In this segment of Let's Talk Design, Farnaz and Graham (MEd, Digitally-Mediated Adult Learning) have a wide-ranging conversation about teaching, assessment, and what it means to work inside systems that don’t always prioritize learning (that's right, we said it!). Discussing Graham's chapter on "The New Colonization of Educational Lifeworlds", they unpack how institutional pressures actually shape what happens in ESL, EAP, and Communications classrooms.

They also talk about life as college contract faculty, the (absence of) pedagogical culture in some educational institutions, and how precarity affects everything from curriculum design to teachers’ willingness to speak up. The conversation also turns personal: teaching as identity, what it feels like to be pushed out of systems you’ve given years to, and why, despite everything, walking away from education isn’t always possible.

Graham Lean is an adult literacy educator based in Ottawa, Canada, and is interested in how learning processes are controlled, directed and manipulated at all levels of education and educational research, from the classroom to the ivory tower! His most recent writing explores how the demands of education systems become separated from teaching and learning, and the impact that separation has on how educators teach and students learn. Through his writing, he is trying to push back against the bastardization of teaching and learning in education systems.

Graham's Writing:

• Substack: https://unknowndistance.substack.com/
• Research Gate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Graham_Lean2
• Underground Theory Vol2

Literature mentioned in the episode:

• Rhoades, G. (2003). Democracy and Capitalism, Academic Style: Governance in Contemporary Higher Education. ResearchGate. Retrieved 18 August 2025, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234588921_Democracy_and_Capitalism_Academic_Style_Governance_in_Contemporary_Higher_Education
  
• Slaughter, S., & Leslie, L. (2003). Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies, and the Entrepreneurial University. Http://Lst-Iiep.Iiep-Unesco.Org/Cgi-Bin/Wwwi32.Exe/[In=epidoc1.in]/?T2000=010922/(100).

COMM= Communications (college-level writing courses)

ESL= English as a Second Language

EAP= English for Academic Purposes

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Theme music:

Periscope by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Artist: http://audionautix.com/