Watch past CU Boulder's Ed Talks
View virtual Ed Talks 2022 and Panel Q&A
Watch the full event recording with a live Q&A with the speakers. Originally live on April 14, 2022.
Speaking Against Institutional Abuse
A. Susan Jurow (she, her, hers), professor of Learning Sciences and Human Development
This talk invites the audience to learn about the immediate and ongoing consequences of institutional violence. Jurow draws on her own experiences to illuminate what many have suffered, but few talk about publicly. She describes how institutional violence changed her and how she understands our ethical responsibilities to each other.
How Schools can End Gendered Violence
Liz Meyer (she, her, hers), associate professor of Educational Foundations, Policy and Practice
This talk will ask listeners to reflect on what they learned about gender and sexuality in school. Issues such as bullying, anti-gay jokes, and sexual harassment are linked to intimate partner violence, gay-bashing, and murders of trans women. These are all forms of gendered violence. This talk argues that in order to reduce gendered violence, educators must be able to teach about gender and sexual diversity in K-12 schools. As such, we need policymakers and leaders with courage to build more inclusive cultures at school.
The Double-Edged Sword of Story: Literary Censorship in Schools
Wendy Glenn (she, her, hers), professor of Literacy Studies
This talk explores the dual nature of story and how its potential to change lives can be used to both celebrate and condemn literature in school spaces. Together, we’ll explore the reasons that some adults work so actively to limit young people’s access to story, what is lost as a result of these efforts, and why keeping stories in the hands of kids matters to them and to our world.
Lifting as We Climb: Embracing Chicanisma in a White University
Johanna B. Maes (she, her, hers), director of Master's in Higher Education and Senior Instructor
This talk invites participants to experience the educational journeys of yesterday and today’s first-generation Chicana/o students at a predominately white institution, noting their legacy and political courage needed to not only survive but thrive. This talk also recognizes how the more things change in our world for these populations, the more they remain the same in higher education.
Courage to Learn: The Unexpected Physicist
Valerie Otero (she, her, hers), professor of STEM Education
From math-loving metal head in high school to decorated CU Boulder physics education professor, Otero’s story and passion aim to inspire more inclusive STEM futures for historically marginalized students. This talk explores the hurdles she has jumped in the name of revolutionizing STEM education, and programs like the nationally celebrated Learning Assistant and Peer Physics Programs that she co-founded to support more diverse, accessible, and revolutionized STEM teaching and learning.
View virtual Ed Talks 2021 and Panel Q&A
Watch the full event recording with a live Q&A with the speakers. Originally live on Dec. 2, 2021.
Lifting the Veil: The Truth About Teaching
Robyn Tomiko (she, her, hers), PhD student in educational foundations, policy and practice
Robyn shares the truth about teaching that no one talks about. In her time as a middle school English teacher, she learned that teaching English was only a fraction of the actual job she was doing. Robyn lifts the veil from the hidden truths in the profession, in the hopes of eliminating the harm that can come from staying silent.
A Love Letter to Milwaukee: Bilingualism, Community, and Social Change
María Ruíz-Martínez (she, her, hers), PhD candidate in equity, bilingualism & biliteracy
Communities joyfully activate what it means to be bilingual en lo cotidiano. In the everyday, whether experiencing a mural, a collective dance performance, a street protest, or a neighborhood carne asada, communities mobilize bilingualism for a better, more just collective future. This love letter to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, honors the community’s collective life-wide and life-deep experiences that helped shape who I am today. It shows how a community embodies bilingualism as a relational practice of imagination, liberation, and social change.
Getting Free: The Queer Imaginings of a Hopeful Romantic
Page Valentine Regan (they, them, theirs), PhD candidate in educational foundations, policy and practice
How do cultural messages surrounding gender and sexuality inhibit our capacity to engage in our inherent abundance? With our permission, when we have spaces for others to bear witness to our complex lived-experiences and we can safely engage with the sources of our own oppression, we are able to collectively become. In this talk, Page shares pieces of their own journey, some queer imaginings as a hopeful romantic in pursuit of liberation.
When Our Bodies Speak, Can We Listen?
Kachine Kulick (she, her, hers), PhD candidate in teacher, learning, research and practice
Storytelling rooted in radical honesty, discomfort, and vulnerability provides a portal to understand oneself in relation to the present and future. Kachine’s storytelling asks us to lean into deep, intuitive knowledge of the body in order to move towards a re-imagined, anti-racist future. She wonders if this way of listening and knowing can lead to decentering whiteness and create a culture that is transformative and liberating for all.
Harvesting our Collective Liberation: Indigenous Pathways for Equity and Justice
Brittni Laura Hernandez (she, her, ella), scholar in residence with A Queer Endeavor
In this talk, Brittni Laura Hernandez explores her relationship to the Mirasol chile pepper, to self, and to community as a practice of enacting liberation in education and beyond. She asks us to know ourselves deeply and to look towards indigneous, black, queer, and trans knowledge ways as sacred designs that inherently disrupt colonial patterns and offer instructions for sustainable, autonomous, liberated futures.