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!
Like Arctic Cariboo shifting en masse from the Northwest Territories to their Alaskan calving grounds, universities, from a bird’s eye view, can seem to be merely training paddocks for herds of sheeple. Critics’ stereotypical assumptions are that pupils, shorn of individual thoughts, emerge trained in a series of right answers and proper methods. Willing and… Read more »
Wisdom is easily dispensed and sometimes bitterly believed. No matter our education level, others may disagree vehemently with our conclusions on many a topic. For Michel Foucault, an attitude of enlightenment requires us to adopt a stance of bravery in the face of external opposition and internal beliefs. These latter may have worn themselves so… Read more »
Standing at a gas station counter there was a prod in my back. A stickup? Nope, an old acquaintance of mine from our rural valley in BC. After the usual introductions, I inquired about his employment; he informed me that new ownership had brought unwelcome changes to his workplace to which he’d expressed disapproval. Shortly… Read more »
With plodding precision, the dull monster of boredom creeps up behind you as you sit listlessly at your desk. Probing an icy tentacle toward your shoulder you become aware of its presence just prior to the fateful moment when you realize your existential predicament. You are bored. Disenchantment has grabbed you by the short and… Read more »
The purpose of health care is to provide the sick with succour. Psychological care, however, is more complex than a series of band-aids and boo-boos. What if society itself is, as the Ghostbusters’ script reminds us, “too sick to survive”? (Reitman, online). An unpleasant theory laced with hyperbole, if ever there was. Yet perhaps when… Read more »
It’s 2023 and the path to our future is clear if we choose to walk it! Resolving to put one foot in front of another might be the first step, followed closely by actually picking a specific resolution or series of goals for the New Year. But where to begin with identifying actual targets? As… Read more »
In a timeless instant, simultaneous and thereby immeasurable, a Queen passed away and a King occupies the throne. This instant transfer in power serves as a reminder that, lest we forget the centuries of history that have culminated in our clickbait culture, aversion to even a moment’s pause weighs heavily on many institutions. Ambiguity breeds… Read more »
In our heart of hearts, many of us at times feel a bit hollow about the holidays. Besides garish ads, so predictable that they lampoon their own excesses and try to have us in on the joke, the general tense, tone, and tenor of the shopping frenzy seems to first imbibe a year’s frustrations and… Read more »
As distance education students, our geography remains unchanged but our minds unfurl like flags as we play with and try out new ideas. The project of identity extends to our minds as we challenge preconceptions about ourselves and our social environment. This process allows us to glean sociological insights into how authoritarian power structures may… Read more »
Baggage is a term implying years of accumulated dross, emotional and economic, the sort of thing therapists dream of as the purpose of their vocation. We carry with us our past and it colours our present and future, like it or not. Many key experiences are induced through participation in cultural institutions. Even the most… Read more »