Biography

Zuzana Vasko is a Fraser Valley based educator, artist and researcher who cares deeply about creating spaces where students feel encouraged to cultivate authentic written and expressive voice, and to learn about themselves through reflective inquiry.  Wherever possible, she incorporates relational and ecological learning, as well as arts-based and place-based practices into her teaching.  

Having taught a range of Arts-Based and General Education courses with the Faculty of Education, Zuzana currently teaches primarily with the faculty’s Online Learning Hub.  She holds a BFA (Visual Arts) and BA (English), both from the University of Victoria, and her MA and PhD (SFU) are in Arts Education.  

Research Interests

My research explores how arts, aesthetic, and contemplative practices engender personally meaningful connections with self, with place and with our ecological relations.  Included is a deep interest in ethical, relational ways of being, and in forming rich and authentic connections with self, others and with local ecologies.

My visual art and poetic practices explore human-nature relationships, and the commonalities – both physical and metaphoric – we share with our more-than-human relations.    

Currently, I am exploring the vital role of the arts in ecological learning, what it means to be an educated person from the perspective of an ecological community, and how place-based, contemplative and decolonial learning might be authenticated in contexts of online education.

Keywords

arts-based ecological learning, ethical issues in education, contemplative practice, place-based learning, self-inquiry, aesthetic education 

Teaching