John Paul (JP) Catungal, Instructor I Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Institute for Gender, Race, and Social Justice
Aboriginal Initiatives’ works closely in partnership with Faculty Advisory and Musqueam Advisory groups to guide and co-deliver our programming. We are fortunate to partner with community members, faculty members, and graduate students who lend their expertise and experiences to facilitating our sessions. We’d like to introduce you to some of the people we work with through a series of web profiles. The first in the series is a Faculty Profile of Dr. John Paul (JP) Catungal, who will be facilitating an upcoming Classroom Climate workshop on February 12th, The Classroom as a Space of Feeling: Pedagogical Challenges and Opportunities.
John Paul (JP) Catungalis Instructor I in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies with UBC’s Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice. His research interests include the politics of emotions, embodiment and positionalities in teaching and learning spaces; queer of colour geographies; and Filipino-Canadian studies.
“The workshops and seminars offered by the CTLT, including the Classroom Climate Series and Aboriginal Initiatives, have been very important to my development as an educator-scholar…Through these sessions, I have come to appreciate the classroom as embedded in larger historical and political contexts, where we, as teachers and learners, meet not as blank slates, but as complicated and differently positioned subjects.”
– JP Catungal
What is your experience with CTLT and Aboriginal Initiatives programming?
The workshops and seminars offered by the CTLT, including the Classroom Climate Series and Aboriginal Initiatives, have been very important to my development as an educator-scholar. I got my first acquaintance with CTLT programming while I was preparing to teach my first ever course at UBC. I was a Postdoctoral Fellow then. The workshops gave me a great sense of the types of supports that are available to instructors at UBC, as well as practical strategies for course planning and design and active learning strategies in the classroom. I still make use of handouts from these workshops well over a year after I attended them!
Some of the most influential workshops that I have had the benefit of learning from have been ones offered by CTLT’s Aboriginal Initiatives program. Their centering of anti-colonial and anti-racist approaches in the classroom as well as their attention to issues of positionality and emotion in spaces of learning have really been important to how I’ve conceptualized spaces of learning as spaces of relations, politics and accountability. Through these sessions, I have come to appreciate the classroom as embedded in larger historical and political contexts, where we, as teachers and learners, meet not as blank slates, but as complicated and differently positioned subjects.
“I am teaching a 4th year seminar this term that specifically looks at the politics of the university . . . In this seminar, we will reflect as a learning community on a variety of topics, including UBC’s location on unceded Musqueam territory, questions of positionality and accessibility and why they matter for how we experience the university. . .”
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“Excessive emotions (e.g., anger) are particularly challenging for classroom spaces – challenging insofar as they force us to acknowledge that trust, belonging and community in learning relationships and spaces are never a guarantee and, in fact, take constant tending. These excessive emotions are also challenging in a second way, which is that, in some classrooms, they arise out of social-structural dynamics – e.g., misogyny, racism, colonialism, homophobia – that may or may not be the central focus of a course, but that nevertheless exist in classroom spaces through the very bodies and minds that are in these spaces.”
– JP Catungal
What are two take-aways from sessions you have attended that you are planning to implement in your teaching this coming term?
One of my takeaways from CTLT programming is an appreciation for active learning strategies as amazing opportunities to create, in the space of the classroom, a community of learning. In my courses this term, I am making liberal use of think-pair-share exercises and group-based case study analysis to encourage students to work through course content both individually and together. Such activities thus make possible the creation of a teaching and learning space where students can draw on and appreciate each other’s knowledges, support one another in their learning, and be accountable to each other. Participation, in this case, is less about students’ individual expertise and knowledge, and more about how they take part in the crafting of this learning community. In order for this to happen, I make room in my courses, especially in the first few weeks, for frank and honest personal and communal reflection on positionalities and how they shape the classroom. In the first couple of weeks in class, we talk about how we come to the classroom as unevenly positioned subjects and that being part of a learning community requires being consciously aware that our different relationships to systems of gender, race, sexuality, colonialism and class (among others) shape our contributions to this community of learning. We all have something to learn (and unlearn), including in the context of how we interact with each other. This is a second takeaway that I have benefited from through CTLT programming, especially through Aboriginal Initiatives.
In the first couple of weeks in class, we talk about how we come to the classroom as unevenly positioned subjects and that being part of a learning community requires being consciously aware that our different relationships to systems of gender, race, sexuality, colonialism and class (among others) shape our contributions to this community of learning. We all have something to learn (and unlearn), including in the context of how we interact with each other.
How do you engage location and place in your teaching?
My scholarly training is from the discipline of Geography, so I fully appreciate the importance of place and location. This is also true in teaching and learning. In my courses this term (and in others), I draw from anti-racist, feminist, queer and anti-colonial scholars to emphasize that our spatial contexts and personal locations matter for our learning. I am teaching a 4th year seminar this term that specifically looks at the politics of the university, which provides students the opportunity to think about the very space and institution on, in and through which they are becoming academic subjects. In this seminar, we will reflect as a learning community on a variety of topics, including UBC’s location on unceded Musqueam territory, questions of positionality and accessibility and why they matter for how we experience the university, and timely issues related to gender violence, anti-racism and student organizing on campus.
On February 12, you will be facilitating a session on working with emotions and other “hidden” issues in the classroom. Can you give us a short preview about your approaches to this topic or perhaps share some of your experiences and insights?
The session will be an opportunity for us to work through our own experiences of dealing with emotions, in their many manifestations, in the classroom, along with the strategies and practices that we have employed to ‘deal with’ and/or make room for these emotions in our teaching and learning. Excessive emotions (e.g., anger) are particularly challenging for classroom spaces – challenging insofar as they force us to acknowledge that trust, belonging and community in learning relationships and spaces are never a guarantee and, in fact, take constant tending. These excessive emotions are also challenging in a second way, which is that, in some classrooms, they arise out of social-structural dynamics – e.g., misogyny, racism, colonialism, homophobia – that may or may not be the central focus of a course, but that nevertheless exist in classroom spaces through the very bodies and minds that are in these spaces. There are no easy answers to these challenges, but my upcoming session seeks to create a space to begin conversations about what it means – pedagogically, politically – to ‘manage’ such emotions in our work as teachers and learners.
What is one piece of advice that you would give to new instructors?
Take good care of yourself and support others in taking care of themselves. Be aware of your limits and respect others’. No one – not even academics! – is super-human.
Two things you are reading or recently read that surprised you/sparked your interest?
One of my favourite recent reads is a text called “Teaching What You Don’t Know” by Therese Huston. It is a very honest text about recognizing our limits as teachers (including limits in our expertise when it comes to subjects we might have to teach).
A second recent text that I have been grappling with is Sarah Ahmed’s “On Being Included”. It shines a critical light on the institutionalization of diversity in academic institutions. I highly recommend it to folks who are interested in persistent issues of inequality (especially along lines of gender, race and sexuality) in university settings.