Trauma, Learning, and Social Change – Episode 53

In this episode, host Beth Cougler Blom talks with Theresa Southam about her book Transforming Trauma Through Social Change: A Guide for Educators. Theresa shares how educators, facilitators, and leaders—whether in post-secondary, corporate, or nonprofit settings—can play a role in driving social change and supporting healing through the learning experiences they create inside and outside the classroom.

Beth and Theresa also talk about:

  • Integrating community and social change work into educational settings
  • Gabor Maté’s idea of trauma and moral injury as a “big tent” that includes a wide range of experiences
  • The importance of devising choice in learning
  • The concept of accountable spaces and how they differ from safe and brave spaces

Engage with Theresa Southam

Links From the Episode

Note: Theresa’s book is dedicated to social change. The following are some of the groups that will carry out the work described in the book’s chapters. The author’s proceeds will be shared between the ICRC (Inchelium Cultural Resource Center), Stqeeye’ Learning Society, Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre, OneVoice Canada, and Nelson and District Hospice Society.

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Connect with Beth Cougler Blom

Podcast production services by Mary Chan of Organized Sound Productions

Show Transcript

[Upbeat music playing]

Beth 00:02
[Show intro] Welcome to Facilitating on Purpose, where we explore ideas together about designing and facilitating learning. Join me to get inspired on your journey to becoming and being a great facilitator, wherever you work. I’m your host, Beth Cougler Blom.

Beth 00:21
[Episode intro] Hi there. Welcome back to the podcast. This is Beth, your host, and happy to have you here listening to another episode. If you’re catching this one for the first time and you haven’t joined us yet on Facilitating on Purpose, welcome. I’m so glad you’re here.

Beth 00:35
In this episode, I speak with Theresa Southern. Theresa is the department head of the Teaching and Learning Centre at Selkirk College. She and I met during the days when I was also working in a Teaching and Learning Centre. I used to work in the Teaching and Learning Center at Royal Roads University. Selkirk College and Royal Roads University both are in British Columbia, so that might be helpful for you to know as you listen to our conversation. Last year, Theresa wrote her second book. It’s called Transforming Trauma through Social Change, A Guide for Educators.

Beth 01:08
She’s going to tell me and tell all of us a little bit more about that, of course, in the episode, but I want you to recognize that this was a topic that is very new to me. It’s not something I think a lot about in my practice working outside of academia now, and I really appreciated that Theresa was able to teach me a few things about what educators can do, whether you’re working in post-secondary or in non-profit or in the corporate world. Wherever you’re facilitating learning with groups, there are things that you can do in that role to drive your groups and your own work towards social change.

Beth 01:43
One thing I do want to mention before you start to listen to the episode is that we do talk about trauma in this episode, and so if you think you might find it difficult to listen to this one for whatever reason, you may want to just go to the show notes instead and skim the transcript first or just make your own decision about whether you’re ready and are in the right space to be able to listen to an episode around trauma. While most of what we talk about isn’t actually trauma events themselves, Theresa does give me a few ideas about what trauma is in the episode, and I wanted you to know about that before you dive into the meat of the episode. I’m grateful that you chose to listen to this episode today, and I hope you find a lot of value in the show. Thanks for being here.

Beth 02:33
[Episode start] Theresa, it’s great to see you after such a long absence of seeing each other. Thanks for coming and chatting with me about this important topic.

Theresa 02:44
No, I’m happy to be here. Now, I must admit right off the bat that you’ve written what I expect is a wonderful book, and I have not read it, so I’m going to admit that to everybody right now.

Beth 02:56
You’ve thankfully come and said yes to recording this episode with me at a little bit of a last minute, so I didn’t have time to read your wonderful book that you wrote last year. I think in this episode, you’re going to be teaching me some of the things that you wrote about and have lived and learned about yourself, just like you’re teaching everybody else in this conversation who’s listening to this podcast. So sorry, but I still look forward to what we’re going to have in our conversation today. Thanks again.

Theresa 03:23
Yeah, me too. I’m really looking forward to this.

Beth 03:26
Maybe you can start by sharing what the book is called and perhaps why you wrote it. Where did you come from to get to this point of having this book written?

Theresa 03:38
Well, full disclosure here. I actually entered a contest at my graduate university for students who had recently graduated who wanted to turn their dissertation into a book. And it was a big process, a couple of years to actually do that, but I was one of those two successful students and from that was born Transforming Trauma Through Social Change: A Guide for Educators. And it was published just this past fall.

Beth 04:05
What led you to that topic? So you chose it for your dissertation. What was it that made you choose transforming trauma through social change? Was that the topic of your dissertation or did you slightly change it along the way? Or that was exactly what you published?

Theresa 04:19
No, this has definitely been built upon, especially because it’s told through the stories. Each chapter is told by a different remarkable character. And so there’s a lot of add on to the arc of the book, but the arc of the dissertation and the arc of the book are very similar.

