Help Teach

Help Teach: Episode 10 - Students of Life

Mihai Covaser: [00:00:00] Welcome, learners and learned alike, to Help Teach.

Mihai Covaser: Hello and welcome to our community audio project. I am your host, editor, producer, and project co-lead: Mihai Covaser. I am also a youth living with a physical disability. My most formative experiences living with a disability have come in the Canadian public education system. Many students like me, with physical, emotional, or mental challenges, go through their years of schooling lacking the supports and accommodations they need to partake of the same opportunities offered to their peers. The vision of this project is to provide educators in Canadian classrooms, students with disabilities, and members of the general public, with the tools and knowledge that they need to make our institutions more accessible and inclusive for all. Join me and a diverse cast of guests as we explore perspectives on disabilities and education in this podcast series. [00:01:00] One last message for you teachers tuning in: Listen in each episode for our key takeaway that you can implement in your classroom today to help us further this vision.

Mihai Covaser: On today’s episode, we’re breaking the double digits. I have a great guest here to talk to us a little bit about her work with students in the educational system that are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as her journey through education and teaching. So I would love, without further ado, to introduce our guest for this episode: Amarinder Mehta. Amarinder, welcome to the show.

Amarinder Mehta: Thank you, Mihai. It’s wonderful to be here with you.

Mihai Covaser: As I do with all my guests, why wouldn’t you start by just telling us a little bit about yourself? Maybe where you’re located, where you’re currently working, and in what capacity; I would love to just hear a little bit about you.

Amarinder Mehta: I am located in Nanaimo, British Columbia, on Vancouver Island. I’d like to gratefully recognize and acknowledge that I live, work, and play on the unceded territory of [00:02:00] the Snuneymuxw, Snaw-naw-as, and Stz’uminus people. I also acknowledge the ancestral and continued connection to this land of the Métis nation. My job–Well, I wear many hats, and one of those is as a teacher of the deaf and a hearing itinerant teacher. So those are two very different things. I work here in Vancouver now, and I work all over Vancouver as an itinerant, and it is such a privilege to work with the people that I work with, and to learn from the students that I get to learn from, and to teach the students that I get to teach, because for me, there’s just so much going back and forth between myself and my students. I can say that, not only am I a teacher, I’m also a learner of my students, so…

Mihai Covaser: Mhm. So why don’t you tell us, just briefly: what is the difference, then, between a hearing itinerant and a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing? I’d love to hear that distinction.

Amarinder Mehta: [00:03:00] Okay, so as a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing, I do have qualifications to teach as a classroom teacher. I’ve chosen to specialize in deaf and hard of hearing, in the auditory-oral realm of deaf education, so small-D deaf. To become an itinerant, you have to be a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing, so that’s kind of like a segue into this itinerant work, which is really working on a curriculum that is complementary to and sometimes very different than what students are learning in their mainstream schools. So that’s–that is like, for example, self-advocacy, learning about the many facets of communication. So there’s just so many different things that we do and the learning is great.

Mihai Covaser: So how did you get to this point? What has been your educational or your workplace [00:04:00] trajectory that’s led you to settle in this line of work?

Amarinder Mehta: That’s a really great question. I wouldn’t say that I’m the type of person with like, a plan ever. This came out of my heart and it’s my heart’s work. Technically, I have a honors specialist bachelor’s degree in psychology from Toronto, at the amazing York University, which was like a second home to me, and became a first home when I was a teacher’s assistant in health psychology. I took a little break after a lot of years in education and I started a family, and I’ve got four beautiful kids.

Mihai Covaser: Congratulations.

Amarinder Mehta: And a wonderful–Yeah, thank you so much. My husband’s supportive and our family’s really close-knit, the six of us. I really looked at special education more closely after the birth of [00:05:00] my first child, and I took a master’s degree from the University of Toronto, and got my teaching credentials at the same time, which brings me to deaf-ed. It’s really through the life experience of being a parent of someone who identifies as Deaf and hard of hearing without hearing amplification, so, in a nutshell!

Mihai Covaser: Speaking of which, that did lead you to connect with one of my previous guests, and I thought that was very, very interesting. For our audience listening, I have had Élise Doucet on the show a couple of times now to speak to her life experience, as well as to education as a right of the child, and you have worked with Élise in the past, is that right?

Amarinder Mehta: Yes, and Élise and I have had many conversations about education as a human right, long conversations. And so we met through the education system here in British Columbia [00:06:00].

Mihai Covaser: Yeah, and of course, Élise was the one to connect us, so Élise, if you’re listening to this episode, thank you very much for that. So you did mention, just earlier, that you do wear a lot of hats, so I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about that, about the plethora of hats you wear on the daily and what kind of different perspective that gives you?

