About a week after spending an afternoon with Athabasca University’s Dean of Business to commemorate receiving the “Rising Star” award, photos and videos of Athabasca University award winners were shared and made the rounds online. Kids I grew up with in the Heron Gate area, nearby communities, and that I went to school with also managed to make the news. Be that as it may, the circumstances around the news story were quite different from the academic nature of my moment, because 17 individuals were charged with being involved in an organized criminal enterprise and more.
From the 17 individuals that were charged, those that I grew up with and went to school with, we grew up like typical 90s boys. Gameboy – Pokémon. Nintendo64 – Super Smash Bros. Xbox – Halo. Sports and wrestling, then girls. The typical 90s boy experience, except for having spent time living in low-income communities across Ottawa South: an area that had the greatest collection of potential and talent the world has ever known, from where many of the kids I grew up with struggled to transition from adolescence to adulthood, but not all.
What determines a person’s life path? Is it their life’s starting point? Is it their environment and how they are socialized? Is it access to opportunities? Although an argument could be made for all three factors, the best determinant may be how a person responds to chance encounters, encounters that are unexpected but that can end up having a profound impact one a person’ life.
One chance encounter and the chain of events that follow can redirect a person’s life trajectory, for better or for worse. Such was the case made by one of the world’s most influential psychologists of all time, Dr. Albert Bandura (1925-2021), which earned him an invite from the Nobel Symposium Committee to give a Nobel lecture on the topic in 1989. That lecture was modeled after Dr. Bandura’s papers titled, “The Psychology of Chance Encounters and Life Paths”, focusing on how chance encounters and unexpected life events play a significant role in shaping individuals’ life trajectories.
Small Impacts or Lasting Effects
The name “Albert Bandura,” that of a Canadian American psychologist who taught at Stanford University and is one of the top five most cited psychologists of all time, is unlikely to be familiar to most Canadians. Yet the paper Dr. Bandura took to the Nobel Symposium may be one of the most relevant pieces of writing in today’s unpredictable world. Born in the small, remote town of Mundare, Alberta, with a population of a few hundred people, Dr. Bandura had to depend on himself for much of his learning and development. For him, a summer spent working in the Yukon to protect the Alaska Highway from sinking resulted in experiencing the subcultures of alcohol and gambling, and that experience sparked his interest in human psychopathology.
Human behavior has a great deal of inborn elements, and yet all humans still have vast potential to rise above with a commitment to self-development that stems from human motivation, thought, and action. Despite that no single theory can explain the complexities of human behavior, the secret sauce to responding to chance encounters, according to Dr. Bandura’s thesis, seems to be rooted in the ability for a person to socially model themself after others. How the social modelling process begins is often rooted in perceived similarities to the person who someone is attempting to model themselves after.
As people, we tend to believe that we are in control of our personal development and life circumstances, but unplanned social interactions and random events can profoundly impact our personal development, career paths, and relationships. On such occasions, what often influences a person’s trajectory after these chance encounters stems from personal traits, skills, and perceptions, and a person’s response and ability to adapt to a situation. The difference between an upwards and downwards trajectory essentially comes down to the degree of agency a person feels they have over their life, their capacity for cognitive functioning and resilience to stress, and their core beliefs about themselves and their ability to adapt to unexpected situations.
What a person thinks, believes, and feels affects how they behave. The extrinsic effects of a person’s actions tended to determine their thought patterns and emotional reactions. Even though a person’s expectations, beliefs, emotional regulations and cognitive competencies are developed over time, they can be modified. All of it contributes to a recurring loop, either a vicious or virtuous cycle. A person’s conceptions about themself could strengthen or alter any environmental bias. So, the bidirectionality of influence between behavior and environmental circumstances ensures that people are both products and producers of their environment.
An intersecting aspect to social learning theory has to do with the power of example, the attracting force that drives people to transfix themselves on the character traits of those they admire. Existing or perceived similarities between the individual and the example they are trying to model themselves, along with the thinking, “if they can do it so can I”, makes the social modelling process even more effective. Any examples that are set by individuals who faced challenging situations and where there was a positive outcome also helps facilitate the social modelling process. One of those examples that was commonly referenced by Dr. Bandura was that of Dr. Martin Luther King, based on his value system, displaying perseverance in setbacks, and having an effective model for change.
For anyone wanting to get an even deeper understanding of just how powerful the social modelling process can be, there is a research study that was conducted by Dr. Bandura on curing people with ophiophobia (fear of snakes). In some cases, 30 years of fear dissipated after 4 to 5 mastery sessions. The specific term was coined by Dr. Bandura, “self-efficacy”, explains a person’s level of confidence in relation to completing specific tasks. People with phobias could be described as having a low level of self-efficacy and as being high in fear and anxiety. With guidance, however, these individuals could be helped to experience incremental successes and, over time, this could raise their self-efficacy enough to confidently handle snakes. Perhaps the best part about Dr. Bandura’s methodologies is that the thinking behind “guided mastery” is a process that is applicable to every aspect of life.
Athabasca University and Learners.
One of the advantages of having been a learner in Athabasca University’s first offering of ADMN405 and finishing with a high grade is that I was invited back to assist with grading subsequent cohorts—something I have been doing for close to four years. For me, that learning experience also opened doors for me that I was unaware had been right in front of me, like how it allowed me to participate in Harvard Kennedy School’s Executive Education (public policy) program. So, it would not be a stretch to say that Athabasca University changed my life trajectory, but I have seen the transformational power of an education in full effect for other learners as well.
