BRENT HOCKING
Ph.D. Student

In My Own Words

I am a doctoral candidate with interests in adult teaching and learning and in teacher education. My academic background is interdisciplinary. Following my undergraduate degree and teacher training, I worked for 12 years as an elementary teacher in French Immersion and English programs. Later on, I extended my professional development to the fields music education and conflict resolution training. Six years ago I returned to graduate school and completed a magistral degree in adult education. My thesis focused on life story narratives of conflict resolution learners.

Today I work part-time as an elementary teacher and graduate teaching assistant while completing my doctoral studies. My dissertation-in-progress is a hermeneutic, phenomenological study of university teaching. It explores classroom participation as a living phenomenon that engages the whole body: intellectual, spiritual, and biological. My work is written in the spaces between of 'embodied' knowing and my experiences as an educational researcher and instructor. My work responds to the need for discourses that recognise and legitimate teaching as a deeply human activity. I am inspired by a belief that teaching is a potentially transformative phenomenon in adult and higher education.

Outside my dissertation research, I have strong interests in human rights, social justice and inclusive pedagogy. I also enjoy academic and creative writing. Along with two other graduate students I have spent the past year and a half co-editing a book on holistic education. This project emerged out of a conference for graduate students and faculty at UBC.