Amarinder Mehta: Okay. No, that’s a really great question. So these multiple perspectives, in coming from a really humbled, intentional, grounded place, I can see things from the many experiences that I’ve had as a neurodiverse learner in the system. I can see experiences through the perspective of a parent of a person who identifies with a different ability. I can see different perspectives as an educator, looking through the curriculum or through alternative curriculum, or deaf and hard of hearing itinerant alternative curriculum. [00:07:00] And so just using all of these different lenses to help me understand students, or understand needs, and understand gaps in learning, I can bring those as solutions to others and connect in that way.

Mihai Covaser: No, absolutely. Coming into it with a variety of perspectives means simply that you can walk in your learners’ shoes and be able to apply different modes of teaching and of thinking to different situations, that allow them to feel more understood, I think, in the classroom, which I think is essential. And that’s applied worldwide, as well, for you. You’ve taught in many different places around the world and that’s brought you a wide variety of perspectives on the situation, as well, so would you mind telling us a little bit about different places you’ve taught and maybe an experience you remember from traveling and teaching abroad?

Amarinder Mehta: Absolutely. I was in teaching long before I was in teaching, because I always select options for myself that are in line with what I [00:08:00] love, so I’ve taught at different places around the world. I’ve had amazing opportunities and I’ve been able to travel to where my family is originally from, in India, and learn how to learn and learn how to teach in that space, which was really empowering and was a catalyst for me. Going there as a teacher and changing how I saw teaching, I was confronted with all of these new experiences and new ways of doing that kind of broke my mind, and I had to think, “Okay, I have to learn first. I can’t do this with this paradigm; I’ve gotta unlearn-relearn in order to do this in this space.” And I’ve been doing it ever since. These different spaces have allowed me to see what works and what doesn’t work, [00:09:00] see how policy really shapes what we do and how we do it, and if we can do certain things, and that’s really been eye-opening and enraging, actually.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah.

Amarinder Mehta: Most times.

Mihai Covaser: Speaking of which, you were mentioning this concept of being at once a learner and a teacher. So before we move into that, I’ll say don’t go anywhere, audience members, because in the second half of this episode, we are transitioning to talk about exactly that: what it means to be a teacher and a learner, as well as an advocate and a caretaker of your students. So don’t go anywhere; we’ll be right back.

Mihai Covaser: Welcome back to Help Teach. Today I am here with my guest, Amarinder, and we are discussing her life’s work, as well as this concept of the teacher as a learner. And you mentioned, just before we took a break [00:10:00] there, that your experience, especially in India, caused you to really take a new perspective on what it means to be a teacher. There are three categories that I really would like to touch on today. The first is “teacher as a learner”, as we’ve been saying. So I was hoping you could start by just telling us a bit about what that means to you, what it means to be a teacher and at once a learner, and how that’s impacted your work.

Amarinder Mehta: Okay. “Teacher as a learner” and “teacher as a teacher”. It’s a mindset. It’s a mindset and an intention that inform what you do, how you do it, and engagement between you and your student. It shows that you’re interested and that you’re willing to learn, and allow your student to teach you. And no, it’s one hundred percent a mindset, and it impacts students and teachers in this dynamic where, you know, one is supposedly in such a powerful position and the other is there to be [00:11:00] told what to do, such top-down ways of doing, which, you know–What I’ve noticed in British Columbia is what I’ve noticed in so many spaces. It allows for a neutral, inviting, culturally inclusive, neuro-inclusive space where there’s a back and forth between people. And that’s what we are; we’re people learning from each other, that’s the journey we’re on. So first of all, it’s a mindset. Learning from students about who they are and understanding more of what they know helps you as an educator help your student connect the dots between curriculum, alternative curriculum, whatever it is, and where they’re at to what you’re teaching. So in an educator lens, that is so helpful.

Mihai Covaser: It must be difficult to change that perspective once you’ve worked as a teacher for [00:12:00] some time, in such a traditional curriculum and in such a traditional system of learning. To change your perspective to, “Okay, I have some learning outcomes; I have some things that I want these students to be able to do by the time they leave my class. I have some content, some facts that I want to teach them about the world,” but the way that that is presented is totally up to you as a teacher, in a lot of ways, and making it a back and forth must be difficult to get used to, hey? Once you’ve already worked for some time in a different kind of context.

