Gary Pluim
Speaker & Session Chair
Profile
Gary W. J. Pluim, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at Lakehead University in Orillia, Canada. His scholarly interests include international education, youth development, promising pedagogies, and student voice in education. His work has been featured in publications such as Intercultural Education, the Journal of Global Citizenship & Equity Education, and Curriculum Inquiry. The courses he teaches focus on place-based education, critical global citizenship, and democracy and education.
Gary’s current research follows youth work curriculum that is lent and borrowed between small countries of the Commonwealth, examining the benefits and challenges of sharing education internationally. This project involves a primary partnership with the Commonwealth of Learning and is supported through a grant from the Government of Canada’s federal research funding agency.
Before his career in academia, Gary directed youth organizations and worked in various capacities of education for five years in remote corners of the world, including the Pacific, East Africa, the Canadian Arctic and across the Caribbean. In his personal sphere, Gary is a husband, a father of three young children, an activist, and an athlete.
Conference Contribution
A New Curriculum Fit for Purpose
Watch Gary’s talk here and download his presentation here.
In this presentation Gary Pluim combines two strands of ideas.
One, that education can take many forms: there are pedagogies for learning complex, contemporary concepts which differ from what is often portrayed as 21st century education.
Two, that young people can and should have voice in the direction of their society and education: While in some cases, youth are granted spaces in decision making spheres (although need to better understand how to make the most of these opportunities), in others, youth must claim spaces that were not previously afforded to them.
This talk will bridge these interconnected themes for Gen Z learners and draw on cases of both alternative pedagogies and youth action in and across Canada to suggest that young people can drive the direction of their education in their own domains.
