Day one of the FLANZ conference kicked off with Associate Professor Rhys Jones’s keynote ‘Radical flexibility: centring relationality and justice in pursuit of emancipatory education’. Touching on pedagogies of discomfort, confronting colonialism and kaupapa Māori pedagogies. In the context of overlapping crisis, from economic recession, climate change and biodiversity collapse, Rhys argued for the need to take a radical approach to curricula and teaching. Based on a “meaningful and just response” whilst being aware of the impact our actions. The plenary session explored that challenges of resistance and reticence in adopting new epistemological frameworks.
Great start to the conference. You can still join us.
Rhys Jones (Ngāti Kahungunu) is a Māori public health physician and Associate Professor in Te Kupenga Hauora Māori at Waipapa Taumata Rau / the University of Auckland. He has a leadership role in Māori Health teaching and learning across the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences. Rhys is recognised nationally and internationally as a leader in Indigenous health education and research. In 2005-06, he was a Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy based at Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA. Rhys was International Lead Investigator of Educating for Equity, a multi-centre collaborative research project examining the role of health professional education in advancing Indigenous health equity. He has received a number of teaching and learning awards, including the Prime Minister’s Supreme Award for Excellence in Tertiary Teaching in 2020.