PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR EDUCATORS & ADMINISTRATORS
We are proud to have worked with school boards across Ontario and post-secondary institutions across the country to share our approach to storytelling through professional development for educators and administrators. At Living Hyphen, we take a decolonial, intersectional, and anti-oppressive approach to teaching.
Click a path below to learn more about our workshops and presentations.
Over the last few years, our focus has been on creating equitable and inclusive spaces for newcomer and racialized students learning English while preserving and honouring their first (sometimes second, third, or even fourth) languages. We have worked with ELL and MLL educators and welcome centres to develop programming that speaks to students in a way that encourages them to share their lived experiences and affirms their expertise in those experiences.
According to the 2021 census, more than 8.3 million people, or almost one-quarter (23.0%) of the population, are foreign-born individuals who immigrated to what we now know as Canada. How do we work together as educators to create equitable futures for newcomers to this country? How might we move beyond the limitations of language, specifically the limitations of English, to better serve such a vital part of our population?
Our presentation called English ≠ Excellence: Building Equitable Futures through Language explores why it is so urgent and necessary to create inclusive and equitable spaces for newcomers, along with concrete case studies of projects that are doing exactly that. Taking Living Hyphen as the basis for this practice, we will learn how we might take these lessons into our work as ELL and MLL educators.
“Living Hyphen’s presentation at our provincial organization meeting was exactly in tune with what we needed to hear! Our members support ESL programming and their passion for fostering storytelling as a way to connect with the gifts that students bring to school resonated with all of us. I know that school boards are excited to work more closely with Living Hyphen to develop meaningful writing experiences for students that will explore and celebrate their full identities. ”
A part of our work at Living Hyphen is largely focused on decolonizing the spaces we live, work, and play – most especially, our classrooms. How do we work together as educators to ensure that we are creating inclusive spaces for some of our most vulnerable students, including newcomers and racialized students? How do we let go of standards of excellence in our education system that are rooted in colonization? What do those standards even look like and how do they manifest in our classrooms?
At Living Hyphen, we let go of perfection and embrace mess and complexity. We focus on the nourishing and healing process instead of a consumable “gradeable” product. And we embrace an embodied practice that brings together mind and body. We believe that cultivating confidence first and foremost is critically important for student success and fulfillment in academics, as well as for personal well-being and social connectedness. Our presentation on Decolonizing the Classroom unravels the colonial structures that we presently live in while showing concrete ways we can work towards dismantling those systems and building more equitable spaces for all of our students of all ages.
“Working with Living Hyphen has had a profound impact on students and staff at the Halton District School Board. The student storytelling workshops and Justine’s professional development workshops, which foster confidence and creativity and are grounded in anti-oppressive practices, have been incredibly positive experiences for both multilingual language learners and educators. I enthusiastically recommend Justine and Living Hyphen to any school seeking to support students and educators with engaging and empowering educational experiences.”
Our Partners
We’ve been very fortunate to work with school boards across Ontario and post-secondary institutions across the country.
