Final reflection

When I consider my journey as an adult educator, I would be remiss to ignore the path I’ve been on as a lifelong learner. In high school, I was involved in every extra curricular activity I could do. I didn’t discriminate art, sport, or volunteering for a cause. I started the recycling club with my best friend at my school, when we found out the school wasn’t recycling paper products. We’d collect the paper waste and arrange for it to be sent to a recycling facility. We’d fundraise to pay for it through bake sales, car washes and typical teenage ways of fundraising. On Wednesdays the Art Gallery Ontario had free entry in the evenings, I participated in art club practicing visual arts after school then we’d head over to the AGO to admire and seek inspiration. My last year, I was part of a board wide student council, as the vice president I helped organize the largest gathering of francophone youth in southern Ontario ~5000. We got together and celebrated francophone culture and language, played sports, created art and cheered each other on while making new friends. When I look back at the punctations in time that stand out in my mind they represent achievements, re-orientations, adaptations, or new positions. Often informed by new information, perspectives, or beliefs. These disruptive life events shaped me for better or for worse.

I don’t like justifying my passion for social justice, I don’t like discussing my intrinsic motivations to continue to work for social justice. I like to lead by example and allow my actions to speak instead of using my words. I draw on memories of social gatherings in Toronto as an adult when folks would ask: “What do you do?” – You tell them about your work and they continue with something to the effect of: “What else?... No side hustle? Why aren’t you monetizing that volunteer project you’re part of, idea, etc?”. Those enterprising, entrepreneurial, corporate ladders climbing, capitalistic, folks weren’t the only folks with whom I socialized. I also found myself in circles where you’d be scrutinized for how little you were doing for community given your privilege. That we should all be more conscious of the climate emergency, disparity of wealth in society and otherwise finding ways to “stick it to the man”. My reluctance to discuss my motivations for social justice might stem from here. Where I have a predisposed defensive stance in sharing my “why” out of fear of being judged and subsequently excluded from the social network. I was drawn to Nova Scotia, because I recalled my time at Acadia as a place where you could do as much or as little as you wanted for community, social justice or anything else. You weren’t expected to advertise your work, nor were you ever asked to monetize your work. Prior to moving back to Toronto, I worked as an exploration geologist in Africa. I was a Canadian expat, employed by Canadian companies to determine economic viability through geochemical exploration of staked land. I was well renumerated, I had little to no expenses while abroad and large chunks of time off between rotations. It was a great opportunity to discover myself, the world and experience different cultures, worldviews, and ethical systems. I got involved with local communities where I was working, volunteering at the school, teaching youths to play Ultimate at the park, even in some street cleaning projects. I did this in part because it helped my work and in part because I was curious to learn more about the folks with whom I worked and in part because I wanted to be a part of that local community. As an expat, it would’ve been easy to stay in my compound with the other expats and not associate or socialize with the surrounding local community. What I hadn’t anticipated I’d discover was the dubious practices of the company and mining sector. I came home with a guilty conscious and I’ve re-oriented my professional trajectory. I attribute the switch from geology to be the largest disruptive event of my professional career as a community development practitioner and adult educator.

Drafting this website has allowed me the time and guided my energy and focus to highlighting these events, learnings and positions. I am humbled by the experience and I am proud of what I’ve achieved. I look forward to the future and feel reassured that I will succeed and also have less of a guilty conscious since developing this website. I am grateful for all the challenges I’ve faced thus far and more importantly the great humans I’ve met along the way.