Theresa 04:36
And it’s really about…Gabor Maté, who’s one of our trauma experts in the world today, he talks about trauma being a big tent, and that everybody’s in it. That every person in this world has experienced, if not trauma, some kind of moral injury. And what was fascinating to me in my dissertation work is that there are different paths, of course, that we can take once that occurs. And there are key people in our lives that will help us guide us to those different paths.

Theresa 05:05
So this isn’t a book about trauma informed pedagogy, per se, it’s that bigger picture that as leaders, as employers, as educators, we can be figures in people’s lives that help them guide the kind of life stories that they tell after that trauma or that moral injury has occurred. And so I’m hoping, and trying to be humble here, but I am standing on the shoulders of a woman by the name of Judith Herman. Judith Herman wrote about trauma right about the time that Gabor Maté was getting started and Bessel van der Kolk, who wrote The Body Says No [sic] (correctly The Body Keeps the Score).

Theresa 05:40
Those were big characters at the time. And Judith also wrote a book called Trauma and Recovery. And she made this case for social change. She said that if a woman has experienced, for example, sexual violence, and she comes out into a world where there is no Me Too movement, where there are no people who are supporting her, then she’s going to have a very difficult time with trauma recovery.

Theresa 06:07
And so I think these people that we’re talking about, leaders who might read my book—and sometimes these are unexpected leaders too. Because in my book, the characters are student leaders, they are Indigenous elders, they are older people who are doing fabulous community work like Lee Reid, or the work that Briony Penn does towards conservation of very important landscapes. So these are unexpected leaders. And they have told narratives that are connected to social change, right? And so leaders, educators, employers, they can also do this for the benefit of those around them.

Beth 06:48
Yeah, that’s a great thing to make clear because you’re situated in academia yourself. Now, you haven’t always been, as I understand it, but for myself, I mostly work outside of that post-secondary system now.

So there’ll be lots of people who are working in all sorts of contexts who are listening right now going, okay, how does this apply to me and the people I work with or the people I teach or the participants I support in meetings or whatever it happens to be. But it sounds like it is, as you say, it’s a pretty big tent and we’re all touching it in some way.

Theresa 07:18
Yeah, absolutely. In my early career, I spent the first couple of decades in environmental communication and what I learned there is the stories that we weave together as human beings are incredibly important and those have to be woven together for the long-term conservation of, say, wetlands that I worked on or salmon habitats that I was working on at the time. So you’ve got to have ranchers and Ministry of Forest people and local business owners and environmental organizers all working on that narrative and what kind of story we’re going to tell towards social change, right?

Theresa 07:54
So I was in touch with Judith Herman during the writing of the book. She was very gracious to get back to me. And she has an incredibly interesting story and has actually just come through decades of trauma herself and written a second book, turned the corner. It’s called Truth and Repair. And she’s re-emphasizing—look for her book review in the New York Times. It’s an incredibly inspiring read and so you can see that she’s come out with a book that’s very similar to the one from many decades ago called Trauma and Recovery and she’s emphasizing this need, especially in the world today, for social change.

Beth 08:29
That’s exactly where my brain was going, that it’s this idea of trauma being a social responsibility. Can I say it that way? [Theresa: Mm mm.] That it’s sort of new to me to think of it that way, because this isn’t my area, but it sounds so hopeful, actually. I mean, when you mention the word trauma, you don’t think hopefulness right off the bat, I don’t think, but just adding this social aspect to it, the social change that can happen when we come together and support people who’ve experienced trauma, which is a lot of people, we’ve already said that, it feels hopeful to me, especially right now with everything that’s going on in the world. So yeah.

Theresa 09:06
As you say, I run a teaching and learning centre at a community college and I can see that there’s a lot of confused educators. I know from the business world that there are confused employers. And rightly so, because they’re they feel like they’re getting the message that they should be a counselor and that’s probably the worst thing that could happen right now. Educators, employers are not trained counselors and they shouldn’t be helping people with their individual trauma. Of course there are trauma-informed practices that they can do in their settings, absolutely yes, but working one-on-one with people it’s not appropriate when you’re not trained as a trained counselor.

Theresa 09:41
And that work is incredibly important, by the way, and that’s been written by other people and written well. But this is more about what we can do that is hopeful in our agencies, in our corporations, in our classroom settings where we can involve ourselves and our students in this social change. I mean the kind of mental health statistics that we’re seeing in the post-secondary environment where our students are thinking that they won’t have children because they’re not confident about the world that is in front of them, their mental health is suffering, and they’re letting us know about that, there couldn’t be a better time and a more appropriate role for leaders than engaging themselves in social change.

