Bianca Gabriela Paun

LBST 100 – Fall 2018
Reflection #1
Bianca Paun

Reflection # 1

What are your leanings so far about differing approaches to knowledge?
I consider myself lucky for having the opportunity to take a variety of courses at Capilano University and to gain a broader picture of how people acquire knowledge. I first explored this topic of different methods of learning during my Human Kinetics (HKIN) program in the Human Anatomy course, in which I studied the process of learning from a physiological perspective. Through the Human Anatomy course, I understood that learning is the mental process of using memory and which occurs through electrical impulses and imaging.
My second contact with the topic was while taking Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) courses in which I learned about a different approach to acquire knowledge form the perspective of a behaviour analyst (BA). The BA uses the principles of learning theory to apply interventions to improve socially significant behaviours to a meaningful degree and to assist the less fortunate students diagnosed with ADHD, ADSD or Down syndrome to acquire knowledge.
The Early Education (ECC), Psychology (PSY) and Liberal studies courses gave me the opportunity to explore the process of acquiring knowledge from the perspective of an educator who plays the role of facilitating the learning process. By taking the ECC and PSY courses, I understood the importance of knowledge development, and how this process is influenced by emotional, economic and cultural factors. I also learned about the importance of the inspirational, sensorial and multimodal learning strategies; and to consider how children acquire knowledge in the real world, to address strategies that can help build children’s knowledge bases in the classroom and beyond. The Liberal studies readings, in particular the ones for the present course has reminded me that acquiring knowledge is a complex process, which involves a mental exercise that is strongly influenced by our self-perceptions, beliefs, feeling, and behaviours.

Which readings have you most effectively engaged with, and in what ways?
The LBST 100 class studies evoked my experiences and the various ways I enriched my mind. It reminded me of my first grades in school as an ESL student, struggling with my English class and being bored of memorization or repetition of English grammar. It reminded me how I learned English from reading comic books or hiding in a closet reading English drama, or lying down under a tree listening to music composed by Western singers. Reading about approaches to knowledge opened my mind to the unlimited ways people can learn. The way of how Indigenous people use land as pedagogy, was one of the topics, which really resonated with me. The “Land as Pedagogy,” reading sent me back to the past when I used to learn from my experiences in nature. The class in the forest made me feel much more alive and focused.

How are you relating to people and conversations in the class?
Working and discussing with my classmates is awesome. Seeing the various approaches in which each person acquires knowledge fascinates me. Through conversations with colleagues, I identified similarities between my past and present experiences and others’ experiences, which drive us to thrive as students and as persons. In class, I attempt to move out of my comfort zone and find people to talk to in order to expand my own perspectives on how I see the world.

Do you find yourself thinking differently about knowledge in other contexts? in other classes? at work?
Yes, I think differently about knowledge in other contexts. For example in my profession as a swim coach, I worked with a various category of children, from competitive swimmers who compete in regional and national races to less fortunate kids diagnosed with ADSD whose parents want them to learn swimming. The strategies and purpose to facilitate learning for the advanced swimmers are very different from the ones for the beginner swimmers. The purpose for the advanced swimmers is success; they are motivated to stay fit, to execute the motor skill perfectly and to be in first place. The beginners purpose to learn swimming is to know how to swim, to not drowning and to survive when they are in the water. Their motivation is to be able to float and swim from one end of the pool to the other. For the advanced swimmers the learning strategies are more abstract and are based on inspiration, compared to the beginners for which the most appropriate approach is more practical, based on example. With the advanced swimmers I give the lesson out on deck, using metaphors, for example, I tell them to imagine having puppet arms pulled by strings. With beginners, I get in the water and provide them with support to float while giving them the confidence needed to move through the water and become comfortable in their environment.