Amarinder Mehta: Right, and–So I was raised in one context and I was privy to an international school where I saw best practice in action, and I saw the impact of true learning on the lives of my children who attended. And that really was a model for me, of what learning could be, [00:13:00] and in my education at OISE–the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, at the Jackman Institute for Learning–we took a really ecological lens and saw student-centered learning as learning that’s impactful and has such longevity for our students in front of us, and so I’m really grateful to all of those experiences, without which, I may be not so critical of what I experience as a parent with my kids, and what I do myself and am critical in my own pedagogy, and what I see in classrooms all over. So I’m really grateful to that, to have this sense of what could be, how powerful students are at every age to be self-advocates and have such efficacy in what [00:14:00] they do, and that’s a goal for me, is to bring what I’ve seen.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah, I think that’s key, because it’s hard not to think of teaching as something set in stone, or the classroom as something set in stone, and what students can do at each age set in stone, and I think–I mean, I had this conversation in my last episode with Tybie Elenko, regarding maximizing potential of each student in the classroom, and unless you focus on learning based on student needs, that’s something that can’t really happen, I think, to the maximum extent possible. As someone who understands that and is trying to promote that in the system, what does that look like for you, to be a teacher and at once advocate, activist, whatever word you might like to use to describe yourself in that respect–how has that experience been for you, to try and promote that after having recognized it?

Amarinder Mehta: Depends on who you’re working with and, [00:15:00] you know, what that team or what that educator or what that person’s mindset is. So if it’s something like mine, where I’m ready to learn at the drop of a dime; I’ve got my notepad and I’m ready to go, and I know that we don’t know everything, we have to continually learn to be better versions of ourselves. But I’ve, you know, been in situations where it’s been really tough. Not every person’s gonna agree on one way of doing things; that’s why we’ve gotta follow our students’ lead, is because they’re exactly why there’s not one way, and we, as educators, have to learn as many ways as we can to meet all the people that we meet where they’re at and help them get where they’re going. It really depends; I can’t say that it’s ever easy or too difficult, but I am ready to fight the fight and in the best way, [00:16:00] in a good way, with a good mind and a good heart, and not in a way that’s top-down in any sense, because if you’re working with an educational team, you’re also learning from that educational team and what works best for them and how they learn best. You know, I always check my bias before I start any kind of work like this, because there’s emotion involved.

Mihai Covaser: It’s an emotional thing and I think I would be remiss to say that that doesn’t influence my own work, as well. What I hear from you is that changing that mindset and sort of working on the individual level to make sure that each person you’re communicating with understands your position, that you understand their position, and to help them grow and change that mindset and become more open-minded learners, that’s the approach that you’ve started to take; a sort of brick-by-brick method, if you will. And I think a lot of us are brought up working in that way, if we’re brought up as advocates for whatever cause we may be fighting for. [00:17:00] Now, my ultimate vision is to get the curriculum modified or changed–remastered, if you will–to include more pieces for educators-in-training, regarding all of these things that we talk about: disability in the classroom, but also mindset, also resources that they have at their disposal. And so in a sense, that is a top-down way of working, because in my experience, over the course of my life, I’ve worked bottom-up a lot. I’ve changed maybe a classroom, I’ve changed a school, maybe my school district has implemented something that I’ve been working towards, but it’s always piece-by-piece, whereas I see some potential to change the system in a large swath, by getting the curriculum of educators-in-training adjusted, so that they come into the classroom already more prepared to teach in the way that would be best for more students. It’s almost ironic to say it, because that is a top-down way of working and it is telling a large group of individuals how they should act [00:18:00] or what they should learn or how they should teach, but there’s something to be said about introducing universal design and a generalized change to the system, so I think that’s something where we disagree a little bit, but I think both methods have value in their own way.

Amarinder Mehta: Right. But I think in your vision, there are options and access points for teachers as learners. There is a baseline where education is a human right and certain pieces, like understanding different disabilities and how they impact students in the classroom, and understanding a tiered lesson plan to create some access points for multi-level students in the classroom–that could be life-changing and should be the “should” of all of what you’re saying. My only issue is that–and this is where we butt heads–it’s not curriculum that changes the way you do things. A curriculum gives you like a map. It gives you an idea [00:19:00] of, “Okay, these are the things that I have to teach; this is the ‘what’ of what I have to teach.” But it’s not the “how”, and all of the science and the art and the heart are in the “how”. So we’ve gotta learn through professional learning circles, and we’ve gotta learn from each other’s mistakes, ‘cause we make them. There’s gotta be some kind of pathway between theory and practice; we need an open, wide connection between theory and research, and I strive to do that extra PD, because I wanna do everything in my best way, because that’s what people deserve; that’s what my students deserve; that’s what our kids deserve; that’s what the future deserves; and that’s who we’re serving. We’re serving the students of the future. So it only makes sense to go all the way and do our best, in a brick-by-brick method, like you said.

