Unsettling Notions of Planning Competence: Lessons from Studio-Based Learning with Indigenous Peoples

Abstract

Drawing on the instructor and student experiences of a service-based learning course with Indigenous peoples, this paper considers how studios develop the skills and competencies outlined by accrediting bodies. Yet, this approach to teaching and learning can also unsettle students’ sense of professional competence and faith in the usefulness of conventional planning methods. In this case, unsettlement was a valuable and productive outcome that supported the development of a more critically reflective approach to working with Indigenous peoples and a newfound appreciation of the need to engage in disquieting conversations about the colonial underpinnings of the planning profession.

Planning Education and “Free-Choice” Learners: Teaching the YouTube Classroom

“…There is a robust set of literature about how city planning instructors can more effectively teach students in a university setting (J. Barry et al 2019;Kennedy and Tilly 2019;and Alizadeh, Tomerini, and Colbran 2017, to name a few recent examples from this journal). Instructors have used social media to improve learning outcomes.…”

“…Planners often have experience with formal planning education, often in a university setting. There is a robust set of literature about how city planning instructors can more effectively teach students in a university setting (J. Barry et al 2019; Kennedy and Tilly 2019; and Alizadeh, Tomerini, and Colbran 2017, to name a few recent examples from this journal).…”

Future Planning Practitioners and the “Waipahu Talk Story”: Learning from and Reflecting on Participation

“…While students working with communities of color in underprivileged neighborhoods are typically aware of the need to be cognizant of the histories and social relations, unless they have firsthand experience, it is difficult for them to interrogate their assumptions about them or to account for this in practice (Lung-Amam et al 2015; Steil and Mehta 2020). Students can cultivate the ability to embrace the unexpected with “education of self” as the first step to becoming a reflective practitioner (Barry et al 2019; Sletto 2010, 411). As Sletto (2010) alerts us, the goal of critical service-learning is not simply to impart a set of technical skills but to develop students’ critical reflexivity, deepening their understanding of urban inequality and how that influences their engagement with marginalized communities.…”