As a new instructor within the field of Adult Education, who happens to be a white, CIS male, it is not lost on me that I enter the classroom, bringing with me, considerable multigenerational privilege. I am teaching within the Medical Office Assistant program, where 100 percent of my students identify as female, over 60 percent of my students are persons of colour, with a portion of them having immigrated to Canada within their lifetime. As I started out on this teaching journey, one of the first questions I asked myself was "what can I do to ensure I am coming into the classroom with cultural and gender sensitivity in place?" So needless to say I felt inspired and affirmed when I found Professor Stephen Brookfield, Robin Neustaeter and J. Adam Perry's 2022 article in the Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education, entitled Anti Racist Adult Education: A Conversation with Professor Stephen Brookfield. In this article, Brookfield et al. (2022) emphasizes the importance of "analyzing our own assumptions, opening ourselves up to multiple perspectives, and being alert to the presence of hegemony." This was cause to consider the some of the content I am currently teaching, Medical Terminology, and to realize that medical words that I may assume are universal, may differ between cultures and languages, and I must ensure that I am not only open to the idea of these differences, but foster an environment that celebrates them. Brookfield et al. (2022) called into question post secondary and Adult Education institutions for doing "institutionally convenient workshops" and instead challenged that "its about the day to day, nitty gritty, procedural details, the process, practices and policies that are in place." It is about being open to conversations with students, acknowledging the systemic issues of racism, and changing how each interaction can be impacted. Brookfield's et al. (2022) editorial tied in remarkably with my first Reflective Journal where I dissected the Carl Rogers quote " the person who is educated is the person who has learned how to learn and change." Brookfield et al. (2022) quoted Rogers yet again, and emphasized his encouragement of instructors to be open and vulnerable as a way of building trust, creating a safe space for education, and causing students to look further within themselves as learners and thinkers. This article was tremendous food for thought, and one that I most definitely want to recommend to my classmates.
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