LBST 330 – Fall 2018 Module 2 – Research in Context
Response paper #4
Bianca Paun
Readings: Linda Tuhiwai Smith: “Research Through Imperial Eyes” — Decolonizing Methodologies, Chapter 2, (1999): 42-57.1

Summary of Assignment
We were asked to read Linda Tuhiwaiww Smith’s text and to focus on the idea that any research we may develop will have a perspective on the world, which could potentially have an effect over another person’s worldview.
All research has a social side to it. We live on unceded Coast-Salish Territories. Our local indigenous space has been, as the author suggests, physically and conceptually colonized. No matter what your research theme is about, or what stage you are at, elaborate on your project concerns on addressing the ways normalized conceptions about time, space, history, language, notions of ‘acceptable’ research practices, etc, may be an unnoticed way of perpetuating colonial power. Imagine your project gains attention and has an influence over governmental policy making. How do you foresee establishing a dialogue –even if indirectly– with the worldview of the native local people or other cultures from elsewhere?

Response # 4
Reading chapter 2 – “Research Through Imperial Eyes” of Tuhiwai Smith’s book made me contemplate on the cultural differences of various nations and the supremacy of Western culture and its vision of the world.
In my view Smith’s digest contests traditional Western ways of knowing and researching.
Smith demands the “decolonization” of methodologies, and implementation of a new standpoint for indigenous research. Smith acknowledges major differences between indigenous approach to knowledge and western thinking, differences that seem insurmountable and are not just simple paradigms but also manners that are hard to conjugate. What seems easy in an westernized vision, might be a major hindrance to an indigenous one, and what seems natural to the latter can become a serious challenge for the former. People who have not inherited the indigenous back ground, need a great deal of will to understand indigenous culture and to overcome the westernized paradigms of thinking. When speaks about decolonization of investigation methods of the indigenous research Smith refers to “a more critical understanding of the underlying assumptions, motivations and values that inform research practices”.
Smith’s reference that the Western model of scientific research is not a universal language echoes my past experience as a CA in Spain, where I learned about different meanings and culture values of the Spanish nation. The whole reading made me think about Spain’s grievance of accepting English language as one of the dominant languages accepted worldwide; How the whole world perceives the Western process neutrality and essentially perpetuates practices of colonial rule. It also made me contemplate on how Spain found the solution to avoid the colonial rule by promoting their own cultural values (Spanish music, all English movies translated in Spanish). From one perspective Spain’s example is not the strongest because we’re talking about a powerful nation, which in history was one of the dominant colonial nations for south American natives. During the colonization era, Spain was a global power and was one of the most powerful nations at sea, with an enormous fleet and a well-established shipping merchant network system. This has greatly helped spread the Spanish language in the New World, as an impressive number of explorers, gold seekers, Spanish colonists, or adventurers flocked to the West to the new lands discovered. The effect of this massive colonization movement can be seen today, when most countries in South America and Central America as well as those in the Caribbean have Spanish as an official language.
Alongside the text, my tutorial and graduation project relate on addressing the ways normalized conceptions about language and education practices which are unnoticed ways of perpetuating colonial power. I like to imagine that my project gains attention and has an influence over governmental policy making on education and languages in Catalonia and BC. Learning from Spain on how they deal with language acceptance, and how they established a dialogue with the Catalan nation, and English as a foreign language –even if indirectly– and in the BC government acceptance and empowering of the native people culture and values.
Smith specifies that Western research has shaped into a concept known as” the west”. This concept has been shaped by society to the point in which indigenous peoples were left out of that Western system of knowledge, considering the Western model as a unified way of thinking. “The west” has somehow muffled the importance of indigenous experience and by ignoring its significance. According to Smith “Systems of classification and representation enable different tradition or fragments of traditions to be retrieved and reformulated in different contexts as discourses and then to be played out in system of power and domination with real material consequences for colonized peoples.”
The readings made me think about the recent government celebration of truth and reconciliation that helps to inform all Canadians about the residential school experiences, about the pain and damages aboriginal children and parents suffered when westernization imposed their rule of colonization. Back to those days the education system played a huge role in victimizing the aboriginal children. Education was used to enforce colonialization and to safeguard implementation of the “Westernized Canadian values” to native people.
Since my future projects, deal with education and language comparisons between Spain and Canada BC, I would like to develop more research on the comparison of how Spain and Canada dealt with the native local people or other nationals from the educational perspective.

