Zala Volcic
Faculty of Arts
Driving change through compassionate pedagogy and meaningful connections
Zala fosters the social connection that lies at the heart of learning.
What are you doing differently in your field that you believe is driving real change?
I employ compassionate pedagogy. This approach understands that education is primarily based on relationships, care, and a community of inquiry. Learning through relationships with others allows for the formation of a compassionate, community-focused classroom - where students reap powerful educational and social-emotional benefits. Everyone benefits from the collective good will and support provided by the relationships we build.
I believe that my teaching relies for its vitality on the excitement I derive from my own thinking, research, and learning... The privilege of being a scholar is to continue to pursue one’s passion for learning and the obligation that comes with it is to install that same passion in one’s students. When students see genuine passion, they get passionate about learning themselves.
My teaching is also about building a deep sense of connection to each other, since these relationships are the most powerful means to inspire all students to learn. ”
What a moment it is to be teaching in my area, which is the study of the media, that are dramatically transforming our world in exciting and sometimes alarming ways… As automated systems become more powerful, creative thinking (and the skills and knowledge that support it) will be ever more important. Students will need to have the knowledge not just to build the technologies of the future, but to guide them. We must ensure that as our tools become more creative we do not become less so. This is the mission and challenge of arts education in our time. I have devoted myself to it, and have built my teaching practice around it.
The hardest thing to teach -- and the most rewarding – is a different way of thinking about the world and relating to it. It is not hard to absorb new facts into existing ways of seeing the world, but shifting these habitual forms of comprehension so as to incorporate a new thought is a different matter altogether. There are so many times when I get chills down the back of my neck in the classroom –when I feel that a student has just clicked in and made sense of a new thought and is putting it to work in ways that I had not anticipated.
Is there a student moment you’ll never forget, and why?
Some things we can learn on our own, but most of what is important to our professional and cultural lives is irreducibly social. So, my teaching is also about building a deep sense of connection to each other, since these relationships are the most powerful means to inspire all students to learn.