Beth 10:30
I agree. Can we just jump back a couple of steps though first? Because I’m wondering if there are folks listening to this where the word trauma really hasn’t come up for them a lot. I mean, I work a lot with healthcare clients. It comes up a lot in the courses that I design for healthcare audiences, but there might be people out there who it just really hasn’t come across their awareness yet. What kind of trauma are we talking about here? I mean, it’s wide ranging, isn’t it? Can you explain just a little bit more about what we mean by that?

Theresa 11:01
Yeah, we have to be a little careful because there is healthy grief. I mean all of us also experience things that lead to grief and that are a part of our lives. Losing a loved one can lead to grief, having a personal challenge that is also a health challenge, or a mental health challenge, can be part of a living of life. That is not trauma.

Theresa 11:24
Trauma is when we’re getting into the overwhelm mode. Trauma is an event and it’s different for every single person but that can lead to overwhelm. Like witnessing an event that is out of the ordinary. I don’t want to traumatize everybody that’s on the podcast but a school shooting, a very terrible accident, these kinds of things can lead to a feeling of overwhelm. As a human being can’t take it in. You are revisited by this event. It’s not a life occurrence that you would expect. And that leads to overwhelm.

Theresa 12:07
There are also things that happen in our lives and I use the word moral injury in lives and these can, depending on the individual, can also be very traumatic. Something that you didn’t expect. Say the infidelity of a partner or sexual violence or these kinds…some people that is something that they are able to process and other it leads to overwhelm, moral injury, it shouldn’t have happened or even trauma. So that I guess that’s a key word is the level of what we’re talking about here. Whether it’s an expected life event or it’s something that’s overwhelming.

Beth 12:47
And this could be present, we have to make sure we say, it’s not just the participants or the students that can be coming into our classrooms or our spaces where we teach and train, it’s really the educators or the facilitators who are leading those groups and those spaces as well. It’s all of us who could be dealing with the impact of trauma in our lives at some point. We can’t forget that. It could be impacting all of us?

Theresa 13:12
Absolutely. Educators and students, for sure. And leaders and their employees. And so it’s being much more aware of that. And again, committing to the kind of change that…and leaders have those opportunities, usually. Educators have those opportunities to integrate these things into the curriculum.

Theresa 13:31
So, the book is set up with a variety of individuals who have navigated this arc of life. Like I’ve said, moving from what could be a contaminating sequence in their life story. Think about the elder Virgil Seymour, who is a member of the Sinixt Nation (sin-AYKST), who was declared extinct by the Canadian government. His reaction to that could have been—and his lack of access to the land that he was raised on in Canada—could have been very contaminating. Like that’s unfair, that governments are terrible. And instead, he tried to walk a story of that there’s enough land for everyone and to bring the aunties back to Canada and to start being involved in gathering, hunting and gathering on that landscape.

Theresa 14:25
Unfortunately, he passed away before he could see the federal court case that actually reversed the extinction case. But all along, he used what we call a redemptive sequencing. He always had a story to tell that was looking into a future where everyone had enough. And those that are able to do that can often lead to social change that is remarkable, right? That can just be a remarkable kind of social change. And in most of our settings, there’s an opportunity for us to do that, to engage in some kind of social change with our groups of people.

Beth 15:01
Yeah. So when you talk to people who teach and train, is it a mindset you’re asking them to hold? You have to be interested in this, I guess, to be able to realize we need to know more about it. And then it’s sort of like, what do we do about it as well? Like how do you…what arc are you trying to take people on to get them to do better? I mean, I’m using super simplistic words here because it’s so new to me, but you’re getting people to care about something and then you’re hoping for them to do something. Can you say more a little bit about that?

Theresa 15:33
Yeah, I’ll go to the education sector where I’m most familiar with. I think there’s a request from society in many realms to take down the bricks and mortar, both in community colleges, but also in universities. You know, it’s do the community work, be part of the solution in community. I’m thinking about the one room schoolhouse and multi-age classrooms. My daughter was in one of those. I think we tried every type of education in our family from a home education to a public private combination. But I think about those kinds of schools and I think about how involved they were in community and how the walls weren’t so solid. And these days, we have got almost a lack of…not wanting to touch for sure, religiosity, even morals, and definitely afraid of the community work because we might appear to be biased.

Theresa 16:32
And yet there was, we have a history not that long ago in education. I mean, if you think about people like David Kolb, or you think about some of our early educators that were advising us on the importance to be part of the world, not to be separate from the world. And we can do that with choice with our students. You know, so there’s the…Chapter 5 is devoted to doing this, especially the path that I give for the educator in terms of, you know, what kind of discipline are you in and who could benefit from this work that we’re doing in this course?

Theresa 17:10
Which organizations and communities could we be collaborating with, whether I’m a mathematician or an engineer or social worker, what is the kind of connections that we can make? And there could be choice. There could be a realm of choices there for the student. But how can I apply this knowledge in a good way that’s making a difference? Really think this would go a long way for our students who are looking for this kind of hope and connection. And I think they might find it in post-secondary institutions. And I think the same holds true for employees and employers. You know, they’re looking for their employer to do some good in the world as well and to be part of that.