Mihai Covaser: Mm. No, absolutely, and I think that quite handily brings us to, [00:20:00] and at the same time, kind of sums up our last point about the teacher as a caretaker, right? The teacher as someone who is responsible for the educational and social development, in a lot of ways, of students in a classroom. I had this talk with Tybie Elenko, as I mentioned, and it’s something that I like to talk about, is: what is your intention as an educator, right? Like why are you really there? The educators who will listen and the people who will start to listen to my show are likely people who already have some idea of wanting to make a change, of wanting to improve their style of teaching, and of course I’m trying to reach all educators in some ways and trying to demonstrate how my experience has informed what I see as best practice for education, as well, right? And so it’s not a critique of anyone to ask, “Oh, why are you really here? Like are you really here to be a teacher or are you just trying to exercise some kind of power complex?” Like no, that’s not what I’m trying to bring across, but rather, I’m just trying to say that that self-reflection on what are your motivators as an educator, how is it [00:21:00] that you learn and how is it that you want your students to learn. Based on your own thinking, your own philosophy of learning, you can model best practice for students and of course, research and other sources will influence what that is for you, and I think that’s why I talk about curriculum, in the sense that curriculum can be a way to get access to frameworks and content. Of course, you can’t change someone’s mindset just by telling them what to teach, but there’s a starting point or access point that all teachers have to go through. So that really is about the teacher as the caretaker of the student, and as you say, bringing the next generation of students and learners to the fore in the world.

Amarinder Mehta: Yes. Yeah, and I was gonna add something there. We as humans, we’ve really gotta be able to understand our innate bias, our biases, and be able to learn and understand how we learn best. Those are two things that, you know, not everybody walks around [00:22:00] with that knowledge, like you gotta actively understand yourself better as a learner, as a person who is privy to people from all over, from all different walks of life, differing experiences. You’ve gotta understand your response to those new situations.

Mihai Covaser: That’s interesting. As a teacher, I think it can be easy to get locked in this mindset of, “I know things and I know how to teach, and therefore I’m in a position to tell that to people,” and it’s hard to go back and say, “Wait a minute, how am I still a student and what strategies work for me best as a student?” And so you’ve given me some wonderful resources, which will be in the episode description, but to reiterate for educators, the key takeaway for this episode–Amarinder has provided kindly and I have put into the description: a bias assessment tool and a few different learning needs tests, which you can take on your own time. It shouldn’t take more than a couple minutes per test, right, Amarinder?

Amarinder Mehta: [00:23:00] Yeah, it really helps you understand yourself better, in the way that you learn better, and it will open you up to learning around you that happens constantly. And it is a trap, you know; we think we know, and so we teach, and when we make mistakes, we reflect, which is what your wonderful podcast is allowing us to do, is to reflect on our work and get better. That’s the goal, is to get better, and so these are tools that you could use to start that process.

Mihai Covaser: Absolutely.

Amarinder Mehta: If you so choose.

Mihai Covaser: And you know, as much as this show is designed to bring you some of that information and bring us perspectives, we rely on your help as audience members, as well, to spread the word. So if you use these tools and they’re useful to you and you’d like to share them around: by all means. That’s what we’re encouraging, is to foster and to share, continuously, a mindset for learning and teaching in ways that, even though, as you see, Amarinder and I here talking, may be different between people, we’re all really aiming for similar goals or [00:24:00] at least if we’re not, we’re trying to encourage you to consider what other goals might be possible. I’d just like to thank you very much for coming on the show today, Amarinder. It was wonderful to talk to you and hopefully I can have you back soon sometime.

Amarinder Mehta: Thank you for having me, Mihai.

Mihai Covaser: You’ve just heard another episode of the community audio project, Help Teach. I’d love to give a huge thank you to my other co-leads on this project, Payton Given, Maggie Manning, Élise Doucet, and Alexis Holmgren, all youth leaders at the Rick Hansen Foundation, who I’d also like to thank for their continued support in this initiative and others. I’d like to give a huge shout-out to our community mentor for this project, Charl Coetzee. My name is Mihai Covaser. I am your host, editor, and producer for this podcast series. As promised, you can now find all our transcripts, episode notes, and links to other resources on Transistor.fm, or listen to us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. If you have any questions about the show, if you’d like to offer suggestions, or you would like to be connected [00:25:00] as a guest, you can now get in touch at helpteachpodcast@gmail.com. That’s helpteachpodcast@gmail.com. Please send in any questions that you might have regarding our episodes, and we would love to address them in future ones. Tune in next time for more great conversations and key takeaways that you educators can implement in the classroom today, to make it a more accessible and inclusive place for all. Thank you for listening, and I’ll see you next time.