Faculty and staff

Teaching aspiring teachers has been one of most fulfilling aspects of my career thus far and I’m thrilled to be doing that at UFV!

Education philosopher Max Van Manen warns about educators living the “half-life” (Van Manen, 2016, p. 135), which is when educational theory becomes too far removed from the lived realities of students and, in so doing, forgets the foundation of education—relationships. In that sense, I am passionate about “full-life” teaching: the integration of the theoretical with the practical, centred around positive relationships. I’m specifically invested in the areas of gender conscious social-emotional learning and wellbeing, inclusion, trauma-informed schools, and decolonizing education practices.

I began my teaching career in the Langley School District in 2013 at the secondary level, where I taught in all subject areas. My favourite courses to teach were psychology, social justice, biology, and history. I went on to receive my MA in Special Education and have multiple years’ experience teaching in Special Education environments as well. Before leaving to do my PhD I also served as the department head of Aboriginal Worldviews and Perspectives, which focused on supporting other departments in efforts to decolonize teaching practices.

I specialize in learners with diverse emotional and behavioural needs and for my MA I created, led, and assessed the efficacy and effectiveness of a yearlong social-emotional intervention for boys with behavioural needs. The intersection of gender with concerns over the social-emotional wellbeing of adolescents and issues around gender equality led me to pursue my PhD. I received my PhD from the University of Edinburgh where I investigated, through mixed methods, Canadian teenage boys’ emotions, masculinities, and schooling experiences.