One of the most impressive learners I came across over those four years has been Kira Steele, a learner who was profiled by Athabasca University, and one that I referred to in “Athabasca University versus The World”. For Kira, it took 9 years, 4 different schools, and getting sober to earn her degree. The story behind Kira’s transformation serves as an example of what people are capable, and she thanks Athabasca University because “without AU I wouldn’t have gotten my degree.” What Kira ended doing after kicking the bad habits, which saw her get labelled as boring and cost her friends, might be even more impressive – she created a space that provided a community of sober women, trans, and binary folks who can support each other and have fun without alcohol or drugs. The “boring” label is what she used to name the new club, “Boring Little Girls Club”. That club has been credited for saving lives, helping individuals to battle addiction and see all that they were capable of. So, this is why I brag about having met someone like Kira every time a conversation touches on education and all that people can achieve with a little bit of support.
What Kira’s life demonstrates is that no one is confined to the circumstances of their birth or upbringing, and that people are more than a product of what they are doing at any given moment. Although stories like Kira’s are not as common as they should be, luckily for the world, such stories are reoccurring, and like Kira, these individuals were able to rise above their immediate environment and circumstances.
Some more examples of people rising above their immediate environment circumstances.
A recent video published on the YouTube page of Harvard Kennedy School, titled, “Our Narratives Showcase, Fall 2024”, is an unassuming video where seven of Harvard’s learners speak on their life experiences. Watching that video will forever shatter the preconceived stereotype of what a Harvard learner looks like and what life before Harvard looked like. Many youths with similar life experiences end up as “statistics”, which makes these speakers, like Kira Steele, perfect examples to illustrate Dr. Bandura’s idea around how unexpected life events always have the potential to transform life for the better.
The first speaker, Jama Willis ’25, describes himself as a transnational citizen born in Kingston, Jamaica, and raised by a single mother and visually impaired grandmother. Disparaged and ostracized for being a “batty” boy had him wanting to breakdown and it diminished his sense of self-worth. When he initially came out as gay, he was forced into conversion therapy and institutionalized. He compared his early life to that of a chained suitcase, but what followed matters most.
“My suitcase was the birthplace of my ambition, which is to, through an academic lens, understand why decriminalization of homosexuality has taken so long to be achieved in the commonwealth as well as to help activists on the ground.” Then an outright recognition, ”While I understand speaking on this issue both publicly and academically, might jeopardize my career in the Caribbean, I am ready and honoured to stand up for those who have not been able to stand up for themselves. Because LGBTQ+ rights are human rights. Because one thing is certain, I refuse to return to that metaphorical suitcase.”
The second speaker, Alvira Tyagi ’25, speaks about how her grandparents moulded her in ways she is still discovering and how her grandfather grew up with very little and was raised by a single mother. Her grandfather would have to walk barefoot for miles to get to school, and on one occasion the family home was robbed of all its essentials. However, that lead her grandfather’s mom to tell her grandfather that the one thing that no one could away from him was his education, and it was a lesson the grandfather instilled in the family. Her grandfather would go on to become a professor at one of India’s most renowned universities, but he made sure that his daughter (Alvira’s mom) had the chance to get the same education as their brother, instilling that education was a right and not a privilege.
Education was the most enduring gift that was left by her grandparents, quoting her grandfather, “Education is precious, as it is one thing that no thief can steal, and no hardship can strip away.” Alvira’s beginning tells the story from the perspective of a first-generation Indian American family, “Moving to the United States as first generation Indian American immigrants was incredibly exciting. The American Dream seemed full of opportunity. And yet this meant leaving behind the people that had molded my parents, my brother and me. This constant tug of war between thrill of new opportunities and heartache of distance never got easier.“
The fourth speaker, Gwendolyn Ibarra ’26, started by repeating phrases that she had grown up around, “If you walk out that door. I’m going to put a bullet in my head and I’m taking you with.” Then mentioning how her mom would often say, “Grab your sisters. Go to your room. Don’t come out no matter what you hear.” The sounds of violence, screams and sirens were something she became desensitized to. By the time she was in middle school, she hated when school would finish and she would have to go back home, where domestic violence was the norm. She bounced between shelters, hotels and was even couch surfing before her senior week of high school. Her life fell apart after the family she was living with found out that she was lesbian and kicked her out.
At the age of 16, she was alone, without electricity, without a driver’s license and without parents. “I was living some screwed-up version of Home Alone, but like McCauley Caulkin I got resourceful. I charged my devices at school. I chopped firewood to have heating at night. I rode my bike for miles to buy dog food for my German Shepard, my only companion that winter.” Her application to Harvard included six home addresses, which helped her realize something important, “I realized that to play in perfect harmony once more, I needed to shift my perspective. Instead of following along with the rules of life that I was given, I need to write my own composition. Shifting her perspective and saying, “Violence silences us. But in deafening silence I found clarity. Instead of being a victim of my experiences I am fueled by the adversity I have faced in my life. I no longer play in an orchestra, as a follower or yes man, I walked out that door.”
All it takes to reaffirm Dr. Bandura’s thesis can be found in the words that Gwendolyn concluded her presentation, reaffirming her commitment to cultivate her sound wherever she goes to strike powerful chords of change, “I compose my own story. And I am capable of turning anything I face into a beautiful melody.”