Summary of Assignment

Here is a PDF link to: Response Paper

We were asked to select and review one of the articles dealing with context-aware critical approaches related to our fields of interests, and to answer the following question:

What ideas can be helpful from this article to be adapted for your own project(s)?

Summary of Assignment

Here is a PDF link to my Response Paper #3

We were asked to watch Villenueve’s Arrival film and to write a more elaborate paper of the responses provided in Papers #1 & #2, by including these points:

a) How has the reflection undertaken so far in Module 2 shifted and/or deepened your emerging or already chosen research topics, and the ways you envision proceeding? Has one of the suggested topics, or may be a new one, emerged as the more compelling option?

b) Taking on this film, and reflecting on previous materials and discussions, do you foresee new ideas to approach your research going forward with your tutorials and/or Graduating Project? Include for example a reflection on your personal history, limitations, normalized assumptions on the field, and other contextual considerations that you want to be mindful of as a way of engaging in a situated dialogue with your topic.

c) How do you foresee adapting methods or creating new procedures for your project? The final way will be up to your negotiation with the situation, but what do you imagine happening?

The additional instructions for this assignment were to watch the movie while observing the following:

• What is the role each character represents regarding approaches to research?
• Can an open (open to fair ‘play’) dialogue be established while following previously set procedures (or methods)?
• In which ways the development of a ‘language’ in the movie, plays the role of finding a situated ‘method’ to understand the other?
• What is the role context plays in the way research is pursued in the movie?

Summary of the Assignment

Here is a PDF link to my: Response Paper #2

I was asked to review the reading/watching materials “Gadamer and the Game of Understanding” by Monica Vilhauer, and Tao Ruspoli’s movie “being in the world” and to complete the following tasks:

a) Make a reflection on what are the leading ideas connecting the two materials.

b) Taking on your previous Response Paper #1 about your research prospects and data handling, now include a separate reflection on how some ideas from the reading and the film may be useful for thinking on HOW TO DO your research project(s). Think on just anything you may imagine, for now. Later, we will take a look to more concrete examples.

Summary of the Assignment

Here is a PDF link to my Response Paper #1

I was asked to read the first chapter of Berger’s ways of Seeing and to elaborate more on my previous Fields of Interest Assignment, point #5, by incorporating a reflection on what opportunities and problems ‘sampled’ data may bring to my project(s), and to research as a whole. The paper should answer the following questions:

1. What kind of information will you use?
2. How to inspect reality not just as “data” but phenomena in sense-making context, your own perception included in that context?
3. How is the world changed by the way we see it? Does my view make sense to preserve life (social, environmental) as a whole?
4. What alternative, non-hard-data-driven, ways of doing research in your field do you foresee?

Never stop learning because life never stops teaching

I am Bianca and I was born in 1992 in Bucharest, Romania. I was three years old when my parents decided to move to Canada. I grew up and went to school in Vancouver, and ever since I can remember, I have wanted to be a famous singer. The dream is still alive and even though I have taken many different paths along the way, singing is something that I am always working on. Here is my story, who knows maybe one day I will turn it into a song.

