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Hey Team,

My name is Sheilah Madonna or Sheilah for short. I'm in my last year of this program although I am aiming to stay and pursue a doctorate. I have unknowingly and clearly subconsciously been steered into social justice and arts in my academic pursuits. I'm a spoken word artist and writer and I've facilitated several creative writing workshops such as spoken word and storytelling with incarcerated women from my home country and with my Pilipino community here. I took a summer course many years back where we collaborate with Walls to Bridges and dabbled in acting via the Theatre of the Oppressed and so I am very excited to engage with this knowledge and organization once again. Happy and be gracious to be here and looking forward to get to know you all through engagement and dialogue.

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Hello! My name is Yufei, I'm in my first year Med in AECD. Nice to see everyone in class Friday. Same as some of our peers, I got in this program right after my undergrad. I had a bachelor of arts in psychology and sociology. I took this course because I feel the topic is more practical and rousing.
Hope we can learn more knowledges together throughout this journey!

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My cat Oreo in his designated chair. I haven't taken any picture of myself for ages but I have tons of cat photos. 

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Hi everyone! My name is Qingpeng Yu, but please call me Helen. My preferred pronouns are she/her. I'm in my last semester in the AECD program, and I've really enjoyed this journey. If you're just getting started, I'm sure you're at the right place and hope you enjoy your time being here.

I got into OISE immediately after finishing undergrad in ESL (Ethics, Society, and Law) and Political Science, so I don't have much work experience and cool stories to share. I've always been interested in the social justice and migrant justice, which often involves the minorities of our society. I loved our last discussion on the term "disenfranchised" and found it very inspiring. Looking forward to learn more about this theme!

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It was very lovely meeting everyone in class yesterday! I am really excited to take this course and see some practical interventions when working with systemically excluded groups! I took this course because although theory is great, I was having trouble thinking of ways to put theoretical analyses into practice, and I hope to gain some of that knowledge through this course!

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Hello everyone! My name is Manisha Maharajh (she/her) and I am a part time Masters of Education student in Adult Education and Community Development. I am interested in this course because I think the arts have a huge underrated potential for healing and self empowerment. Theatre arts and music  have always played a big role in my life, but I’ve never had the chance to explore what art can look like when it’s used to build stronger communities. I hope to learn best practices for integrating art in adult education and learn what my place might be in supporting disenfranchised communities through art. I want to learn more about the practicalities of how fund arts based community projects. I hope to learn how to foster creativity in adults from disenfranchised communities as well as foster creativity within myself as a human and educator.

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My name is Tara Dorey (she/her) and I am in my second year of my MEd, Curriculum & Pedagogy with an emphasis on Arts in Education. I have a background working as a visual artist, mural artist, arts facilitator/ educator and as a program/project manager in the field of community arts and public art. I currently work freelance as I study, with a number of small arts non profits as well as with the city’s StreetARToronto department. I have worked in the community arts field for a decade, and have returned to study an MEd to “unpack” a lot of my experiences, to move forward in a more critical and purposeful way, and to hone-in on working more exclusively in the education side of this work.

I am hoping this course will support me as I critically reflect on my experiences in community arts, the tensions and the issues I have at times not known how to deal with. I also hope that through this course I’ll gain clarity and confidence as to what my role can be in creative empowerment/ community arts work.

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Hey everyone, I’m a second year MSc in Planning student focusing on social & cultural planning and community development. Excited to be taking this class with you all!

I was really drawn to this course as my research in urban planning looks at methods of supporting the community ownership of creative and cultural spaces. In top-down processes of urban development, I think art is often co-opted and commodified to serve profit-oriented agendas, which can harm and displace communities in the process. I’ve been thinking a lot about how cultural planning can better reflect community needs and avoid contributing to gentrification and art-washing. So I’m really looking forward to learning about counter-hegemonic methods of using art and creativity to build resistance, community, and solidarity. I also think it would be really valuable to become familiar with more arts-based community engagement practices. Looking forward to meeting you all tomorrow!

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Hi all! My name is Tao and I am in my second semester of the Adult education and Community Development program in the  M.Ed  stream. I am originally from Toronto  but, I have spent time living in Montreal and abroad.

This semester I hope to engage in new methodologies and strategies that can inform my current and future volunteer and professional positions. In the past I have worked as an english teacher and in community engagement positions which have shown me the power of creative expression.