Beth 17:44
So, are you saying that when we can get out of the classroom, basically, and go into community, it helps us heal from trauma, it helps our participants, our students heal from trauma because of that connection? Or is it just the real world applicability to that or everything above? [chuckles]

Theresa 18:04
Yeah, I mean, if you see Judith Herman and what she said so many decades ago when she wrote her first book…you know, she said a woman coming out of sexual violence who comes back into a world where there’s no Me Too movement is not going to heal. So we are not, if we’re working in a class situation, and maybe our students are contributing to one or three or four social movements, we’re not going to solve all the problems in the world. Hopefully, though, or we’re an employer, and we’ve planned an employee event and a contribution, it will only be one part of the many different traumas that are occurring in the world today. But we will be a part of that redemptive storytelling that’s telling a story about how the world could change. So that these kinds of traumas that are happening don’t happen anymore.

Theresa 18:53
Or, yeah, that’s what most social change movements are associated with. So each chapter has not only a character, but a social movement. So if we think about those social movements, you think about land back, you think about sustainability movements, you think about the peace movement, the civil liberties movements, these are all movements that are trying to change the world so that people who are coming out of these kind of traumas will actually feel like the world changing. Because Judith Herman would say, well, you know, you can do that personal work and it’s incredibly important, but if you don’t see change in the world, it’s really hard to fully recover.

Beth 19:33
It makes me think that, okay, these movements are going on out there in the world, whether or not we know about them or not. I mean, there are some we know about and some I’m sure, lots that we don’t, or I don’t, I should say. And if we’re working in organizations, if we’re working in post-secondary institutions or wherever we are, feels like you’re saying we need to step out of there and go join these movements more often than we…we don’t think about it enough. That kind of crossover, I guess, like getting out of the ivory tower or the corporation and going to join the movements. They’ve always seemed so separate to me in my mind, I guess, but you’re advocating for more joining of those things?

Theresa 20:17
Absolutely. Yeah, and the workshops that I’ve been doing at universities and colleges, it’s almost like there’s an elephant in the room or one of those unwritten rules that nobody’s really questioned over the last little few decades about whether or not, as an educator or as an employer, that you could actually commit your organization or your institution to some social change. And what I’m getting back is, you know, I’m just questioning this and nobody’s telling me that I can’t. I want to do it.

Theresa 20:50
I just hadn’t thought that maybe it was okay for me to do it, right? And so I’m seeing some, a little bit of fear, but also lots of excitement about this idea. About how I can do this because I’m worried about whatever the subject. I mean, people come to the workshops for a variety of disciplines, so whatever subject they’re in, they’re usually something that’s really calling to them, that they would like to explore more with their students. And then just breaking down the ivory towers, isn’t it really? It’s like…that we created ourselves and we’re not maybe even sure about there being—of course, there’s policies and procedures that guide us wherever we are, but I don’t really know of any having worked for 25 years in this sector that are saying, no, you can’t do this.

Beth 21:37
Yeah, because you’re right. I haven’t even gone there in my brain yet. But the sort of red tapedness of working in any kind of an institution that has policies and procedures, you’re saying you haven’t seen that be a barrier. That there, you know, the ethical review process or whatever you’re being asked to go through to have your class step outside the classroom and do something that’s related to a social movement. It’s okay. Like it’s possible, it’s surmountable as a faculty member or whoever you are. You haven’t seen that be a barrier?

Theresa 22:06
Well Cher Hill from Simon Fraser University wrote the forward for the book and she’s an amazing example, working in SFU, working in the education department of Simon Fraser University and the work that she started with working with salmon habitat with her students. Like bringing students out to work on salmon habitat restoration. And then realizing that in Vancouver on this very urban stream that they were working with there was a lot of unhoused people along the creek. And then working also with Indigenous people who were very interested in those habitats and the salmon being healthy.

Theresa 22:45
And so it just expands in circles in terms of the movements that she’s got herself involved in and her students involved in in the years since. There is a sense sometimes of overwhelm. She’s just like when will it stop? You know I started with kind of environmental social movement and now I’m in poverty and housing and equity and movements. I’m learning so much about Indigenous ways of learning and knowing. They’re just like ripple after ripple and it can feel overwhelming but I don’t think she would change it in a moment, the work that she’s doing.

Beth 23:23
It makes me think about a person’s self-care in doing that, the overwhelm, dealing with that, but maybe also reaching out to communities of practice. I mean, do you talk about the piece around reaching out to each other? Like organizations reaching out to each other, if they’re doing things like this and having their employees go outside and work in movements. Or, you know, faculty getting together, sharing examples and like, is that, has that been part of your work as well, like drawing or coming together, I guess, to share and learn?

