An unofficial AU advocate at large, Jason never misses a chance to recount the merits of an Athabasca education. Jason’s studies began alone in front of a rustic rural fireplace in December of 2003 and carried on through various brick and mortar college classrooms yet always with Athabasca as part of his journey. In 2014 he completed his BA in Sociology and in 2022 graduated with an MA in Cultural Studies. To this end, his columns seek to explore edifying moments of learning how to learn within the challenging ideological terrain of that great bugaboo facing students everywhere: the real world!
Tom Petty once sang that “love is a long, long, road” (Petty, online). The same is true of herstory, and particularly the herstory of dissent and protest. In Martin Luther’s time, German peasants took literally the Protestant call for worldly authority to bow to scripture and the supremacy of personal relations with the other-worldly. It… Read more »
Groundhog Day has come and gone and, well, it’s still February and it’s still Covid flu season. The most famous Groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, forecast in “groundhogese” that Pennsylvania, at least, faces six more weeks of winter. But wait, Phil has only been right four years in the past ten! (Rice, online). Meanwhile, New Jersey’s most… Read more »
Part of being human is the desire to be part of something larger than ourselves. Truth, meaning, and learning all fulfill the role of giving a sense of shared understanding to our minds. Being with others, physically or virtually, can also feel like a disadvantage. Think of the quote: “I used to think that the… Read more »
What matters most and how do we represent it? Not COVID; COVID doesn’t matter most, not in our sense of ourselves as AU students. We are bigger than our times. The tragedy of propaganda, whether true or false, as George Orwell reminded his readers, is that propaganda reduces our minds as it claims to represent… Read more »
This is not a COVID article. Computer algorithms may spot a key word, like teachers who spot head lice on children, but this article isn’t about words. And it’s not about parasites, per se. Remember when a phrase like gut fauna might have turned tummies? Well, truth is, it is the representative weeds, er, wee… Read more »
Ever switch majors? Unlike New Year’s resolutions, our academic major ought to be a fully personal choice that we will live with for the rest of our lives. To be resolute about a lifestyle change (yawn) or a brain improvement (read a non-course related book each month?), implies an impossible certainty, however. We are already… Read more »
Did you ever write an AU assignment on a tablet? Me neither! While touch screen keypads might be suitable for kibitzing with family and friends and dolling our faces up with filters ranging from Capuchin Monkey to Octogenarian Granny, nothing beats the tactile nature of a physical keyboard. Traditional keypads contain ample space for flourishes… Read more »
December holidays can be a wondrous and positive time. Also, holiday cheer can be an oxymoron. Participants are implored to be joyful and to keep the Christmas spirit while still being themselves. And, well, it’s not so easy to feel festive all the time. Likewise, we’re asked to remember the reason for the season (family,… Read more »
Imagine yourself as driftwood, bobbing and floating and carried along by an inexorable current of education. One moment on the surface as though with an invisible propeller, the next under the surface like a shipwreck waiting to sink and be found. Our study lives are framed by our ability to lose and find ourselves in… Read more »
Silence, and especially the meditative space required to really absorb and digest course material, is a core commonality to education the world over. Every culture has some form of teaching, from indigenous elders to Maoist re-education camps. We distance students ask our minds to re-create a sense of classroom presence every time we cross the… Read more »