Most of my work has been with young people so I look forward to gaining more insight into the adult education side of things. I hope to expand my knowledge of strategic organizing and activism as I see these as invaluable to the work I hope to do. Each of the courses I have had the pleasure of taking so far have been helpful to my practice in community development and adult ed cant wait to continue to build my toolkit !

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My name is Campbell (the other creature pictured is my dog Audrey), my pronouns are she/her. This is my first year in the M.Ed program, specializing in Adult Education and Community Development. While I have only completed two courses in this program, I am overwhelmed (in a good way) at how sure I am that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. Like most, I struggled along my formal education journey. I graduated with a general arts degree several years ago and was eager to put school behind me. I worked as the director of a non profit outdoor education program for 5 years and cultivated a lot of new skills, one being confidence in myself! The newfound confidence encouraged me to give school another shot. In my past job, I focused a lot on learning outside school walls and how to build resiliency amongst young people. I continue to be reminded of the necessity for innovation in education (education in the broad sense). The people facing the problem are always the best suited at developing solutions. I anticipate this course will introduce me to so many new ideas and strategies on implementing sustainable change in our communities and beyond. I look forward to learning from and with all of you!

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I am Carlos, currently in my second semester. I am in the Maters program Adult Education and Community Development. I am a part the black community, so taking this course will help me learn how I can be creative when it comes to dealing with disenfranchise communities. I will like to learn everything I can learn that will make me knowledgeable.

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I'm currently an AE/CD Master's student, I transitioned to Toronto from Philadelphia Pennsylvania. I'm a full-time father and student and also work with disenfranchised communities In my lived experiences, I too, represent one of these disenfranchised communities' population, I want to be informed from this course strategies to influence the dismantling of structural racism that causes certain disenfranchised communities to exist and continue, second, I would like to incorporate ways communities can reclaim their identity to enhance their own paths to self-help only then can we have a universal homogenous community in coexistence

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Hi everyone! My name is Michaela and I'm a second semester M.Ed student specializing in Adult Ed & Community Development. I'm originally from Ireland and moved to Toronto in September 2022.

During my undergrad I studied criminology & civil law, and have been working in evaluation of federal public programming and services for the past few years. Through both my academic and professional experiences I have developed a significant interest in our ability to revitalize the criminal justice system and how we can more effectively support those who have been disenfranchised and prevent others from being targeted by the system.

Given my interests and previous experience, I immediately jumped at the opportunity to engage with this course as soon as I saw its name! I am really looking forward to meeting with and learning from lots of new individuals, and reconnecting with some familiar peers from last semester!

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Introducing Dr. Bethany Osborne (she/her)

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Introducing Dr. Bethany Osborne (she/her)

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Delighted to welcome you all to this course. As a student I was drawn to this course because of my arts-based practice and engagement in the community. I was challenged in good ways, particularly as I considered a counter-hegemonic framework. it was new for me as an MA student, and provided an important shift for me in my understanding and engagement.
As I embark upon each new course, with a new group of students, I know that there will be things that I will learn from each of you. I look forward to learning from your experiences, from the ways that you interact with the content and from the creative ways that you engage with the work.

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^ That's me and some of my stained glass work

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As an educator and artist I am incredibly excited about taking this course because it seems to have found the perfect intersection of many of my passions and interests! Currently one such interest is in the ways that creative practice and community education through arts-based expression can be tools for processing, exploring, challenging, and making visible the experiences of various communities.  And with that I am interested in how art  can be engaged with as liberation in the process of creation, viewing, participation, etc. These interests clearly align well with this course so I am really looking forward to engaging with the content and speakers.
Beyond that I just really love art and have found that for me it has continually been a space for me to do all of the above in ways that feel a little less heavy than some of the other ways we typically engage in this kind of work.
As for what I am wanting to learn. I am not 100% sure, probably more things than I can list. What immediately comes to mind is questions around how personal or community arts-based practices can be impactful beyond the scope in which they are created? And I think perhaps more personally I have questions around how making art just for the sake of making art -  without the explicit or implicit desire or purpose of being politicized, radical, reflective, etc - can also be valuable in community.
I look forward to meeting everyone on Thursday and learning from all of you this term!