Theresa 23:55
Yeah, well, I have two wonderful things going on this afternoon. The second one is with a brand new trauma-informed pedagogy network in British Columbia. And so we launched that with the publication of my book a couple of months ago. Brianna Strumm and Amea Wilbur at University of Fraser Valley were kind to kind enough, they had a short grant and got this started. And then I did a book reading and now we’re now we’re doing workshops and sharing with each other. So there’s about 12 of the post secondaries in British Columbia that are involved in the network now. Reach out to Amea Wilbur and Brianna Strumm, if you’re listening to this and you’re like, I want to be part of that community of practice.

Theresa 24:37
So that one’s got started. And then the other piece that I’m noticing in the post secondary sector is I’m presenting to the healthy campus summit. And there is this kind of divide in institutions between the educators and then the folks that help the students. This conference is for primarily people who are on the student side of the house. And yet, we could be working together on some of these things institution wide, which is what the theme of the conference is. Like how do we work institution wide on these projects and not stay in our silos? So it’ll be interesting to see what the reaction is there.

Beth 25:16
Interesting and makes natural sense, doesn’t it? Even though it’s hard to do, sometimes that big coming together. When you teach workshops about this topic, what are some of the things that you see people coming away with? You know, that faculty member sitting in there, and maybe they were voluntold to be in the room? I hope that’s not the case. [chuckles] Maybe they’ve come to it willingly and wanting to learn more, but what difference is it making for them? What are they doing about it?

Theresa 25:42
Well, I think you said you’d read a little bit about accountable spaces because there’s this sense of lately in post-secondary movement. I’m not sure in the private sector as much about holding brave and safe spaces. So this idea of safe space, psychologically safe, physically safe, and then brave spaces. And more recently, what’s been written about is accountable spaces.

Theresa 26:11
I’m pretty keen on this third advent, because the brave and safe spaces, although great that they got started, tend to lift up those voices that are already loud and maybe overly loud. Whereas accountable spaces is about bringing forward the stories that probably need to be told and are being further marginalized by this safe and brave work, ironically.

Theresa 26:32
So in the workshops, I try to do a lot of pre-work, basically, and figure out what are some of the traumas that we could examine that are in the area. So, for example, at the University of Fraser Valley, there was the 2020 floods. So for a lot of students at the University of Fraser Valley, they might have been part of farming families, they might have been actually part of the events, they would have seen the tens of thousands of animals that were killed by the floods, the farming families abandoning farming. So lots of over, you know, lasting stories that are told there. And not, according to the participants that were in the workshop, not a lot of bringing that into the university. So it’s almost like there you are in the midst of this incredible trauma and not sure how to bring—even though the students are feeling these things, and you may be feeling it, you may be part of these communities that were so impacted as well—

Theresa 27:33
not being able to break down the walls of the institution and be part of the social change to address some of these issues that were happening. But the super interesting story in terms of that wasn’t being told and was actually experiencing—I don’t think this is too strong of a word, some hate on social media—was the story of not even 100 years ago when in Abbotsford, that whole plain was Sumac [sic] Lake (correctly Sumas Lake). And over 80% of the diets of the Stó:lō (STOH-lo) people in that area was freshwater mussels, salmon. But that story was very challenging and not being told a lot.

Theresa 28:19
So a lot of the pre-work I was doing was trying to learn as much as I could about the floods, trying to learn as much as I could from the Stó:lō people about those stories, the stories that were being told about that trauma. And then what were the gateways? Who were the organizations that were post-flood and anticipation, because there is anticipation of further floods, are working on this? And how could we bring it? How could we bring some of those things in? So I would say some of those redemptive stories got told at the workshop and people could see opportunities, were thinking about opportunities to bring those actors in the community into some of this coursework that they were doing.

Beth 29:05
Yeah, I think I want to reiterate that for myself, really, because you said before, we need to think about our discipline and what we do and what our courses are about and how that connects with these movements. And maybe there’s an easier thing. How do I say that?

Beth 29:22
When you know that there are community members who are working on the issue that you can partner with, bring into your classroom, learn from as the educator yourself, as the facilitator, maybe it makes it easier. Because is the default to think, oh, I don’t know what to do about that. I don’t know how to bring that thing about the floods into my classroom, so I’m not going to do it because I have to do it alone. And that is scary. But there’s another hopeful piece there for me. If we go out and partner and learn and talk to people in the community and get to know them and see how we can help each other, it’s not just a one-sided thing, is it? Then it’s easier for people to go in this direction?

Theresa 30:04
I think that’s absolutely true or at least that’s what I’m seeing at the workshops that people are thinking yeah. And often when you ask a group, before they ask you to come and do the workshop, you know what what kind of traumas are you facing in your community?

