JoLLE Conference 2014 Conference Reflections

I have attended many academic conferences in the past twenty-five years and the most memorable are the smaller ones where I get to meet and talk with people on multiple occasions either because we end up in the same breakout sessions or meet up during breaks and mealtimes. The JOLLE@UGA 2014 was that kind of experience. These smaller conferences have also been sites where the gap between academia and activism is bridged. Check out a blog entry titled “why activism and academia don’t mix” on the Internet to read an argument for academics being agents of social change. JOLLE was a meeting place for people concerned with social justice and education. I talked with artists, professors, graduate students and public school teachers. I listened and learned from Johnson and Landry’s exploration of blogging for praxis, Montero and Dénommé-Welch’s use of literature to decolonize classrooms in Canada, and Hewitt-Bradshaw’s use community texts to involve students in critically evaluating their linguistic landscape in Trinidad and Tobago. I enjoyed Paul Ayo’s energy as a teacher activist who spreads poetry like butter both as a classroom teacher and through his non-profit “Art as an Agent for Change.” Throughout the conference I was proud to be a professor affiliated with the graduate students who conceptualized and realized this conference. And I learned to use Twitter at the conference which gave me a new way of participating. Michelle Commeyras

I knew that I wanted to attend the JoLLE 2014 conference as soon as I learned that it would revolve around the theme of social justice. I am teaching a course on multicultural education and culturally responsive pedagogy for pre-service teachers, where my students and I engage in conversations on issues of social justice. Hence, for me, attending the conference was an excellent opportunity to learn about the current issues and classroom practices in relation to social justice and share them with the soon-to-be teachers. It was a really enjoyable and informative experience. Albina Khabibulina