ABOUT | indifilm

AUTHOR POSITIONALITY

image by Sylvi Martin

Julie Ship was born and raised by anglophone parents of European ancestry in the bilingual nickel capital of Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Sudbury is is located on Robinson-Huron Treaty territory and the land is on the traditional territory of the Atikameksheng Anishnaabeg Ojibway First Nation.

Riveted early on by cinema's ability to take the viewer into world's unknown, Julie went on to study film with Dr. Hoi Cheu at Laurentian University. She then embarked on her first experience living and teaching English abroad in Ulsan, South Korea.

While visiting an international film festival in the rural city of Jeonju, her public school French was required to learn that there weren’t any English subtitles to the Portuguese language film: Cidade de Deus. This serendipitous language and film experience changed two things moving forward: Julie began learning Brazilian Portuguese and moved to Montreal to further develop her French as a second language. For Julie, languages and film are a gateway to culture and learning outside of one’s own upbringing and personal narratives.

She now lives in Vancouver, BC on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations where she works at the Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Service Agencies of BC. Her graduate studies at the University of British Columbia focused on language and literacy education with a final work being this website. When not discussing language and culture, you will find Julie playing trumpet with an East Vancouver community street band that "loves you more than you love [them]".

Julie would like to acknowledge Dr. Candace Galla and Dr. André Mazawi for their support and positive encouragement in the development of this project. And of course all those artists who sacrifice to tell their stories for us all to experience.

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

The instrument mouthpiece is representative of teaching and learning in the following ways:

Teaching and learning are circular; everyone benefits from being growth-minded.

Teaching and learning are not linear one-way phenomena from teacher to student but should be circular with feedback from the student and the world back to the teacher allowing the teacher to be a growing, expanding and renewing chamber of knowledge, passion and inspiration.

The trumpet mouthpiece represents this in the breath drawn in by the trumpet player to send air through the instrument which then comes out again as more air in circulation. Like a teacher, a musician must always practice to grow and improve.

The mouthpiece is a symbol of kinaesthetic learning; learning happens by doing

One cannot learn to play a trumpet by listening to it or looking at it. Most people learn best by doing, therefore presenting many opportunities to practice language, share ideas, play, create, research, ask questions and to get out into the world to speak to people are important in teaching languages. All of these activities can follow the use of curricular materials and classroom realia.

Learning is enhanced through cooperation

Playing a trumpet alone is sad and lonely without feedback and so learning to play with a community band expands the learning and growth tremendously. Students learn through practicing mindful listening, cooperation, problem-solving, synthesizing and reteaching. When teachers present challenges and team tasks to their students, their negotiation of roles and responsibilities and the teamwork required can greatly increase learning.

Students benefit from taking responsibility for their learning

One does not get better at playing an instrument by solely being taught. It is important to offer students strategies to organize priorities, to discover their interests and to then guide them to focus on ways to take responsibility for their learning and what they do with their time. Encouraging self-correction and peer correction are ways of incorporating autonomy in the learning process.

As the Truth and Reconciliation Committee's #63 iii call to action for “Education for Reconciliation” behooves, “building student capacity for intercultural understanding, empathy, and mutual respect”, the hope is to be able to contribute to this out of a place of evolving knowledge and alliance and acceptance of continuous learning.