Theresa 30:19
At a community level people can usually identify the bigger movements. You know think about Virgil Seymour and he probably wouldn’t have said he was part of the land back movement, which is an international, important movement. But others would see the work that he did at a community level which felt right to him as land back, right? So I’m not I’m not saying start with those big movements: civil liberties, peace and so on. But eventually, as Cher Hill will tell you in her introduction, you know you kind of get there through the work. You can potentially connect to those bigger movements eventually, but often you’ll start at the community level. Which makes sense because that’s where we understand what kind of traumas our community is facing. Like for us here in the Kootenays, where I live, wildfires right? It was very very close this last summer for us and so wildfires would definitely be something that’s situating us right now absolutely and in our community.

Beth 31:24
There’s a language piece in there for me too that, you know, if you talk to Virgil, then he wouldn’t have said land back movement, but he would have said something else. And so if we went in as an academic saying, well, it’s actually called the land back movement, or, you know, obviously people aren’t going to be that, you know, stupid about it, [chuckles] but, but just, it’s a, there’s a listening aspect to it for me.

If I go out, I really have to listen to the language people are using to describe what’s happening and listen and learn, because it can so often probably go off the rails if we tried to railroad our terminology even onto whatever is happening in the community?

Theresa 32:00
Yeah, absolutely. Because when you think about the wildfires that we experienced here this last summer, people would not immediately call that being part of the climate change or even sustainability movement. But there was a lot of talk about being community. You know, being a community and sharing with each other and helping each other. Helping each other with places to live, helping each other emotionally and struggle with these things where you were having to leave your homes.

Theresa 32:31
So there was a lot of community talk. But they wouldn’t—although now, as we get into the more reflective times, you are seeing…I know somebody who’s working on a project that is more linked to sustainability and climate change and so on. But it might take a while before you’re linking to those bigger movements. And there is an actually in Chapter 5, a little description about that, how social movements are not built from these big things that they come out. I mean, you think about the peace movement and you think about Ashbury Heights in San Francisco and the original 60s movements that led to a lot of the peace movement. It didn’t start with a big, let’s do a peace movement, right?

Beth 33:11
Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you see it looking back on it maybe more than when you’re in it as well. Can we take it back to learner centeredness, if I can call it that?

I mean, we’re saying that, I think we’re saying, you’re saying that we can help heal individuals, we can support individuals, we can support communities by making these ties to movements—or community small things that lead to movements. But I want to just say too, it sounds like great learning experiences. You know, the learning designer in me is going, it’s real world, it’s applicable, it’s meaningful, it’s relevant. And so yes, there may be something there that’s related to trauma that is being helped, but it just sounds like when we leave the room, wherever we are, and go and connect with community, it just sounds like fantastic learning as well [chuckles], at its core?

Theresa 34:03
Yeah, absolutely. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Mezirow, he wrote the theory of transformative learning. And I mapped his theory on to the arc of my dissertation because they actually have some beautiful strengthening of points. And when we’re talking about a trauma and a moral injury, that would lead to what Mezirow would call a disorienting dilemma. And those are the kinds of things we can provide to our employee groups that we can apply, we can provide to our students as food for discussion.

Theresa 34:34
And hopefully what comes out of that is critical reflection and then what’s really important after that is choice. Together, as an employee group or as a student group or as a class, what are we going to do? Maybe some of us are going to do different things, this is authentic assessment, right? How are we going to contribute related to our purpose as an organization or our course outcomes? How are we going to contribute in a way that feels right and that will help us with these course outcomes, whatever they are, our employees, our mission or our vision as an organization? How are we going to do that? It just really maps well onto taking action and being a caring organization, being a caring institution, which most of us have in our vision statements hopefully today.

Beth 35:28
And it’s a group thing, I think, isn’t it? Because part of my brain was going, oh, could we send students individually out to do these things? But is that dangerous in some way? Or do you really envision that educators would talk about it with the group, say that there’s several choices of things we could do, or have the discussion about the course content and the possibilities within, and then decide as a group to do the one thing? Is it a group activity?

Theresa 35:58
I think every situation is going to be really different. Some groups may really gel and say, we want to do this as a group and we’re going to do something quite large. And others might say, you know, there’s safety and learning and working in pairs or small groups and off we go. And we’re going to do a smaller part, whatever that smaller part might be.

We might just be introducing ourselves to the people in the community that are making a difference and learning and interviewing them and learning from them. Or maybe we have a skill set. We’re going to offer a very small, within range, that you could do as an employee group or a student group. So it will be very different in every situation. But I guess that’s why I was emphasizing choice because choice is incredibly important in terms of empowerment.

Beth 36:43
Yeah. Is there a piece there around not burdening the community as well? I mean, I just reached out to someone who I was hoping to have on the podcast, but I was conscious that my ask was already adding to their very busy workload, you know, having to do with diversity, equity, and inclusion. And so my ask was, you know, would you have the time and energy to do this? And it’s okay to say no.

I mean, is that aspect part of your work? Part of what you think about? That there definitely has to be a not putting the burden on the community members to kind of create something for us so that we can have this experience? It really has to be a two-way beneficial relationship.

