomcaffeine team Leah Berger,
abaya Veluru, stephanie Bransonand Shaba Hojfath.
As always, I raise my mug toyou teachers.
Thanks for joining me.
Thank you, thank you.
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