Posts By: Jason Sullivan

Jason Sullivan

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!

Hallowe’en, The Day After—Wreckage of Identity

Red Solo cups lie akimbo, their shallow brackish contents daring any quicker picker upper to accidentally spill them and make things worse.  A light, Tchaikovsky, dusting of snowy powdered sugar coats tabletop surfaces creating a sticky gloss.  It’s the morning after Hallowe’en and the real trick is cleaning up from all the commotion! But, like… Read more »

Head in a Box: The Nature of Stimulation and Pleasure

At a birthday party a professional virtual reality gaming crew arrived in a van; they handed us plastic boxes to put over our heads and the entertainment began.  Soon everyone was in fine digital gaming fettle, battling terrorists and rescuing damsels and defeating all comers in a wrestling ring.  At first it felt weird to… Read more »

Turning up the Heat on the Psychology of Climate Change

Like delicate bromeliads insufficiently misted in a dry climate, wilted and desolate and displeased as they gaze out from a sunny windowsill, we humans bear a suffering countenance on a warming planet.  Unlike flora and fauna in nature, however, heat impacts us in a psychological, as well as physiological, arena.  Contesting dire predictions about the… Read more »

It’s 2024: Do Kids Have More Distrust of Tech Than You?

The prospect of AI proof-reading our sloppy rough drafts contains an air of excitement.  Sure, a few nuggets of genius emerge as we write and re-work our various essays but, along the way, countless hours fall off the cliff of time as we dot our proverbial I’s and mind our proverbial Q’s, bearing in mind… Read more »

Fly on the Wall—The Thespian’s Wail: What’s My Motivation?

Motivation and attentiveness are twinned foils for countless creative and educational pursuits.  Both sensations induce sighs of underwhelmed lassitude at the prospect of climbing another of life’s hillocks, and flitting glances adrift from the scene of the present to the yawing gulf of the imagination.  The history and practice of education may largely be seen… Read more »