Theresa 37:27
Yeah, and you’re uncovering something that’s so important. And I’m thinking about the people in the book who, you know, would want people to come along and learn like I can think about Briony, I can think about Virgil, I can think about Lee, they would absolutely invite folks that were interested to come along to learn, but they wouldn’t necessarily want to do their project for them or figure out what their project would…they really would just be inviting to come along.

Theresa 37:57
And I would imagine that’s the same for many community groups that if your intention was to listen and learn, absolutely. And then eventually, maybe there could be a piece that you could see that you could contribute. But there would be the listening and learning piece, which might be as far as any group got to begin with, which would be fine. They’re beginning to acknowledge what’s—and who knows where that could lead in the future.

Beth 38:19
And maybe, like, if we’re talking about post-secondary something, maybe classes could build on each other’s work, you know, you somehow get handed the something that a previous class had done and you try to continue the work or something. I mean, there’s, because we have a time boundedness, I suppose, too, especially outside of the academic area where we’re just teaching half-day workshops or full-day workshops or whatever, you know, there’s, there’s only so much we can do. But even in the length of a term, there’s only so much that can happen.

Theresa 38:51
Yeah, well and again, you know Cher’s incredible work and you hear about that in the introduction. Because she’s been doing this for a long time. And so she’s she’s actually the link. So class after class after class is contributing and she’s the historian. She knows what those different layers have been and so each class gets a very different experience with a very different set of goals and groups and people to meet. But she becomes the conduit for that so that can also happen.

Beth 39:23
Yeah that makes sense. What’s next for you? I mean, you’ve written this book, you’ve put it out in the world. Obviously, you’re passionate about this work and this topic. What are you working on this year and what’s next to come?

Theresa 39:34
Well, I’m actually starting on a second book that isn’t completely related, having to do with artificial intelligence. And I’m also continuing to work on this book in terms of workshops and presentations and so on. And that’s been awesome, really enjoying.

I’ve started a Substack and I am trying to do the preliminary work of being in the communities where these characters in the book have actually come from. So getting into those communities first, that’s my first priority. I’ve got a couple more I need to do. And then I can ripple out from there. So yeah, that’s my plan.

Beth 40:15
As an aside, I mean, when you go out into community and you spend time doing those things, are you doing that on your own time? Or can you consider that time working for the college? Like, what does that look like? Or is it permissible to go out and count your community time as working time?

Theresa 40:32
So, I have a great depth of gratitude to the Selkirk College Faculty Association because I was able to get an assisted leave for six months to actually write the book. So that I probably wouldn’t have gone to the finish line without that support. But after that, no, I have other responsibilities. So this has to be up and above of what I do at the college. So, but I did get that support, which I am very grateful for, absolutely.

Beth 41:02
Yeah, it’s a monumental…you not only did the PhD and wrote a dissertation, then you had to go and write it into a [chuckles] separate document, a separate big book.

So yeah, it is—no one sees that work that you put in to get to that point, but it’s significant.

Theresa 41:17
Well, the experiences that I’ve been having so far, especially the workshops, which you can imagine are more…more comes from them than the book readings. Book readings are great, and I’ve been happy to do them.

But they have led to all kinds of beautiful connections and other things to do. And I actually think change. So I’m continuing to work on those. And so I get a lot back is what I’m trying to say from from that work. [chuckles]

Beth 41:43
Yeah. Yeah. And I’m sure you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t do it if you weren’t. I mean, you’re actually one of the things I saw on your faculty page at Selkirk. I don’t know if this, this, I hope this is still true. You know, you said you love your current appointment because every day you rethink what is taught, how it is taught and how learning is assessed.

I mean, that’s a lifelong learner if I ever saw one, you know, that you’re in this to keep learning yourself. It seems very clear to me.

Theresa 42:09
Yeah, and these days at Selkirk, and we have, they’re not all full time, but we have 11 people working to support the Teaching and Learning Centre. There are things I could never have imagined, like a mental health education developer, an Indigenous education developer. These are people who are making such amazing changes. So that work is very gratifying right now.

And I’m happy to be doing it full time.

Beth 42:36
That sounds great. I actually haven’t heard that those disciplines existed on a teaching and learning centre team. Nice. [Theresa: Hmm mm.] So yeah, you’re doing some great work there, it sounds like. Is it common across BC right now to have those positions? Are you trailblazing?

Theresa 42:50
There are more and more Indigenous educational developers. We’re probably one of the first, but there’s more and more.

And I hope there will be more mental health education developers as well who are working with the side of things that I’m not as versed in, like trauma-informed pedagogy. So Matty Hillman, who’s also speaking at the summit this week, will be talking about that. And yeah, he’s just, he’s going to benefit from that Selkirk College Faculty Association assisted leave too and work on an open education resource to do with trauma-informed pedagogy. So the Faculty Association is doing great work in supporting people to do some of these things that affect others.