In 2004, my little brother was born and my parents decided to spend a whole year in Romania. We bought a little house in a small village on the outskirts of Bucharest. I was enrolled in the local school for grade 6. This was exactly how I would imagine living on the countryside would be. Life here was so different from the life that I had in Vancouver. The street that we lived on was not paved it was just a dirt road and in the fall when it would rain it would get all muddy, later on the mud would dry in crater like forms because of the cars that had passed through in the rain. Life there was adventurous, I would go to school in the morning and I would come back in the afternoon. I would meet up with the kids on my street and we would play hide and seek, play with toy cars, and run down the muddy road until the sun went down. School there was very different than school in Vancouver. The Romanian school curriculum was more complicated than the one in my elementary school in Vancouver. I was not used to having to do physics in grade 6 but this was normal in Romania. Physics and math were, and still are, my hardest classes. Geography was my favourite, and English class was the best, I was the most popular in English often helping my classmates with difficult questions. Overall, doing grade six in Romania was one of my favourite experiences and I think back to those times fondly.

A year passed quickly and next thing I knew we were back in Canada. Instead of going into grade 7, I skipped it and went directly into high school at King George Secondary. Being in high school was definitely different from grade 6 in Romania. Nobody took their toy cars outside or stayed out until 11 playing hide and seek, but I was back with my friends and glad that I would not have to worry about physics for a year or two.

My high school career went by smoothly. I was more of a sporty person rather than an academic one, many evenings were spent on the soccer pitch and many classes were skipped for more soccer. Being on the soccer team was one of the best things that ever happened to me I love the feeling of being part of something and knowing that as a team, we’re all working towards the same goal.

The summer after grade 11, my parents decided to give Romania another go. This time we lived in the city and I went to a high school that was super far from our home. I remember dreading waking up to take the metro and then a bus to get to school. Grade 12 in Romania was not like grade 6, all the kids were much older than I was, and I often found that I had nothing in common with them. Although I did not have to worry about physics, I now had grade 12 Latin on my plate, but with the help of my classmates, I survived Latin as well. This time around, I did not enjoy the experience as much and really wanted to get back to Vancouver and graduate with my actual friends. In February, my dream came true and we moved back to Canada. I was once again on my old stomping grounds and reunited with my friends.

Even though I did not enjoy it as much, I am thankful for the experience, I had in Romanian high school. It has given me a bigger view of the world we live in. It made me see and understand how cultures can differ from one another. The experience I gained by travelling and moving from one place to another, had a big influence on how I chose my career and over my formation as a professional sports coach and English educator. It has also inspired me to remember that are different modalities of learning and the fact that we are constantly learning all our lives.

I graduated high school in 2010 and I was accepted into Capilano University for human kinetics program. I still was not much of an academic person and suffered greatly with the workload of University. I successfully finished the program after three years and decided to go into liberal studies, which enabled me to approach a much broader field of interdisciplinary studies. I was still not quite sure what exactly I wanted to do once I was out of school and felt that liberal studies was the right way to go in order to test things out. I dabbled in many English courses, psychology courses, and language courses. I was obsessed with Spanish and anything to do with the Spanish culture. In 2015 I signed up for a program called CAPs which sent me to Barcelona to work as an English assistant, in a school and live with a Spanish family for nine months. I loved it, and after the program ended, I decided to remain there. I spent almost 3 years living in Barcelona working as a physical education and English teacher.

The experience of having to take care of myself on my own was eye opening. Until then I had never been apart from my parents and never had to worry about paying bills, cooking or doing laundry. In a sense, I finally grew up. Now I am back at Capilano and am currently working towards graduating from the liberal studies program. I am glad that my program it has allowed me to combine two of the subjects that I love the most, sports and languages, and to make me understand how they are connected. I am working on my graduate project, which I think is going to be quite special and unique, but of course on my down time I am going to continue working on becoming a popstar.

Summary of the Assignment

Here is a PDF link to my Fields of Interest Assignment Exercise

I was asked to complete an Assignment on my Fields of Interest. The assignment must contain 5 topics. The first and second topics are the lists of emerging fields of interest and of current and completed courses related to the emerging fields of interest.

The third topic is a list of extra-curricular experiences related to the emerging fields of interest. The forth topic should contain an analysis of the academic and creative work completed during my years of studying at Capilano. The last topic should be a sample for investigation of emerging ideas, information and analysis for Tutorials and Graduating Project.