Beth 43:35
That’s great. Is that going to be available on the BCcampus open educational resource site in the future, do you think?

Theresa 43:41
Yeah, I think that’s Matty’s intention. Yeah. [Beth: Okay.] He uses time to do that.

Beth 43:45
That’s great to know. We’ll watch for that to come and maybe post about it when we see that happen. Feel free to follow back with me. Theresa, thank you so much. I look forward to reading your book now, you know, kind of backwards, but we talk and then now I’m inspired to go and read more about the actual stories that you’ve written about and learn myself and keep making these connections in my mind and hopefully in my practice to community as well. To selfishly benefit myself, but hopefully others too. So thanks for coming and sharing with me about your book.

Theresa 44:16
Well, you’re welcome. And if people just want a little taste of it, there are, the book has a website, and I think those will be in the show notes.

So you can actually read some of the stories, snippets on the stories on the book’s website. And I have started a Substack where I’m talking about what you do after you write the book. So if people are authors, or they’re thinking about writing a book, and they wanted to pull back the veil a little bit and look at what happens after the book, I’m hoping they’ll enjoy seeing what happens after the book in the Substack that I’m writing.

Beth 44:49
I started checking it out and I subscribed to you as well. I’m looking forward to being a little bit more present on Substack. It’s becoming a little bit more in our awareness these days. So we’ll keep watching what you’re up to through your website and Substack both.

Theresa 45:02
OK, great. Sounds great.

Beth 45:03
Thanks again.

Theresa 45:04
Take care.

Beth 45:07
[Episode outro] really want to thank Theresa Southam for coming on the show and having that conversation with me. She actually did me a solid because I asked her at the last minute to come and talk about her book that she had told me about last year. I was sick, so I had to cancel another person that I had scheduled for an episode and I was kind of scrambling around trying to find a guest at the last minute. Not to belittle what Theresa did and has talked about, but I just want to explain to you why I didn’t read the book, because that bothers me. I’m a big reader. I read all the time, both fiction and nonfiction. And it really does bother me [smiles] that I wasn’t able to read Theresa’s book before we talked about it.

Beth 45:48
But I think I’m going to go rectify that and go and read those stories of some of the people that she talked about. And of course, all of the stories in the book so that I can catch up a little bit and continue my learning from this point forward. And I hope you check out the book as well, or at least check out Theresa’s Substack that she has started that she told you about as well.

Beth 46:08
I just want to highlight one thing that Theresa mentioned a couple of times in the episode and bring it back for you here. She talked about how important it was to give students or give participants the element of choice in the learning experience. And I want to underscore this and reinforce it with you as well.

Beth 46:25
Neither one of us mentioned in the episode that this is actually a tenet of Universal Design for Learning, UDL. And giving participants or students choice over what they do in the learning environment is actually, I think, one of the easiest UDL guidelines that we can follow when we’re designing and facilitating learning. So go look up the UDL guidelines on the CAST website to learn more about that and where it fits into the UDL framework. And I will put that link in the show notes for you as well so you can find that really, really easily.

Beth 46:59
The other thing I thought that was really great that Theresa did in this episode was that she kept underscoring that this is not just something that we can do in post-secondary environments if you’re in academia. If you work in a nonprofit, if you work in a corporate situation, maybe you’re an entrepreneur that is doing some sort of training and facilitation as part of your work, we all actually have the opportunity to think about what our role could be in helping our groups connect with social change movements and perhaps heal trauma of whoever is involved within.

Beth 47:35
So I hope that came across loud and clear, that no matter where you work, there are elements of this that you can look into and you can do with your groups in the situation that you’re in. And I know I’m going to be thinking about that a little bit more in terms of what I can do or the connections that I might be able to make in the things that I get to do in my role as an entrepreneur in this field.

Beth 47:56
Thanks again to Theresa Southam for coming on the show and talking about her book. I wish her all the best with it and I hope you enjoyed the episode.

Beth 48:06
On the next episode of the podcast, I talk with Pete Bombaci. Pete is the Executive Director of the GenWell Project, and he’s been involved in the creation of the world’s first Social Connection Guidelines here in Canada. Pete and I are going to talk about what the Social Connection Guidelines are, what they’re all about, why they’re so important to us—not just in our country here in Canada, but in the world—and what we facilitators can do about them. What’s our role in fostering social connection amongst and with our groups? I can’t wait to present this conversation to you. Until then.

Beth 48:39
[Show outro]
Thank you for listening to Facilitating on Purpose. If you were inspired by something in this episode, please share it with a friend or a colleague to help them expand their facilitation practice to. To find the show notes, give me feedback, or submit ideas for future episodes visit FacilitatingOnPurpose.com. Special thanks to Mary Chan at Organized Sound Productions for producing this episode. Happy facilitating!

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